Univention Domain Join Assistant for Foolproof Integration of Ubuntu Clients into UCS Domains

Today we introduce our new Domain Join Assistant for Univention Corporate Server (UCS). With this tool, administrators can now integrate Ubuntu computers into a UCS domain without any additional manual configuration. Thanks to this, all users can log in directly to their Ubuntu desktop using their usual domain accounts. This automation eases administrators’ work to manage Ubuntu clients on the network. Thanks to Kerberos SAML integration, organizations that already use UCS version 4.3 can now offer their users single sign-on for the Ubuntu clients.

LDAP/OpenLDAP: The Two Pillars in UCS’ Identity & Access Management

LDAP

Our work environment is becoming more ‘colorful’, but also more difficult to handle and control. Employees increasingly determine for themselves which tools they use and where they work. As an admin, you easily lose track and become afraid of losing control over the security of your corporate IT.

Fortunately, UCS provides an identity and access management (IAM) that centrally manages and supervises all tools, devices, data, and accesses. By setting up a centralized IAM, you not only avoid shadow IT, but most of all, you regain control over your network and your precious data.

For those of you who have little technical knowledge in UCS, I like to explain today the terms LDAP / OpenLDAP, as they are the cornerstones of our central IAM system.

Release UCS 4.3: Easy administration of portal pages, higher performance and single sign-on for apps

With UCS 4.3 we have integrated numerous security updates – most recently the Samba 4 update of March 13 – and closed hundreds of bugs. But not only, we also focused, among other things, on a significantly higher performance during data import and more convenience in the administration of portal pages or users, for example. In addition to an efficient and easy management of UCS, it was also important to us to create a positive user experience with UCS. Here, worth mentioning milestones are certainly a single sign-on during login to Windows or Linux desktops, which in parallel allows access to the Univention Management Console, Office 365, and ownCloud or Nextcloud, just to name a few of the improvements.

With UCS 4.3 we took another resolute step in the development of UCS into an open platform for IT operations and management in enterprises – whether it is a small organization with just a few users or organizations with hundreds of thousands of users.

Critical Security Update for Samba Published

Logo Samba

The Samba team discovered a critical vulnerablity in the access control of Samba/AD domain controllers. Any authenticated user can change other users’ passwords over LDAP including the passwords of the administrators.

We strongly advise to install the updated Samba packages for all UCS versions currently supported (from UCS 4.1-5 and UCS 4.2-3) which we have distributed today via the usual errata update channels.

Brief Introduction: How Can UCS Systems Be Updated Automatically?

Like any operating system manufacturer, Univention usually publishes weekly updates. As an administrator, you want to install them as soon as possible. However, in large UCS environments with many connected servers, manual updates can take a lot of time, which is not always available every week. The easiest way to reduce such a big workload is to automate the task by using policies.

In the following, I want to explain how you can set up an automated update of UCS systems by using the policy ‘maintenance settings‘.

Module System Diagnostic: Your Problem-Solving Assistant in UCS

Foto von Errormeldung

With the UCS module System Diagnostic you can easily analyze the system for existing or potential problems in your UCS instances. Initially, the module contained six different verification options. Today, there are already 54 available to help you ensure the smooth operation of your IT system by identifying disruptions and providing corrective solutions.

Below we give you a brief understanding of the benefits and operation of this tool. At the same time we would like to invite you to give us feedback. Our wish is to continuously optimize and extend the system diagnostic for you. So let’s get started.

Errata Updates for Spectre and Meltdown Problems

Developers at Google have discovered a problem with processors of several different CPU vendors, which can be exploited by software. Due to these security vulnerabilities, unauthorized users may gain access to supposedly protected memory areas.

These problems, known as “Spectre” and “Meltdown”, are specified by the CVE (Common Vulnerability and Exposures) numbers: CVE-2017-5753, CVE-2017-5715 and CVE-2017-5754. Apparently some of these problems affect most CPUs made by Intel, but also by AMD and ARM, regardless of the operating system in use.

We are currently working hard to provide errata updates for UCS to fix the problem. The current status and links to the errata can be found in the Univention Forum.

Univention Corporate Server 4.2-2 released

One of the highlights of the second point release of Univention Corporate Server (UCS) are the significant enhancements UCS 4.2-2 offers for managing services and apps that are hosted in public cloud services such as the Amazon Marketplace. Services installed on UCS can now be accessed directly without any further configuration effort. Our development department has extended access to these services via the UCS Portal by converting the links to relative links. For portal entries for which there are several links, heuristic procedures determine the best link.

UCS Identity Management Manages Mail Platform With Over 30 Million Users

US Mailboxes

More than two years after the start of one of the largest projects in which Univention has been involved to date, a new mail platform with over 30 million managed end users finally went online in late 2016. UCS takes care of the identity management duties for all the user accounts.

I first reported on the challenges of the project almost a year ago in the article How can OpenLDAP with UCS be scaled to over 30 million objects?. However, it is now no longer a “gray theory” – the project has now gone live and the LDAP has had to cope with the strain of thousands of accesses every second in real time ever since.

Today, I would like to provide you with an update and share with you some of our most important findings from the going live process.

First point release of UCS 4.2 published

With UCS 4.2-1 the first point release for Univention Corporate Server 4.2 is now available.

It includes various detail improvements and error corrections. Some of the most important changes are:

  • The forwarding of e-mails per each mail user can now be saved in the UCS management system.
  • Improvements in changing the password in the Univention Management Console: From now on, also users from a Microsoft Active Directory domain can change their expired passwords. In addition, more hints are now displayed if the password change should fail.
  • The possibilities for IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) configuration have been improved in various services, for example in the Nagios or proxy server configuration and in the UCS management system.