I need to implement a lock and unlock mechanism in opendj 2.6 based on a fixed failed login attempt. I've already seen that there are two methods (https://backstage.forgerock.com/docs/opendj/2.6/admin-guide/#chap-account-lockout). a manual method (which I don't care about at all because I've already done some testing and found that it only allows manual locking and unlocking) and the second one which was perfect for me because, by modifying the password policy, it allows me to set a fixed number of failed attempts and set a lockout time out.
my goal: I need to find a way to unlock this type of locked users without spending the entire lockout time.
my problem: i have already read the documentation and apparently resetting the user's password is the only way.
ps: I also noticed that, when a user is locked, some attributes are added to his entry, such as: pwdAccountLockedTime and I thought I could delete this attribute manually, but that field was a non-editable field (and also I had no certainty that it would work).
Do you have any suggestions? Or is it simply not allowed?
As you have already identified, the proper way to unlock an account after N consecutive failures is to reset the password. If a user is entering a wrong password 5 times, do you think he will know the correct one the 6th time ?
Otherwise, OpenDJ has a tool called manage-account, where specific operations are possible. This should only be used by an admin with care.
I believe not all operations are documented, but you may read the code to understand them all.
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Hi there stack exchange,
We're seeing numerous issues in our environment of misconfigured systems repeatedly trying old passwords and causing the accounts to be locked out.
I can see no value in locking out accounts where the same password is tried multiple times, this does not get a (potential) attacker any closer to guessing the password as far as I can work out? I would like to know if there is a way to securely configure a system to count the number of distinct/unique password attempts per user, rather than just the number of attempts before lockout occurs?
I can appriciate that recording password attempts using a reversable derivitive might be bad for security, but surely there's a way to distinguish if the same password is attempted multiple times? Recording recent attempts in a long hash or something?
At the very least is it possible for a system to know that the immediately previous password has been attempted, or even a few back, and not count those as failed attempts? I have seen this implemented and it would seem simmilar to the need to judge uniqueness/distinction?
If the only purpose of a lockout policy is to prevent online brute force password guessing, rather than as a tool to DoS accounts, why is incrementing failed logon counters after only distinct password attempts uncommon?
Lots of question marks sorry, but for clarity the main question is again;
I would like to know if there is a way to securely configure a system to count the number of distinct/unique password attempts per user, rather than just the number of attempts before lockout occurs?
Thanks for any thoughts!
Kind regards,
Xeotech
I have requirement to show status (locked or unlocked ) of all accounts in OpenDS 2.2.
I have come to know that pwdAccountLockedTime is present if account gets locked due to too many unsuccessful attempts. So by checking this attribute, I am able to pick account locked due to this reason.
Now I need to identify accounts which were locked due to password expiration. Is there any attribute which tells this?
I need to retrieve this attribute in my java client application.
Any help in this regards would be greatly appreciated.
P.S. - I have checked other threads and forums but none of the solutions given seem to be working - like checking pwdLockedTime (I could not find this attribute).
You can check the status of an account and get details of locked account using the manage-account utility.
When the password has expired, there is no marker that it's locked. The server uses the pwdChangedTime and the currentTime to see if the difference exceeds the expiration time.
Kind regards,
Ludovic.
I've been working on a project to create an FDA part11-compliant e-signed document repository. The mandate is that it use Perforce to track the various revisions of the documents, utilize LDAP (AD) as the authentication/access directory, and re-authenticate the user at the point they submit a changelist.
The first two requirements are in place, but I am having trouble with the last one. I have a script at the "change-submit" trigger which logs out the user - assuming that this would force the client to re-authenticate the user before continuing with the process - but this does not work, at least for the command line client; the user is logged out but the process completes, and the next command attempt from the user is the one that gets denied.
Setting the script to handle the authentication process is not an option as it is run server-side and there is no way to pass a prompt through to the user.
I could of course pass authentication as command-line arguments to the script and then return non-0 to force the process to abort if the credentials are false, but I have not found a way to modify the commands sent for a given action by the p4v GUI, nor again to have the client prompt the user for authentication; and, this would result in the password being displayed as clear text consistently.
Setting the ticket timeout to an extremely short duration would definitely require the user to authenticate prior to submission, but also before any other action.
Has anyone out there dealt with something like this before, or does anyone see an angle of attack that I am missing? Thanks!
Thanks avp for your attempt to help, but my issue was not that the logout wasn't performed, but that the submit that triggered the logout script was concluded anyway.
I basically ended up setting up different groups, one which had all rights except write, and then a group for each authorized user which had write rights, but expired in 90 seconds. I then put all users in the non-write group, and then had a trigger set on login which parsed the password given to determine if it contained a request to join the group with write rights (which was set into a p4v script) and, if the remainder of the passed-in password was correct, assigned them to that group.
I've had it in production for a few months now with no issues.
Well, I have no idea why it did not work for your client, but you can try this:
remove the p4tickets.txt file or remove the necessary line in this file after you logged out.
(After I log out I can see that one line (the line for the client I logged out) is removed from the p4tickets.txt.
Each time I have any problems with logging in/out I remove this file and it helps.
In our system one client may have multiple operators. However there is a "wish" from client.
One company has an account, however there can be mulitple operators assigned to this company. Client wants us to prepare a solution that only one operator from company can log in to the system at same time. How can I achieve this?
Just by making sure they system has the ability to validate the login on each request. Either
Actively (by querying state -- possibly a database to compare some secrets) or
Passively -- using some form of cryptography and tokens (possibly in the cookie).
Option one is easiest, option 2 is fastest. If you validate on each request you can make sure that only one user remains logged in -- if another user signs in you can invalidate the existing active login -- perhaps with a cooldown period of n amount minutes.
You have to develop some form of login scheme -- kerberos is the defacto scheme -- read this easy to follow tutorial on kerberos Designing an Authentication System: a Dialogue in Four Scenes It should show you what you really need to do.
You could use a database field to flag that they are logged in. Update the field to 'logged in' when they do so, and then update it to 'logged out' when they log out.
You'd also need to monitor login sessions for expiry to update the field if a user never bothered to explicitly logout.
The best approach I've used:
Create a table used to track whether an operator is logged in (e.g. userid and last_accessed_dt)
On each page request by the operator update the last requested date/time
When an operator attempts to login they can only do so if the last requested data/time > timeout period of sessions on your website (E.g. 30 minutes) or if they are the Last Operator User ID ... this way they can quickly recover from a logoff etc.
When an operator logs off have the Last Accessed cleared
When the session times out have the Last Accessed cleared
"I am using WPF application and the server is written in WCF, however this can be achieved. But what in situation when user has an application opened and was inactive for 30min?"
This system is going to be single-user, so I suggest you start a counter thread when a user logs in. When counter reaches 30 minutes, write a value to the db indicating that user has timed out and other users are free to login. Obviously, you should do the same thing when user explicitly logs out.
I'm wondering when login timeouts are being used, specifically when using same session (same browser session). On a number of sites I have completed recently I have added 60 minute timeouts and they seem to be causing problems, such as users are not able to fill out larger forms (like a resume submission--people don't think of copying their resume from another program or saving part way through). On one site, I have implemented a div/popup forcing the user to enter their password to continue in the current session, without having to login again.
But on other sites, such as Facebook, it seems you are never logged out as long as you are using the same browser window, even without "remembering" your password.
The main reason I usually use timeouts is to ensure the data is secure, such that another party can't sit down at the computer a few hours later and use the system as the original user.
I'm wondering how you decide when a site should time out users because of inactivity?
I'm thinking the answer would be language agnostic.
IMO, they're valid when:
security is critical (ie. banking)
the likelihood of seat-swapping is
high (ie. public terminals)
Regardless, there may be instances like your resume system, where you want people on public terminals to be able to carry out an act that may leave them inactive for longer than your desired or necessary timeout.
I suppose you just have to handle that in a smart fashion - either figure out a way they can get the data in quicker (which would be ace, spending an hour filling out a form is not fun - can they just upload a file?), or ensuring they can continue without any data loss after being prompted to log in again.
Even though 60 minutes seems like a long time to fill out a single form (perhaps the forms should be divided into multiple pages?), you can probably use SlidingExpiration to solve the problem where your users get logged out even though the browser session is alive.
I think the timeout for an auth cookie is a Security level decision. If your site is SSL secured, you would probably have minimal timeout values (user session would expire within a matter of minutes). On the other hand, for sites with non-critical security, you could set a medium timeout value.
When I sign on to online banking, for example, it asks me whether or not I am using a "public terminal": and if I say yes then it enforces stricter security, or if no then laxer.