What is FreeIPA?
FreeIPA is an integrated security information management solution combining Linux (Fedora), 389 Directory Server, MIT Kerberos, NTP, DNS, Dogtag (Certificate System). It consists of a web interface and command-line administration tools.
FreeIPA is an integrated Identity and Authentication solution for Linux/UNIX networked environments. A FreeIPA server provides centralized authentication, authorization and account information by storing data about user, groups, hosts and other objects necessary to manage the security aspects of a network of computers.
FreeIPA is built on top of well known Open Source components and standard protocols with a very strong focus on ease of management and automation of installation and configuration tasks.
Multiple FreeIPA servers can easily be configured in a FreeIPA Domain in order to provide redundancy and scalability. The 389 Directory Server is the main data store and provides a full multi-master LDAPv3 directory infrastructure. Single-Sign-on authentication is provided via the MIT KerberosKDC. Authentication capabilities are augmented by an integrated Certificate Authority based on the Dogtag project. Optionally Domain Namescan be managed using the integrated ISC Bind server.
Security aspects related to access control, delegation of administration tasks and other network administration tasks can be fully centralized and managed via the Web UI or the ipa Command Line tool.
Resources
- Roadmap: You may view FreeIPA’s current roadmap for future features here.
- Most of our activity happens on the freeipa-devel and freeipa-user mailing lists as well as on the #freeipa IRC channel on the freenode.net.
- Our tasks, goals and milestones are tracked via freeipa trac instance.
References
FreeIPA takes advantage of different technologies:
- MIT KDC– core of the FreeIPA’s authentication.
- 389 Directory Server– back end where FreeIPA keeps all data.
- Dogtag Certificate System– FreeIPA includes CA & RA for certificate management functions.
- SSSD– client side component that integrates FreeIPA as a authentication and identity provider in a better way than traditional NSS & PAM.
