Configuring an external LDAP for Authentication/Authorization

WebLogic supports several types of external authentication providers. Any LDAP v2 or v3 compliant LDAP server should work. Next, we cover the configuration of the Microsoft Active Directory provider in detail, to provide us also with the support for Kerberos Single Sign-On (SSO) integration in a Microsoft domain network; we will see this in Chapter 5, Integrating with Kerberos SPNEGO Identity Assertion.

There are lots of advantages by connecting an existent Users and Groups infrastructure. It permits us to centralize any object (Users and Groups) and centrally manage the security rules and policies without the need to access the WebLogic server. Also, any change applied on Active Directory is logically and dynamically propagated to WebLogic security.

To configure our provider faster and easier, we can use the WebLogic console (advanced users can also use the WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) to make many configuration changes)...