Compare Windows Active Directory and LDAP authentication

Both Windows Active Directory and LDAP can be used to allow users to connect to Serv-U by using Active Directory credentials. Additionally, LDAP allows for authentication against other LDAP servers such as Apache Directory Server and OpenLDAP.

Differences between Windows Active Directory and LDAP authentication

Windows and LDAP authentication are similar in many ways but there some important differences to help you decide which is right for your environment.

Use Windows authentication if the following conditions apply:

• You only want to access one Windows machine or domain (per Serv-U domain).
• You want each end user to see that user's home folders and enjoy that user's NTFS permissions. Serv-U uses impersonation so that it respects the Windows directory access rules. The Windows directory access rules can be supplemented with directory access rules defined in Serv-U. For more information, see Directory access rules.

Users with Serv-U installed on a Windows Server can also connect using Secure LDAP connections.

Use LDAP authentication if the following conditions apply:

• You want to deploy Serv-U on Linux.
• You want to be able to access more than one Windows domain.
• You want to be able to access different Windows domains.
• You do not care about natively incorporating NTFS permissions. It is not possible to pull directory access rules from LDAP directly, but you can define Serv-U directory access rules for LDAP users. For more information, see Directory access rules.

Configure Windows and LDAP authentication

For information about configuring Windows authentication in Serv-U, refer to the following resources:

• Windows authentication
• User groups
• Windows Groups and Organizational Units in Serv-U
• Enable Windows User NT-SAM - Active Directory Support in Serv-U

For information about configuring LDAP authentication in Serv-U, refer to the following resources:

• LDAP authentication
• User groups
• LDAP Authentication - error: Login was not successful

Keep Serv-U updated

If you work with LDAP or Windows authentication, SolarWinds highly recommends that you make sure your Serv-U installation is up to date. To ensure the best experience, upgrade to the latest version of Serv-U before configuring your advanced user authentication. For more information about the latest version of Serv-U, visit the release notes.

For upgrade, backup, and migration information, refer to the Serv-U Installation and Upgrade Guide.