Seafile With OpenLDAP

Seafile’s LDAP interface requires a unique, immutable user identifier in the format of username@domain. Since OpenLDAP does not provide an attribute like userPrincipalName, the only attribute that somewhat qualifies is therefore mail. However, using mail as the user identifier results in the issue that Seafile will treat you as an entirely new user if you change your email address through OpenLDAP. If this is not an issue for you, you can configure OpenLDAP as an authentication source in Seafile directly. A better but more elaborate way to use Seafile with OpenLDAP is by using Authelia as an intermediary. This document will guide you through both setups.

Configuring Seafile to use OpenLDAP directly

Add the following to your seafile/conf/ccnet.conf file:

[LDAP]
HOST = ldap://192.168.1.100:389
BASE = ou=people,dc=example,dc=com
USER_DN = uid=admin,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com
PASSWORD = CHANGE_ME
LOGIN_ATTR = mail

• Replace 192.168.1.100:389 with your OpenLDAP server’s ip/hostname and port.
• Replace every instance of dc=example,dc=com with your configured domain.

After restarting the Seafile server, users should be able to log in with their email address and password.

Filtering by group membership

If you only want members of a specific group to be able to log in, add the following line:

FILTER = memberOf=cn=seafile_user,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com

• Replace seafile_user with the name of your group.

Configuring Seafile to use OpenLDAP with Authelia as an intermediary

Authelia is an open-source authentication and authorization server that can use OpenLDAP as a backend and act as an OpenID Connect Provider. We’re going to assume that you have already set up Authelia and configured it with OpenLDAP. If not, you can find an example configuration here.

1. Add the following to Authelia’s configuration.yml:

identity_providers:
  oidc:
    hmac_secret: Your_HMAC_Secret #Replace with a random string
    issuer_private_key: |
        -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
        Your_Private_Key
        #See https://www.authelia.com/configuration/identity-providers/open-id-connect/#issuer_private_key for instructions on how to generate a key
        -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
    cors:
      endpoints:
        - authorization
        - token
        - revocation
        - introspection
        - userinfo
    clients:
      - id: seafile
        description: Seafile #The display name of the application. Will show up on Authelia consent screens
        secret: Your_Shared_Secret #Replace with random string
        public: false
        authorization_policy: one_factor #Can also be two_factor
        scopes:
          - openid
          - profile
          - email
        redirect_uris:
          - https://seafile.example.com/oauth/callback/
        userinfo_signing_algorithm: none
        pre_configured_consent_duration: 6M
        #On first login you must consent to sharing information between Authelia and Seafile. This option configures the amount of time after which you need to reconsent.
        # y = years, M = months, w = weeks, d = days

2. Add the following to seafile/conf/seahub_settings.py

ENABLE_OAUTH = True
OAUTH_ENABLE_INSECURE_TRANSPORT = True
OAUTH_CLIENT_ID = 'seafile' #Must be the same as in Authelia
OAUTH_CLIENT_SECRET = 'Your_Shared_Secret' #Must be the same as in Authelia
OAUTH_REDIRECT_URL = 'https://seafile.example.com/oauth/callback/'
OAUTH_PROVIDER_DOMAIN = 'auth.example.com'
OAUTH_AUTHORIZATION_URL = 'https://auth.example.com/api/oidc/authorization'
OAUTH_TOKEN_URL = 'https://auth.example.com/api/oidc/token'
OAUTH_USER_INFO_URL = 'https://auth.example.com/api/oidc/userinfo'
OAUTH_SCOPE = [
  "openid",
  "profile",
  "email",
]
OAUTH_ATTRIBUTE_MAP = {
    "preferred_username": (True, "email"), #Seafile will create a unique identifier of your <OpenLDAP's User ID >@<the value specified in OAUTH_PROVIDER_DOMAIN>. The identifier is not visible to the user and not actually used as the email address unlike the value suggests
    "name": (False, "name"),
    "id": (False, "not used"),
    "email": (False, "contact_email"),
}

Restart both your Authelia and Seafile server. You should see a “Single Sign-On” button on Seafile’s login page. Clicking it should redirect you to Authelia. If you use the example config for Authelia, you should be able to log in using your OpenLDAP User ID.