Synchronisation Concepts

Introduction

In some environments Kanidm may be the first Identity Management system introduced. However many existing environments have existing IDM systems that are well established and in use. To allow Kanidm to work with these, it is possible to synchronise data between these IDM systems.

Currently Kanidm can consume (import) data from another IDM system. There are two major use cases for this:

• Running Kanidm in parallel with another IDM system
• Migrating from an existing IDM to Kanidm

An incoming IDM data source is bound to Kanidm by a sync account. All synchronised entries will have a reference to the sync account that they came from defined by their sync_parent_uuid. While an entry is owned by a sync account we refer to the sync account as having authority over the content of that entry.

The sync process is driven by a sync tool. This tool extracts the current state of the sync from Kanidm, requests the set of changes (differences) from the IDM source, and then submits these changes to Kanidm. Kanidm will update and apply these changes and commit the new sync state on success.

In the event of a conflict or data import error, Kanidm will halt and rollback the synchronisation to the last good state. The sync tool should be reconfigured to exclude the conflicting entry or to remap it's properties to resolve the conflict. The operation can then be retried.

This process can continue long term to allow Kanidm to operate in parallel to another IDM system. If this is for a migration however, the sync account can be finalised. This terminates the sync account and removes the sync parent uuid from all synchronised entries, moving authority of the entry into Kanidm.

Alternatelly, the sync account can be terminated which removes all synchronised content that was submitted.

Creating a Sync Account

Creating a sync account requires administration permissions. By default this is available to members of the system_admins group which admin is a memberof by default.

kanidm system sync create <sync account name>
kanidm system sync create ipasync

Once the sync account is created you can then generate the sync token which identifies the sync tool.

kanidm system sync generate-token <sync account name> <token label>
kanidm system sync generate-token ipasync mylabel
token: eyJhbGci...

If you need to revoke the token, you can do so with:

kanidm system sync destroy-token <sync account name>
kanidm system sync destroy-token ipasync

Destroying the token does NOT affect the state of the sync account and it's synchronised entries. Creating a new token and providing that to the sync tool will continue the sync process.

Operating the Sync Tool

The sync tool can now be run to replicate entries from the external IDM system into Kanidm.

You should refer to the chapter for the specific external IDM system you are using for details on the sync tool configuration.

The sync tool runs in batches, meaning that changes from the source IDM service will be delayed to appear into Kanidm. This is affected by how frequently you choose to run the sync tool.

If the sync tool fails, you can investigate details in the Kanidmd server output.

The sync tool can run "indefinitely" if you wish for Kanidm to always import data from the external source.

Yielding Authority of Attributes to Kanidm

By default Kanidm assumes that authority over synchronised entries is retained by the sync tool. This means that synchronised entries can not be written to in any capacity outside of a small number of internal Kanidm internal attributes.

An administrator may wish to allow synchronised entries to have some attributes written by the instance locally. An example is allowing passkeys to be created on Kanidm when the external synchronisation provider does not supply them.

In this case, the synchronisation agreement can be configured to yield its authority over these attributes to Kanidm.

To configure the attributes that Kanidm can control:

kanidm system sync set-yield-attributes <sync account name> [attr, ...]
kanidm system sync set-yield-attributes ipasync passkeys

This commands takes the set of attributes that should be yielded. To remove an attribute you declare the yield set with that attribute missing.

kanidm system sync set-yield-attributes ipasync passkeys
# To remove passkeys from being Kanidm controlled.
kanidm system sync set-yield-attributes ipasync

Finalising the Sync Account

If you are performing a migration from an external IDM to Kanidm, when that migration is completed you can nominate that Kanidm now owns all of the imported data. This is achieved by finalising the sync account.

kanidm system sync finalise <sync account name>
kanidm system sync finalise ipasync
# Do you want to continue? This operation can NOT be undone. [y/N]

Once finalised, imported accounts can now be fully managed by Kanidm.

Terminating the Sync Account

If you decide to cease importing accounts or need to remove all imported accounts from a sync account, you can choose to terminate the agreement removing all data that was imported.

kanidm system sync terminate <sync account name>
kanidm system sync terminate ipasync
# Do you want to continue? This operation can NOT be undone. [y/N]

Once terminated all imported data will be deleted by Kanidm.