GemFire: Not able to config LDAP auth for GemFire Management Console following public doc

Products

• VMware Tanzu Data Suite
• VMware Tanzu Gemfire
• Pivotal GemFire
• VMware Tanzu Greenplum / Gemfire

Issue/Introduction

Not able to config LDAP auth for GemFire Management Console following public doc. 
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-tanzu/data-solutions/tanzu-gemfire-management-console/1-3/gf-mc/security.html#ldap

 

Environment

All GemFire Management Console

Resolution

This quick demo and please note that the demo passes all optional ones. Please input proper values if you need optional configurations. 

For the definition of each configuration please follow below doc: 
https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-tanzu/data-solutions/tanzu-gemfire-management-console/1-3/gf-mc/security.html#ldap

First of all, LDAP Server URL. As a prerequisite, you should have a LDAP server with certain host and dn/dc, which should be put in LDAP Server URL, Eg : ldap://localhost:389/dc=vmware,dc=com.

Then the User Search Filter. It is what GemFire Management Console uses to search and identify the user you input in the login panel. For example, my user structure is looking like below: 

objectClass: inetOrgPerson
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: person
objectClass: top
cn: John Doe
sn: Doe
uid: john
mail: [email protected]
userPassword:****** 

Any field (cn, sn, uid or mail etc.) can be used as the filter, but ideally, we use field that is unique. Here the demo uses uid, which is john in the sample user above. After setting up successfully, you should use the "uid" as Username and use "userPassword" as Password in the login panel .

Finally, the Management Console Admin User and Password. It should be one of user in the LDAP server eg, "john", so that anytime login with THE user, GemFire Management Console would allow the user ack as admin, and allow some specific actions only admin has permissions such as configuring the login method. In this lab, it used john and his password. 

Eventually, the configuration would look like below(please input the password in Management Console Admin Password): 

TEST CONNECTION. After above settings,  click on the TEST CONNECTION, GemFire Management Console would try to connect the URL and search the username john(the admin user in the config) in 'uid' field and validate the password to verify if it works at all. If everything is fine it would return success. If it fails, you may go to the log of the GemFire Management Console, it would tell why it fails. You would see something like, not able to connect to URL or User *** not found, etc,. Once all set, you can SAVE, and try login into the console with any same objects, for example 'john'. 

Later, if you want to Edit this, you need to login as the admin user, in the demo is 'john', and go to Settings > Edit Security Config - you would get to reconfigure this.