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Active Directory

The Active Directory connector lets you connect to Microsoft's Active Directory and perform read, write, and update operations on the Active Directory objects.

Before you begin

Before using the Active Directory connector, do the following tasks:

• In your Google Cloud project:
  • Grant the roles/connectors.admin IAM role to the user configuring the connector.
  • Grant the following IAM roles to the service account that you want to use for the connector:
    • roles/secretmanager.viewer
    • roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor

    A service account is a special type of Google account intended to represent a non-human user that needs to authenticate and be authorized to access data in Google APIs. If you don't have a service account, you must create a service account. For more information, see Creating a service account.

  • Enable the following services:
    • secretmanager.googleapis.com (Secret Manager API)
    • connectors.googleapis.com (Connectors API)

    To understand how to enable services, see Enabling services.

  If these services or permissions have not been enabled for your project previously, you are prompted to enable them when configuring the connector.

Configure the connector

Configuring the connector requires you to create a connection to your data source (backend system). A connection is specific to a data source. It means that if you have many data sources, you must create a separate connection for each data source. To create a connection, do the following steps:

1. In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Go to the Connections page

2. Click + CREATE NEW to open the Create Connection page.
3. In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
   1. Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.

      For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.

   2. Click NEXT.
4. In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
   1. Connector: Select Active Directory from the drop down list of available Connectors.
   2. Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
   3. In the Connection Name field, enter a name for the Connection instance.

      Connection names must meet the following criteria:

      • Connection names can use letters, numbers, or hyphens.
      • Letters must be lower-case.
      • Connection names must begin with a letter and end with a letter or number.
      • Connection names cannot exceed 63 characters.
   4. Optionally, enter a Description for the connection instance.
   5. Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
   6. Optionally, configure the Connection node settings:
      • Minimum number of nodes: Enter the minimum number of connection nodes.
      • Maximum number of nodes: Enter the maximum number of connection nodes.

      A node is a unit (or replica) of a connection that processes transactions. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection and conversely, fewer nodes are required to process fewer transactions. To understand how the nodes affect your connector pricing, see Pricing for connection nodes. If you don't enter any values, by default the minimum nodes are set to 2 (for better availability) and the maximum nodes are set to 50.

   Note: You can customize the connection node values only if you are a Pay-as-you-go customer.
   7. Base DN: The base portion of the distinguished name, used for limiting results to specific subtrees.
   8. Auth Mechanism: The authentication mechanism to be used when connecting to the Active Directory server.
   9. Follow Referrals: Whether or not to follow referrals returned by the Active Directory server.
   10. Friendly GUID: Whether to return GUID attribute values in a human readable format.
   11. Friendly SID: Whether to return SID attribute values in a human readable format.
   12. LDAP Version: The LDAP version used to connect to and communicate with the server.
   13. Scope: Whether to limit the scope of the search to the whole subtree (BaseDN and all of its descendants), a single level (BaseDN and its direct descendants), or the base object (BaseDN only).
   14. Optionally, click + ADD LABEL to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
   15. Click NEXT.
5. In the Destinations section, enter details of the remote host (backend system) you want to connect to.
   1. Destination Type: Select a Destination Type.
      1. In the Host address field, specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
         1. If you want to establish a private connection to your backend systems, follow these steps:
            1. Create a PSC service attachment.
            2. Create an endpoint attachment and then enter the details of the endpoint attachment in the Host address field.
         2. If you want to establish a public connection to your backend systems with additional security, you can consider configuring static outbound IP addresses for your connections, and then configure your firewall rules to allowlist only the specific static IP addresses.

      To enter additional destinations, click +ADD DESTINATION.

   2. Click NEXT.
6. In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.
   1. Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.

      The following authentication types are supported by the Active Directory connection:

      • Username and password

   To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.

   2. Click NEXT.
7. Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
8. Click Create.

Configure authentication

Enter the details based on the authentication you want to use.

• Username and password
  • Username: Username for connector
  • Password: Secret Manager Secret containing the password associated with the connector.

Entities, operations, and actions

All the Integration Connectors provide a layer of abstraction for the objects of the connected application. You can access an application's objects only through this abstraction. The abstraction is exposed to you as entities, operations, and actions.

Note: You can view the entities, operations, and actions of a connector in the Connectors task.

• Entity: An entity can be thought of as an object, or a collection of properties, in the connected application or service. The definition of an entity differs from a connector to a connector. For example, in a database connector, tables are the entities, in a file server connector, folders are the entities, and in a messaging system connector, queues are the entities.

  However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support or have any entities, in which case the Entities list will be empty.

• Operation: An operation is the activity that you can perform on an entity. You can perform any of the following operations on an entity:
  • List
  • Get
  • Create
  • Update
  • Delete

  Selecting an entity from the available list, generates a list of operations available for the entity. For a detailed description of the operations, see the Connectors task's entity operations. However, if a connector doesn't support any of the entity operations, such unsupported operations aren't listed in the Operations list.

• Action: An action is a first class function that is made available to the integration through the connector interface. An action lets you make changes to an entity or entities, and vary from connector to connector. However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support any action, in which case the Actions list will be empty.

Use terraform to create connections

You can use the Terraform resource to create a new connection.

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.

To view a sample terraform template for connection creation, see sample template.

When creating this connection by using Terraform, you must set the following variables in your Terraform configuration file:

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
base_dn	STRING	True	The base portion of the distinguished name, used for limiting results to specific subtrees.
auth_mechanism	ENUM	True	The authentication mechanism to be used when connecting to the Active Directory server. Supported values are: SIMPLE, DIGESTMD5, NEGOTIATE
follow_referrals	BOOLEAN	False	Whether or not to follow referrals returned by the Active Directory server.
friendly_guid	BOOLEAN	False	Whether to return GUID attribute values in a human readable format.
friendly_sid	BOOLEAN	False	Whether to return SID attribute values in a human readable format.
ldapversion	STRING	True	The LDAP version used to connect to and communicate with the server.
scope	ENUM	True	Whether to limit the scope of the search to the whole subtree (BaseDN and all of its descendants), a single level (BaseDN and its direct descendants), or the base object (BaseDN only). Supported values are: WHOLESUBTREE, SINGLELEVEL, BASEOBJECT

Use the Active Directory connection in an integration

After you create the connection, it becomes available in both Apigee Integration and Application Integration. You can use the connection in an integration through the Connectors task.

• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Apigee Integration, see Connectors task.
• To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Application Integration, see Connectors task.

Get help from the Google Cloud community

You can post your questions and discuss this connector in the Google Cloud community at Cloud Forums.

What's next

• Understand how to suspend and resume a connection.
• Understand how to monitor connector usage.
• Understand how to view connector logs.