Guide to Setup miniOrange Sync Users LDAP Directory Add-On

Overview

miniOrange Sync Users LDAP Directory add-on for WordPress allows organizations to easily import and sync their LDAP/Active Directory users to their WordPress site. This can save time and effort for organizations by eliminating the need for manual user registration and updating on the WordPress site. Additionally, the plugin allows administrators to schedule the import/sync operation to run on a periodic basis, ensuring that the WordPress user database is always up-to-date with the latest user information from the LDAP/Active Directory.

Features

• Synchronize LDAP Users: Import / export and synchronize LDAP/ Active Directory users.
• Synchronize users from Multiple Search Bases: Import and Sync the users from multiple LDAP search bases present in your LDAP Server/ Other LDAP Directories.
• Custom Search Filter: Custom search filter field provides a way to filter your LDAP users based on their LDAP attributes value. It includes LDAP Object Type, Username Attribute and optional LDAP attributes on which you want to restrict / sync users.
  Ex: Below search filter synchronizes only users that belong to MyGroup in LDAP.
  (&(ObjectClass=user) (username=?) (memberof=cn=MyGroup, ou=MyOU, dc=yourdomain,dc=com)).
• Delete users from WordPress: When a user is deleted from the LDAP / Active Directory, one of the following two operations can be performed:
  • Delete the users automatically from WordPress if the respective users are no longer present in the LDAP / AD.
  • Update the role of the user in WordPress if the respective user is deleted in the LDAP / AD.
• Update LDAP User Profiles: When a user updates their information on the WordPress site, such as their name, email address, or password, the changes will be automatically reflected in the Active Directory/LDAP as well.
• Automatic user creation in LDAP/AD: Register new users in the Active Directory/LDAP Server when the new users register on the WordPress site.
• Auto-update user groups upon role change: Add or Remove users from specific LDAP groups when the user's WordPress role is changed / updated.
  Ex: When an administrator assigns a different role to a user on the WordPress site, such as from "subscriber" to "editor," the add-on will automatically update the user's group membership in the Active Directory/LDAP to reflect the new role.
• Schedule the user sync: Automatically perform the user synchronization at a specific time interval. For ex: You can set intervals for Active Directory Sync / LDAP Sync as hourly, daily or twice a day.

Popular Use Cases

• Display LDAP/Active Directory Users on a WordPress Page. This use case requires LDAP/AD users to get imported in WordPress first so that those users can be displayed on the WordPress page. Once the users are imported into WordPress, they can be searched and displayed along with their detailed information.
• Remove the disabled LDAP / AD Users on a daily basis. This use case is required to find out the users who are disabled in in the LDAP / Active Directory and delete them.
• Import Employees / Students from LDAP / AD to WordPress in one go. This use case required importing all employees / students and their information into WordPress at once without logging them in separately. This is solved by bulk users importing features present in the miniOrange Sync Users LDAP Directory Add-On.

Prerequisites

• LDAP/AD Login for Intranet Sites premium plugin needs to be installed and configured.

Download And Install

• Login to your miniOrange account to download LDAP Premium Plugin and Sync Users LDAP Directory Add-On.
• Once you login into your miniOrange admin console then, Navigate to License >> Manage Licenses >> Releases and Downloads. Click on the Download Plugin button to download the Intranet Premium Plugin and the Add-on.
• Once the plugin and add-on are downloaded, Go back to your WordPress site. Go to Plugins >> Add New.



• Click on Upload Plugin button and choose the .zip file of Plugin and Sync Users LDAP Directory Add-On.



• After installing the add-on, activate it from your Plugins page.

• Once the add-on is activated, it will be available on WordPress Dashboard.

• Click on the Directory Sync add-on in the left hand panel on the WordPress admin dashboard.
• Click on the Directory Sync Add-on in the WordPress dashboard.

Configure LDAP to WordPress Sync

• Go to Configure Sync Option Tab >> Configure LDAP to WordPress Sync section to configure the sync settings.
• Use the Search base and Search filter from the LDAP/AD Login for Intranet Plugin: Enabling this option allows the use of Search Base and Search Filter fields which have already been configured in the LDAP/AD Login for Intranet premium plugin.
  Note: For Sync Users LDAP Directory Add-On to work you need to first configure the Intranet Premium Plugin.
• Search Base: This is the node of LDAP Tree under which Sync Users LDAP Directory add-on will begin to search for LDAP users to import / update. The example below would allow importing LDAP Users present in the ou called "LDAPUsers".
  For example, if you want all users in the ou called "LDAPUsers", in the domain called "domain.com" to be automatically imported to WordPress, you could specify the Search Base as follows: ou=LDAPUsers,dc=domain, dc=com.
• Search Filter : Search Filter field provides a customized way to filter your users based on different parameters.
  Ex: If you want to filter only active AD users then you can use below search filter: (&(objectClass=user)(objectCategory=person)(sAMAccountName=?)(!(userAccountControl=514))(!(userAccountControl=546))(!(userAccountControl=66050))(!(userAccountControl=66082))).
• Username Attribute : Enter any LDAP attribute that will be used to create username in WordPress (for ex: cn, samaccountname).
• LDAP to WP Sync Frequency : Select the time interval at which you want to schedule the sync from your Active Directory/LDAP Server to your WordPress website.
• Select Timezone : Please choose your preferred time zone for the AD Sync.



• Unsync WordPress Users not present in LDAP : Enabling this option will allow you to perform the following operations:
  • Delete the users automatically from WordPress if the respective users are no longer present in the LDAP / AD.
  • Change the role of the users automatically from WordPress if the respective users are no longer present in the LDAP / AD.
  
  
  
  

  Note: It is recommended to keep this option disabled till the users in WordPress and LDAP Server are perfectly synced.

  
  
• Once done please click on Save button.

Test LDAP to WordPress Sync

• Click on the LDAP to WordPress Sync tab.
• Turn On Schedule Sync: Please check this option to enable the Scheduled Synchronization of LDAP/AD users into WordPress.
• In the LDAP to WP One Time Sync section, click on the Sync button to import / sync all the LDAP users at once.
• In the Sync Progress section, you can view the progress of user import / synchronization with the help of progress bar.

Configure user synchronization from WordPress to LDAP

• Go to Configure Sync Options Tab >> Configure WordPress to LDAP Sync section to configure the sync settings.
• Select Your Directory Server: The users can synced / imported from various Active Directory / other LDAP Server like:
• Microsoft Active Directory.
• Azure Active Directory.
• OpenLDAP Directory.
• FreeIPA Directory.
• Many other LDAP directories.
• Search Base: This is the node of LDAP Tree under which Sync Users LDAP Directory add-on will begin the search for the users to import / update.
  For example, if you want all users in the ou called "LDAPUsers", in the domain called "domain.com" to be automatically imported to WordPress Database you could specify the Search Base as follows: ou=LDAPUsers,dc=domain, dc=com.
  This example will allow you to import LDAP User present in the ou called "LDAPUsers".
• LDAP Group List for New users: This option allows you to add the newly created WordPress users into a specific LDAP Group. You need to provide the distinguished name of the group where the new users should be added. You can also specify multiple groups by separating the distinguished names ( DN's) of groups with a semicolon (;).

• Sync Options: We have provided a wide range of options that will assist you to export and synchronize users from WordPress to LDAP / Active Directory:
• Add new user in LDAP when registered in WordPress: Allows you to automatically create new users in Active Directory/LDAP Server when the new users are created / registered in WordPress.
• Delete user in LDAP when deleted in WordPress: Enabling this option will automatically Delete the users from LDAP / AD when the respective users are deleted from the WordPress.
• Update user profile in LDAP when updated in WordPress: Enabling this option will automatically update the users in LDAP / AD when the respective user's profile is updated in WordPress.
• Update user password in LDAP when reset in WordPress: Allows you to automatically change user password in LDAP when the user password is changed in WordPress.


Note: You need to install the miniOrange Password Sync with LDAP Server Add-on to enable this option.



• Add/Remove user to/from groups in LDAP server when respective user role changed in WordPress: Enabling the option allows you to add/remove the LDAP/AD users from respective LDAP groups when their roles are changed in WordPress.

• Once done please click on the Save button.

Test WordPress to LDAP Sync

• Click on the WordPress to LDAP Sync tab.
• You can sync the users from WordPress to LDAP using their WordPress ID's. You will be required to specify a range between which you need export / sync users from WordPress to LDAP/AD.
  From ID: This is the WordPress user's id from which export / sync operation will begin.
  To ID: This is WordPress user's id till which the users will be Synchronized to LDAP Server.
  For Ex: Enter From ID as 11 and To ID as 20 if you wish to export or sync all WordPress users with IDs between 11 and 20.
• Once you have specified the start and end user's ID's, a table will be displayed with all the users present in the specified user ID range. You can select the users that you want to sync using the check-box.

WordPress to LDAP Sync Report:

• Click on the WP to LDAP Sync Reports tab to check out the detailed report of the users that are synced from WordPress to the LDAP/ Active Directory. Here, you can also view detailed information about the synchronization of each and every individual WordPress user.

Related Articles

• LDAP/AD Login for Intranet Sites
• LDAP/AD Login for Shared Hosting
• Staff/Employee Business Directory Search
• WordPress Login and User Management

Additional Resources

• LDAP Authentication with Active Directory
• What is Kerberos?