Basics: Managing UNIX groups from Active Directory with Centrify

Background

With Centrify, UNIX group membership can be managed from AD Security groups.  There's basically a 1:1 mapping between the AD group and the UNIX group.
Note:  In version 2016 of Server Suite, Centrify has added the ability to manage local UNIX groups. Here's a post on how to test the feature: http://centrifying.blogspot.com/2016/01/labs-testing-local-account-management.html

Planning

UNIX groups may be used for different purposes, may contain different members and can mean different things for different administrative groups.  The most important goal is standardization in management, therefore the system administrators have to get together to answer these questions:

• What is this group used for? Why?
• Is this group still relevant?
• Will this group be deprecated by any of the authorization components?
  This is very important, for example, Netgroups are not needed anymore with Centrify zones and Computer Roles.  The other important note is that Role Assignments eliminate the need to maintain UNIX groups for the purpose of sudo usage.
• How many groups are uniquely identified?
• Are there any groups that are defined differently in other systems?
• Are the group memberships uniform?  Are there groups that have network and local users?
• Is this a primary group for all  or a set of users?
• What is the impact of changing the definition?
• What is the impact of the unavailability of the group?
• Is the group in AD going to be managed manually or with a tool?
• Are there any workflow and approvals required?
• Is the group subject to any attestation exercises?
• What will be the naming convention for the AD group that corresponds to the UNIX group?
• What is the scope of the AD group (Domain Local, Domain Global, Universal)?

All these questions need to be answered with a catalog of groups, definitions, members, etc. in a serious table-top exercise.  Because groups are units of identity management, the decisions made here can affect zone design.  

A common issue seen in the field is that a group is part of a legacy infrastructure not understood by the current management team, therefore they decide to keep the status-quo and not compromise on governance, naming or GID to be assigned, this adds complexity rather than understanding the real impact of the group.

For example:

UNIX Group:  db2-dba

UID: 1001

Group Membership:  Includes local account db2inst.
Note: This means that the agent has to be configured to merge NSS group memberships.

Purpose: Used to identify the db2 Database Admins.

Any different definitions:  No

Managed:  Manually

Attestation:  Yes

AD Standards:
                        AD Group Scope:  Domain Local
                        AD Container: UNIX Groups,
                        AD Naming Convention: UNIX-<Zone Name>-Unix Name.   UNIX-HQ-DB2 DBA

Creating the Group Mapping (Do)

Creating the UNIX Group

1. In Access Manager, go to the Zone/UNIX Data and right click Groups and select Create UNIX Group
2. In the Find window, find the corresponding UNIX group (e.g. UNIX-HQ-Wheel), select it and press OK
3. Set the UNIX name (preferable  8 characters depending on platform(s) to be supported) and set the GID.
   
   
   

Populating the Group

1. From ADUC, find and open the group, go to the members tab, click add and add any user principal that has been UNIX-enabled.
2. From Access Manager, right click the UNIX group, select AD properties and follow the steps outlined above.
3. From UNIX using adedit:
   a) Log in to UNIX/Linux with an account that can modify the group (or use kinit) and open adedit.
   b) bind to the domain
   >bind corp.contoso.com
   c) add the ade_lib library
   >package require ade_lib
   c) use the add_user_to_group function
   >add_user_to_group "jessie.matthews@corp.contoso.com" "UNIX-HQ-DB2 DBAs@corp.contoso.com"

Note:  Remember that you can use an Identity Management tool, a script (VB, PS) to populate an AD Group.

Process Reuse:  Now your organization can reuse the existing process and tools to manage the memberships to UNIX systems.

Verifying the Membership (Check)

You can always get a snapshot of the Members tab of the AD Group, however, here are some alternatives.

On UNIX with the getent command

1. Log on to a system in the zone that the UNIX group was created.
2. Use the getent command.  E.g. (for db2dba)
   $ getent group db2dba
   db2dba:x:1001:jessie.matthews

On UNIX with the adquery command
This report is great because it can mix the AD and local users if the agent was configured to merge them.

1. Log on to a system in the zone that the UNIX group was created.
2. Use the adquery group command.  E.g. (for db2dba)
   $ adquery group db2dba
   db2dba:x:1001:jessie.matthews

On UNIX with adedit
Log on to a system in the domain.

1. Log in to UNIX/Linux with an account that can modify the group (or use kinit) and open adedit.
2. bind to the domain
   >bind corp.contoso.com
3. Set the object distinguished name
   >set obj_dn [principal_to_dn "UNIX-HQ-DB2 DBAs@corp.contoso.com"]
4. select the object just retrieved
   >select_object $obj_dn
5. Query the group members
   >get_object_field member{CN=Jessie Matthews,OU=Staff,DC=corp,DC=contoso,DC=com}

On Windows from the Command Line

1. On a computer with the AD DS tools installed, open the command prompt
2. Run the dsget command  (eg. for the UNIX-HQ-DB2 DBAs group)
   dsget group "CN=UNIX-HQ-DB2 DBAs,OU=UNIX Groups,OU=UNIX,DC=corp,DC=contoso,DC=com" -members
   CN=Jessie Matthews,OU=Staff,DC=corp,DC=contoso,DC=com"

On Windows with Access Manager Reporting

1. On a computer with Access Manager installed, go to the Reports node.
2. Create your own report or reuse the Groups Report (pre-created)
   

(Adjust)ing the Group 

Some of the events that may require an adjustment are:

• Merging local users in the result:   This is needed in situations in which a local group (existing in the /etc/group) that contains a local user needs to be merged with the AD-managed group.   This is documented in the centrifydc.conf file:
  adclient.local.group.merge  (by default false) - use with caution.
• Adjusting the GID:  This may be required if redefining the group's unique identifier. It can be facilitated by tools like adfixid.