The runner is responsible for automatically changing the admin password of a Linux client and updating it in the LDAP directory. This assumes that Kerberos (krb5-user
) is installed and that the machine is already joined to your domain using Samba's net ads join
, PBIS' domainjoin-cli join
or the adcli join
command (recommended). realm join
is also supported as it internally also uses adcli resp. Samba.
A detailed domain join guide is available on my website (attention: only in German).
The runner should be called periodically via cron (example). This does not mean that the password will be rotated every time the cron job runs - it decides by the expiration time stored in the LDAP directory when the password needs to be changed.
Please make sure that usermod
(for changing the password in the local database) is in you crontab $PATH
(this is the default in Debian and Ubuntu based systems, but may not in other distros).
It is recommended to use the installation package provided on the Github releases page.
Manual installation in a Python venv:
# install available python modules globally to avoid duplicate install in venv
apt install python3-venv python3-pip python3-setuptools python3-gssapi python3-dnspython krb5-user libkrb5-dev
python3 -m venv venv --system-site-packages
venv/bin/pip3 install .
venv/bin/laps-runner
Please configure the runner by editing the configuration file /etc/laps-runner.json
.
Configuration Values
server
: Array of domain controllers with items like{"address": "dc1.example.com", "port": 389, "ssl": false}
. Leave empty for DNS auto discovery.domain
: Your domain name (e.g.example.com
). Leave empty for DNS auto discovery.ldap-query
: LDAP filter for getting the computer object, default:(&(objectClass=computer)(cn=%1))
.%1
is replaced by the computer name.use-starttls
: Boolean which indicates wheter to use StartTLS on unencrypted LDAP connections (requires valid server certificate).client-keytab-file
: The Kerberos keytab file with the machine secret.cred-cache-file
: File where to store the kerberos ticket for the LDAP connection.native-laps
:true
to store the password as JSON string in the LDAP attribute, as specified by Microsoft (Native LAPS).false
to store it as plaintext (Legacy LAPS).security-descriptor
: The security descriptor (SID) for pasword encryption (Native LAPS only). Leave empty (set tonull
) to disable encryption. Important: if you enable encryption, you should also changeldap-attribute-password
tomsLAPS-EncryptedPassword
!history-size
: The amount of password entries to keep in history. If not set or0
, no password history will be written.ldap-attribute-password
: The LDAP attribute name where to store the generated password. Must be a string, not a list.ldap-attribute-password-history
: The LDAP attribute where to store the password history. Must be a multi-value text field. If empty, no password history will be written.ldap-attribute-password-expiry
: The LDAP attribute where to store the password expiration date. Must be a string, not a list.hostname
: The hostname used for Kerberos ticket creation. Leave empty to use the system's hostname.password-change-user
: The Linux user whose password should be rotated.password-days-valid
: The amount of days how long a password should be valid.password-length
: Determines how long a generated password should be.password-alphabet
: Determines the chars to use for password generation.
Important:
- If
native-laps
isfalse
, you should setldap-attribute-password
toms-Mcs-AdmPwd
andldap-attribute-password-expiry
toms-Mcs-AdmPwdExpirationTime
. - If If
native-laps
istrue
andsecurity-descriptor
not set ornull
, you should setldap-attribute-password
tomsLAPS-Password
andldap-attribute-password-expiry
tomsLAPS-PasswordExpirationTime
. - If If
native-laps
istrue
andsecurity-descriptor
is set to a valid SID in your domain, you should setldap-attribute-password
tomsLAPS-EncryptedPassword
andldap-attribute-password-expiry
tomsLAPS-PasswordExpirationTime
. - While it is technically possible to save the password history unencrypted, Microsoft did not designated this. By default, in Active Directory, the only password history attribute is
msLAPS-EncryptedPasswordHistory
. Therefore, you should only configure the runner to store a password history when using password encryption too.
You can call the runner with the -f
parameter to force updating the password directly after installation. You should do this to check if the runner is working properly.
If LAPS4LINUX should automatically change the password after logout, you need to add the following line into your PAM config. The exact config file depends on your Linux distribution, e.g. /etc/pam.d/common-session
(use /etc/pam.d/common-session-noninteractive
if you like to rotate the password on sudo usage too).
session optional pam_exec.so type=close_session seteuid quiet /usr/sbin/laps-runner --pam
For Ubuntu, you should use a separate PAM config instead: /usr/share/pam-configs/laps
.
Name: LAPS4LINUX configuration
Default: yes
Priority: 0
Session-Type: Additional
Session-Interactive-Only: yes
Session:
optional pam_exec.so type=close_session seteuid quiet /usr/sbin/laps-runner-pam
Use Session-Interactive-Only: no
if you like to rotate the password on sudo usage too.
Then, run pam-auth-update
to automatically generate the files under /etc/pam.d/
with the necessary line for LAPS.
You can add login
to the array pam-services
in the config file if you do not want to change the password on sudo -i
usage. Since this config option is an array, this allows you to trigger LAPS on multiple, specific PAM service events.
If you want the runner to wait a certain time after logout until the password should be changed, set pam-grace-period
in the runner config to the desired number of seconds, e.g. 300 for 5 minutes.
Computer objects in the Microsoft Active Directory can not be longer than 15 characters. If you join a computer with a longer hostname, it will be registered with a different "short name". You have to enter this short name in the config file (setting hostname
) in order to make the Kerberos authentication work. You can find out the short name by inspecting your keytab: sudo klist -k /etc/krb5.keytab
.
Set the hostname
option to null
(default) to use the system's normal host name.
If the script throws an error like kinit -k -c /tmp/laps.temp SERVER$ returned non-zero exit code 1
, please check what happens when you execute the following commands manually on the command line.
sudo kinit -k -c /tmp/laps.temp COMPUTERNAME$
sudo klist -c /tmp/laps.temp
Please replace COMPUTERNAME with your hostname, but do not forget the trailing dollar sign.
If you like LAPS4LINUX please consider making a donation using the sponsor button on GitHub to support further development.
You can hire me for commercial support or adjustments for this project. Please contact me if you are interested.