Red Hat Training

A Red Hat training course is available for RHEL 8

Chapter 16. Managing user groups using Ansible playbooks

This section introduces user group management using Ansible playbooks.

A user group is a set of users with common privileges, password policies, and other characteristics.

A user group in Identity Management (IdM) can include:

  • IdM users
  • other IdM user groups
  • external users, which are users that exist outside of IdM

The section includes the following topics:

16.1. The different group types in IdM

IdM supports the following types of groups:

POSIX groups (the default)

POSIX groups support Linux POSIX attributes for their members. Note that groups that interact with Active Directory cannot use POSIX attributes.

POSIX attributes identify users as separate entities. Examples of POSIX attributes relevant to users include uidNumber, a user number (UID), and gidNumber, a group number (GID).

Non-POSIX groups

Non-POSIX groups do not support POSIX attributes. For example, these groups do not have a GID defined.

All members of this type of group must belong to the IdM domain.

External groups

Use external groups to add group members that exist in an identity store outside of the IdM domain, such as:

  • A local system
  • An Active Directory domain
  • A directory service

External groups do not support POSIX attributes. For example, these groups do not have a GID defined.

Table 16.1. User groups created by default

Group nameDefault group members

ipausers

All IdM users

admins

Users with administrative privileges, including the default admin user

editors

This is a legacy group that no longer has any special privileges

trust admins

Users with privileges to manage the Active Directory trusts

When you add a user to a user group, the user gains the privileges and policies associated with the group. For example, to grant administrative privileges to a user, add the user to the admins group.

Warning

Do not delete the admins group. As admins is a pre-defined group required by IdM, this operation causes problems with certain commands.

In addition, IdM creates user private groups by default whenever a new user is created in IdM. For more information about private groups, see Adding users without a private group.

16.2. Direct and indirect group members

User group attributes in IdM apply to both direct and indirect members: when group B is a member of group A, all users in group B are considered indirect members of group A.

For example, in the following diagram:

  • User 1 and User 2 are direct members of group A.
  • User 3, User 4, and User 5 are indirect members of group A.

Figure 16.1. Direct and Indirect Group Membership

A chart with Group A (with 2 users) and Group B (with 3 users). Group B is nested inside Group A so Group A contains a total of 5 users.

If you set a password policy for user group A, the policy also applies to all users in user group B.

16.3. Ensuring the presence of IdM groups and group members using Ansible playbooks

The following procedure describes ensuring the presence of IdM groups and group members - both users and user groups - using an Ansible playbook.

Prerequisites

  • You know the IdM administrator password.
  • You have configured your Ansible control node to meet the following requirements:

    • You are using Ansible version 2.14 or later.
    • You have installed the ansible-freeipa package on the Ansible controller.
    • The example assumes that in the ~/MyPlaybooks/ directory, you have created an Ansible inventory file with the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of the IdM server.
    • The example assumes that the secret.yml Ansible vault stores your ipaadmin_password.
  • The users you want to reference in your Ansible playbook exist in IdM. For details on ensuring the presence of users using Ansible, see Managing user accounts using Ansible playbooks.

Procedure

  1. Create an inventory file, for example inventory.file, and define ipaserver in it:

    [ipaserver]
    server.idm.example.com
  2. Create an Ansible playbook file with the necessary user and group information:

    ---
    - name: Playbook to handle groups
      hosts: ipaserver
    
      vars_files:
      - /home/user_name/MyPlaybooks/secret.yml
      tasks:
      - name: Create group ops with gid 1234
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          name: ops
          gidnumber: 1234
    
      - name: Create group sysops
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          name: sysops
          user:
          - idm_user
    
      - name: Create group appops
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          name: appops
    
      - name: Add group members sysops and appops to group ops
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          name: ops
          group:
          - sysops
          - appops
  3. Run the playbook:

    $ ansible-playbook --vault-password-file=password_file -v -i path_to_inventory_directory/inventory.file path_to_playbooks_directory/add-group-members.yml

Verification steps

You can verify if the ops group contains sysops and appops as direct members and idm_user as an indirect member by using the ipa group-show command:

  1. Log into ipaserver as administrator:

    $ ssh admin@server.idm.example.com
    Password:
    [admin@server /]$
  2. Display information about ops:

    ipaserver]$ ipa group-show ops
      Group name: ops
      GID: 1234
      Member groups: sysops, appops
      Indirect Member users: idm_user

    The appops and sysops groups - the latter including the idm_user user - exist in IdM.

Additional resources

  • See the /usr/share/doc/ansible-freeipa/README-group.md Markdown file.

16.4. Using Ansible to add multiple IdM groups in a single task

You can use the ansible-freeipa ipagroup module to add, modify, and delete multiple Identity Management (IdM) user groups with a single Ansible task. For that, use the groups option of the ipagroup module.

Using the groups option, you can also specify multiple group variables that only apply to a particular group. Define this group by the name variable, which is the only mandatory variable for the groups option.

Complete this procedure to ensure the presence of the sysops and the appops groups in IdM in a single task. Define the sysops group as a nonposix group and the appops group as an external group.

Prerequisites

  • On the control node:

    • You are using Ansible version 2.14 or later.
    • You have installed the ansible-freeipa package.
    • You have created an Ansible inventory file with the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of the IdM server in the ~/MyPlaybooks/ directory.
    • You are using RHEL 8.9 and later.
    • You have stored your ipaadmin_password in the secret.yml Ansible vault.

Procedure

  1. Create your Ansible playbook file add-nonposix-and-external-groups.yml with the following content:

    ---
    - name: Playbook to add nonposix and external groups
      hosts: ipaserver
      vars_files:
      - /home/user_name/MyPlaybooks/secret.yml
    
      tasks:
      - name: Add nonposix group sysops and external group appops
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          groups:
          - name: sysops
            nonposix: true
          - name: appops
            external: true
  2. Run the playbook:

    $ ansible-playbook --vault-password-file=password_file -v -i <path_to_inventory_directory>/hosts <path_to_playbooks_directory>/add-nonposix-and-external-groups.yml

16.5. Using Ansible to enable AD users to administer IdM

Follow this procedure to use an Ansible playbook to ensure that a user ID override is present in an Identity Management (IdM) group. The user ID override is the override of an Active Directory (AD) user that you created in the Default Trust View after you established a trust with AD. As a result of running the playbook, an AD user, for example an AD administrator, is able to fully administer IdM without having two different accounts and passwords.

Prerequisites

  • You know the IdM admin password.
  • You have installed a trust with AD.
  • The user ID override of the AD user already exists in IdM. If it does not, create it with the ipa idoverrideuser-add 'default trust view' ad_user@ad.example.com command.
  • The group to which you are adding the user ID override already exists in IdM.
  • You are using the 4.8.7 version of IdM or later. To view the version of IdM you have installed on your server, enter ipa --version.
  • You have configured your Ansible control node to meet the following requirements:

    • You are using Ansible version 2.14 or later.
    • You have installed the ansible-freeipa package on the Ansible controller.
    • The example assumes that in the ~/MyPlaybooks/ directory, you have created an Ansible inventory file with the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of the IdM server.
    • The example assumes that the secret.yml Ansible vault stores your ipaadmin_password.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to your ~/MyPlaybooks/ directory:

    $ cd ~/MyPlaybooks/
  2. Create an add-useridoverride-to-group.yml playbook with the following content:

    ---
    - name: Playbook to ensure presence of users in a group
      hosts: ipaserver
    
    
      - name: Ensure the ad_user@ad.example.com user ID override is a member of the admins group:
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          name: admins
          idoverrideuser:
          - ad_user@ad.example.com

    In the example:

    • Secret123 is the IdM admin password.
    • admins is the name of the IdM POSIX group to which you are adding the ad_user@ad.example.com ID override. Members of this group have full administrator privileges.
    • ad_user@ad.example.com is the user ID override of an AD administrator. The user is stored in the AD domain with which a trust has been established.
  3. Save the file.
  4. Run the Ansible playbook. Specify the playbook file, the file storing the password protecting the secret.yml file, and the inventory file:

    $ ansible-playbook --vault-password-file=password_file -v -i inventory add-useridoverride-to-group.yml

Additional resources

16.6. Ensuring the presence of member managers in IdM user groups using Ansible playbooks

The following procedure describes ensuring the presence of IdM member managers - both users and user groups - using an Ansible playbook.

Prerequisites

  • You know the IdM administrator password.
  • You have configured your Ansible control node to meet the following requirements:

    • You are using Ansible version 2.14 or later.
    • You have installed the ansible-freeipa package on the Ansible controller.
    • The example assumes that in the ~/MyPlaybooks/ directory, you have created an Ansible inventory file with the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of the IdM server.
    • The example assumes that the secret.yml Ansible vault stores your ipaadmin_password.
  • You must have the name of the user or group you are adding as member managers and the name of the group you want them to manage.

Procedure

  1. Create an inventory file, for example inventory.file, and define ipaserver in it:

    [ipaserver]
    server.idm.example.com
  2. Create an Ansible playbook file with the necessary user and group member management information:

    ---
    - name: Playbook to handle membership management
      hosts: ipaserver
    
      vars_files:
      - /home/user_name/MyPlaybooks/secret.yml
      tasks:
      - name: Ensure user test is present for group_a
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          name: group_a
          membermanager_user: test
    
      - name: Ensure group_admins is present for group_a
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          name: group_a
          membermanager_group: group_admins
  3. Run the playbook:

    $ ansible-playbook --vault-password-file=password_file -v -i path_to_inventory_directory/inventory.file path_to_playbooks_directory/add-member-managers-user-groups.yml

Verification steps

You can verify if the group_a group contains test as a member manager and group_admins is a member manager of group_a by using the ipa group-show command:

  1. Log into ipaserver as administrator:

    $ ssh admin@server.idm.example.com
    Password:
    [admin@server /]$
  2. Display information about managergroup1:

    ipaserver]$ ipa group-show group_a
      Group name: group_a
      GID: 1133400009
      Membership managed by groups: group_admins
      Membership managed by users: test

Additional resources

  • See ipa host-add-member-manager --help.
  • See the ipa man page.

16.7. Ensuring the absence of member managers in IdM user groups using Ansible playbooks

The following procedure describes ensuring the absence of IdM member managers - both users and user groups - using an Ansible playbook.

Prerequisites

  • You know the IdM administrator password.
  • You have configured your Ansible control node to meet the following requirements:

    • You are using Ansible version 2.14 or later.
    • You have installed the ansible-freeipa package on the Ansible controller.
    • The example assumes that in the ~/MyPlaybooks/ directory, you have created an Ansible inventory file with the fully-qualified domain name (FQDN) of the IdM server.
    • The example assumes that the secret.yml Ansible vault stores your ipaadmin_password.
  • You must have the name of the existing member manager user or group you are removing and the name of the group they are managing.

Procedure

  1. Create an inventory file, for example inventory.file, and define ipaserver in it:

    [ipaserver]
    server.idm.example.com
  2. Create an Ansible playbook file with the necessary user and group member management information:

    ---
    - name: Playbook to handle membership management
      hosts: ipaserver
    
      vars_files:
      - /home/user_name/MyPlaybooks/secret.yml
      tasks:
      - name: Ensure member manager user and group members are absent for group_a
        ipagroup:
          ipaadmin_password: "{{ ipaadmin_password }}"
          name: group_a
          membermanager_user: test
          membermanager_group: group_admins
          action: member
          state: absent
  3. Run the playbook:

    $ ansible-playbook --vault-password-file=password_file -v -i path_to_inventory_directory/inventory.file path_to_playbooks_directory/ensure-member-managers-are-absent.yml

Verification steps

You can verify if the group_a group does not contain test as a member manager and group_admins as a member manager of group_a by using the ipa group-show command:

  1. Log into ipaserver as administrator:

    $ ssh admin@server.idm.example.com
    Password:
    [admin@server /]$
  2. Display information about group_a:

    ipaserver]$ ipa group-show group_a
      Group name: group_a
      GID: 1133400009

Additional resources

  • See ipa host-remove-member-manager --help.
  • See the ipa man page.