Authenticate BackupPC CGI Users With Windows Active Directory

Now that the Linux box is authenticating its users with their ADS credentials, and Apache is protecting its directories using the same ADS user database, we are ready to set up BackupPC to show users only the PCs for which their names are recorded in BackupPC's hosts file.

We do this by simply using the Active Directory user names for these users in BackupPC's hosts file. Now, when any such users gives their ADS username and password when prompted by BackupPC, only the PCs listed for them will be shown.

For BackupPC administrators however, we need to do a little bit more configuration.

First, create a new Active Directory Group in your ADS, and add the user names of the users who will be the BackupPC administrators to that group. Then, in BackupPC's config.pl file, set the variable $Conf{CgiAdminUserGroup} to the name of the group on your ADS server. For example, if the ADS group you created is called backuppcadmins, the variable would be set as follows:

$Conf{CgiAdminUserGroup} = 'backuppcadmins';

If you have some BackupPC administrators on the Linux box but not in the Windows ADS domain, you can add their Linux user names to the variable $Conf{CgiAdminUsers} like so:

$Conf{CgiAdminUsers} = 'john mary jack';

That's it! Restart BackupPC, and you should be fine. If you have any problems, place a comment here, or use the contact form on this site to send me a message, and I'll do my best to assist you.

I've also recently done this using a SuSE box (OpenSuSE 10.0), and the steps are very similar. I'll imagine that the steps will be quite similar for other distributions as well.

I have deliberately ommitted details about downloading and installing the various software, because that is adequately covered in the references that I've given. If I get many requests to include those steps, then I will. But I don't believe in duplicating what's already been done.