Uncomplicated Web User Directory Joseph Melancon, 2025

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Abstract

This application is a simple Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) management interface build in PHP with the Symfony framework. Included alongside the interface are support files to deploy a full directory suite using the smblds Docker container.

Why

I use Linux and don't particularly want to open a Windows VM any time I want to make simple tweaks to users in my AD instance. Alongside that, I only really need AD for central auth, so using a full-fat setup is very overkill for my needs. Thus, my thought process is that I can ditch my OpenLDAP server and instead use the one preconfigured in smblds. Down the line, I'm hoping to also ditch Keycloak for OIDC and PWM for password resets.

Project Status

This ain't done, chief.

Todo

• Finish basic LDAP service integration
  • This should be working! Services and groups can be created, and services can be bound to by LDAP clients. Next is to test with proper services, i.e. Mac/Windows desktops, server applications, etc.
• Add configuration options
  • Done! In my testing, all options implemented persist and enforce rules throughout the application.
• Polish registration flow
  • Pretty sure this is good, at least for now. Could use some stylistic tweaks as the padding on the field labels ticks me off.
• Add OAuth endpoints/configuration tabs
• Maybe add unit tests and GitHub actions?
  • PHPUnit has been configured, but no tests have been written
  • GitHub actions is currently configured to spin up PHPUnit compose, build production image, and save the image as an artifact. Should be trivial to set this to push to docker.io in the future.

Installation

For now, the container must be built from source as I haven't pushed off to docker.io yet. To build and deploy, follow these steps:

1. Clone project to your local computer:

   git clone https://github.com/jmelancon/uwu_directory.git

2. Edit environment files under the environment directory

   cd uwu_directory/environment
   
   cp smblds/.env.example smblds/.env
   nano smblds/.env
   
   cp server/.env.example server/.env
   nano server/.env

3. Go back to project root and start the Docker containers.

   cd ../
   docker compose --profile prod up --build -d

4. Wait for containers to start.
5. Access web interface on 0.0.0.0:8018

These steps are subject to change and may not work over the course of this program's initial development.

Dependencies / Thanks

The following frameworks, libraries, etc. are used across the application:

• Symfony: PHP Framework
• Bootstrap: CSS Framework
• DataTables: AJAX Table JS Library
• smblds: LDAP Docker Container
• Roboto: Primary Typeface
• ParagonIE Paseto: JWT Interface Library
• thephpleague/oauth2-server (future): OAuth2 Library