# Assistance with LDAP authentication

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/assistance-with-ldap-authentication/172605>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Tags:** elastic-stack-security\
**Created:** [March 15, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/assistance-with-ldap-authentication/172605 "2019-03-15T21:09:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alta\_01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@alta\_01](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/alta_01)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/assistance-with-ldap-authentication/172605/1 "2019-03-15T21:09:38Z")

</div>

Working on testing LDAP authentication for our cluster before setting it up for a client. So far....success is limited. Here is my journalctl log after I set the config in the YML file. I know the issue is with the bind\_password field, but I am unsure why.

Exception in thread "main" 2019-03-15 16:54:22,926 main ERROR No Log4j 2 configuration file found. Using default configuration (logging only errors to the console), or user programmatically provided configurations.

```
Exception in thread "main" 2019-03-15 16:54:22,926 main ERROR No Log4j 2 configuration file found. Using default configuration (logging only errors to the console), or user programmatically provided configurations.
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: SettingsException[Failed to load settings from [elasticsearch.yml]]; nested: MarkedYAMLException[while scanning a simple key
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: in 'reader', line 113, column 11:
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: bind_password:test!pass01
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: ^
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: could not find expected ':'
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: in 'reader', line 114, column 11:
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: user_search:
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: ^
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at [Source: sun.nio.ch.ChannelInputStream@65d09a04; line: 112, column: 92]]; nested: ScannerException[while scanning a simple key
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: in 'reader', line 113, column 11:
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: bind_password:test!pass01
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: ^
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: could not find expected ':'
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: in 'reader', line 114, column 11:
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: user_search:
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: ^
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: ];
Mar 15 16:54:22 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.common.settings.Settings$Builder.loadFromStream(Settings.java:1216)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.common.settings.Settings$Builder.loadFromPath(Settings.java:1189)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.node.InternalSettingsPreparer.prepareEnvironment(InternalSettingsPreparer.java:100)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.cli.EnvironmentAwareCommand.createEnv(EnvironmentAwareCommand.java:95)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.cli.EnvironmentAwareCommand.execute(EnvironmentAwareCommand.java:86)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.mainWithoutErrorHandling(Command.java:124)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.main(Command.java:90)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:93)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:86)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: Caused by: com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.yaml.snakeyaml.error.MarkedYAMLException: while scanning a simple key
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: in 'reader', line 113, column 11:
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: bind_password:test!pass01
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: ^
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: could not find expected ':'
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: in 'reader', line 114, column 11:
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: user_search:
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: ^
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at [Source: sun.nio.ch.ChannelInputStream@65d09a04; line: 112, column: 92]
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 elasticsearch[3137]: at com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat.yaml.snakeyaml.error.MarkedYAMLException.from(MarkedYAMLException.java:27)
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 systemd[1]: elasticsearch.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Mar 15 16:54:23 Elasticsearch-Data3 systemd[1]: Unit elasticsearch.service entered failed state.

```

role\_mapping is not set yet, so it will fail but I would at least like to advance past the previous error. Here is the config for the test cluster.

```
xpack:
  security:
    authc:
      realms:
        ldap1:
          type: ldap
          order: 0
          url: "ldaps://ELK-AD.ELK.test:636"
          bind_dn: "CN=ldap,OU=IT Service Accounts,OU=Services,OU=[OurCompany],DC=Elk,DC=test"
          bind_password:test!pass01
          user_search:
            base_dn: "dc=Elk,dc=test"
            filter: "(memberOf=CN=Elastic_Engineers,OU=Services,OU=[Ourcompany],DC=Elk,DC=test)"
# group_search:
# base_dn: "Elk,dc=test"
          files:
            role_mapping: "ES_PATH_CONF/x-pack/role_mapping.yml"
          unmapped_groups_as_roles: false

```

Thanks in advance!  
(finally figured out the site formatting after a ton of edits!)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ikakavas](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/ikakavas/32/34430_2.png) [@ikakavas](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/ikakavas)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2019, 9:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/assistance-with-ldap-authentication/172605/2 "2019-03-22T09:19:56Z")

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> [@alta\_01](#):
>
> bind\_password:test!pass01

You need a space after `:` in YAML, this should be

```auto
bind_password: test!pass01

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 9:19am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/assistance-with-ldap-authentication/172605/3 "2019-04-19T09:19:57Z")

</div>

Closed on April 19, 2019, 9:19am UTC

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