---
title: "Connecting to Your LDAP Server in VAST Web UI"
slug: "connecting-to-your-ldap-server-in-vast-web-ui"
tags: ["5.4"]
updated: 2026-10-28T01:54:03Z
published: 2026-10-28T01:54:03Z
canonical: "docs.vastdata.com/connecting-to-your-ldap-server-in-vast-web-ui"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vastdata.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Connecting to Your LDAP Server in VAST Web UI

1. From the left navigation menu, select User Management and then VAST Providers.
2. Click Add New Provider and then select LDAP to create an LDAP configuration or, to modify an existing configuration, right-click an existing configuration and select Edit.
3. In the General tab, enter details of your LDAP server:

| Base DN | The entry in the LDAP directory tree to use as a starting point for user queries. By default, this is also used as the starting point for group queries. Optionally, you can specify a different entry as the Group Base DN To maximize the speed of authentication queries, start the search in the lowest branch of the tree under which all users can be found. For example, if the entire directory must be queried, the search base must specify the root of the tree. However, if the search can be restricted to a specific organizational unit (OU), queries may be faster. The format for base DN is a comma separated list of components. Each component is an *attribute=value* pair defining an object in the directory tree. The first component defines the object at the lowest part of the tree that you want to use as the starting point of the search, the next component is its container and so on up the tree, with the last component representing the top level domain. The following attributes can be specified: - cn: common name - ou: organizational unit - o: organization - c: country - dc: domain For example, supposing your user accounts are all located in a container called 'users' under a domain 'mydomain.local'. If you want to set the users container as the starting point for search queries, you would enter: `ou=users,dc=mydomain,dc=local` To specify the full domain as your search base, you would enter: `dc=mydomain,dc=local` |
| --- | --- |
| URLs (required) | Enter a comma-separated list of URIs of LDAP servers. The order of listing defines the priority order. The URI with highest priority that has a good health status is used. Specify each URI in the format `<scheme>://<address>`. `<address>` can be either a DNS name or an IP address. Examples: - `ldap://company-ad.com` - `ldaps://company-ad.com` - `ldap://company-ad.com,ldap://company-ad2.com` - `ldap://192.0.2.0,ldap://192.0.2.1,ldap://192.0.2.2` |
| Port (required) | The port of the remote LDAP server. Recommended values: `389` for LDAP (with or without TLS), `636` for LDAPS. > [!NOTE] > Note > > Setting non-recommended values may cause LDAP connectivity issues. |
| Domain name | The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the domain to join (for use with NFSv4). Example: *company-ad.com* |
| Bind DN (required if Authentication method is set to Simple or SASL) | Specifies the Bind DN. Use one of the following formats: - for OpenLDAP and single-forest AD, use the format `CN=user,OU=unit,DC=domain,DC=suffix` (same as for `Base DN`) - for AD (single- and multi-forest), but not OpenLDAP, use the format `DOMAIN\username` or `username@domain` |
| Bind password (required if Authentication method is set to Simple or SASL) | The password used with the Bind DN to authenticate to the LDAP server. |
4. In the Attribute mapping tab, select Use default and verify that the default attribute names match the actual names used by your LDAP provider. If needed, select Customize and edit the names:

| Field | Description | Default (RFC2307) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GID Number | The attribute of a group entry that contains the GID number of a group. | `gidNumber` |
| UID | The attribute of a user entry that contains the user name. | `uid` |
| Group login name | The attribute used to query the provider for the group login name. For most environments, it is recommended to use the default value of `cn`. | `cn` |
| Mail | The LDAP attribute to use for the user's email address. Default: *mail*. |  |
| UID Number | The attribute of a user entry that contains the UID number. | `uidNumber` |
| Member UID | The attribute of the group entry that contains names of group members. | `memberUID` |
| POSIX Account | The object class that defines a user entry. | `posixAccount` |
| POSIX Group | The object class that defines a group entry. | `posixGroup` |
| Match User | The attribute to use when querying a provider for a user that matches a user that was already retrieved from another provider. A user entry that contains a matching value in this attribute will be considered the same user as the user previously retrieved. | `uid` |
| Username Property Name | The attribute to use when querying a provider for a user when the query is initiated by a VMS user. | `cn` |
| User login name | Not applicable for LDAP. | `uid` |
| UID member value property name | Specifies the attribute which represents the value of the group's `member` property. | `uid` |
5. In the Encryption tab, set or modify the following settings as needed:

| None and StartTLSi | Determines whether to use encryption to secure communication between VAST Clusterand the LDAP server. Choose between: - None. No encryption. - StartTLS. VAST Cluster connects to port defined above (in the General tab), and performs a StartTLS operation as defined in RFC 4513. |
| --- | --- |
| Upload TLS certificate | If you selected StartTLS, use this field to upload a certificate if you want the cluster to verify the LDAP server's TLS certificate. The remote LDAP server's TLS certificate will be verified against the certificate you provide. If the certificate you provide does not list the certificate authority (CA) of the server's certificate, the cluster will fail to establish a connection with the LDAP server. If you choose to leave this field blank, the VAST Cluster's TLS client will not request the LDAP server's TLS certificate and will ignore any certificate received. > [!WARNING] > Important > > Regardless of this field's value, ensure that the LDAP server is not configured to request client certificates (`TLSVerifyClient` should be set to `never`). Otherwise, connections will fail. |
6. In the Advanced settings tab, set or modify these settings as necessary:

| Field | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Cluster admin groups | Specify names of groups on the provider to grant *cluster admin* manager access to VMS to group members. Users in these groups can log into VMS. To grant permissions to these users, add the group name to roles. By default, they are assigned a read-only role. |
| VMS authentication provider | When enabled, this LDAP configuration is the one that is used for VMS authentication. |
| Netgroup DNS operation mode | Determines whether DNS reverse lookup is used for the translation of a client IP address to a host name: - Normal (default): The server queries DNS for each host name found in the netgroup entries. - Reverse lookup: The server compares the host name to host names in netgroup entries. |
| Authentication method (required) | The authentication method the LDAP server uses to authenticate VAST Cluster as a client querying the LDAP database. When [multi-forest authentication](/docs-5-4/docs/en/active-directory-overview) is enabled, VAST Cluster uses SASL for the LDAP bind to domain controllers in other trusted forests, and this setting is only honored for the LDAP bind to domain controllers in the forest of the cluster's joined domain. Active Directory Overview Set the method according to how the LDAP server is configured to authenticate clients: - Anonymous. The LDAP server accepts queries without any authentication. - Simple. The LDAP server attempts to bind a specified user name to a matching LDAP user. If the LDAP bind succeeds, VAST Cluster is allowed access to perform the query. If this method is selected, you have to set Bind DN and Bind password. - SASL. The LDAP server performs the Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL) authentication process. If the SASL bind succeeds, VAST Cluster is allowed to perform the query. If this method is specified, you have to set Bind DN and Bind password, with the bind DN in the `username@domain` or `DOMAIN\username` format. |
| Query group mode | Sets the mode for querying a users' auxiliary group memberships, where applicable: > [!NOTE] > Note > > Group memberships may or may not be queried during access checks depending on the Group Membership Source setting in the view policy. - Compatible (default). Groups are queried using an aggregate of the RFC2307BIS and RFC2307 compliant group membership queries (see the other options). You can use this default option unless you are using an authentication provider which is incompatible with this aggregated query mode. - RFC2307BIS only. Auxiliary group memberships are queried according to the RFC2307BIS standard, in which the group has a *member* attribute that contains the Distinguished Name (DN) of the member user and the user has a *memberOf* attribute which contains the DNs of the groups to which the user belongs. This standard is used by Active Directory and may be used with other LDAP-based authorization providers with LDAP schema extensions. - RFC2307 only. Auxiliary group memberships are queried according to the RFC2307 standard, in which the group object has a *memberUid* attribute for each user object that is a member of the group, specifying the name of the user object. This standard may be used by openLDAP, freeIPA and other LDAP-based authorization providers. - None. If this option is selected, auxiliary group memberships are not queried at all. In the event that the relevant view's view policy cites the authorization provider as the group membership source and the user tries to access a file or directory within that view to which the user only has permission as a member of a the owning user's group, permission will not be granted. |
| Filters | Optionally, specify a search filter string to be to be appended to the search base DN in all user queries that VAST Cluster makes to this provider. Entries that do not match the filter string are filtered out from the query results. |
| Group base DN | The base DN for group queries within the joined domain. |
| Periodic health check type | Determine the type of periodic health check that VAST Cluster performs against this provider: - Ping check (default): Ping the provider. This option creates less overhead and reduces impact on the provider. - Bind check: Bind to the provider. |
7. Click Create or Update.

The LDAP client configuration is created/updated. For a new configuration, the State will initially indicate Not Connected, and then change to Connected.