Reference articles on history, science, culture and more
Encyclopedia

FreeIPA

Identity management system

01Overview

FreeIPA aims to provide a centrally-managed identity, policy, and audit (IPA) system. It uses a combination of Fedora Linux, 389 Directory Server, MIT Kerberos, NTP, DNS, the Dogtag certificate system, SSSD and other free/open-source components. FreeIPA includes extensible management interfaces (CLI, Web UI, XMLRPC and JSONRPC API) and Python SDK for the integrated CA, and BIND with a custom plugin for the integrated DNS server. Each of the major components of FreeIPA operates as a preexisting free/open-source project. The bundling of these components into a single manageable suite with a comprehensive management interface is GPLv3, but that does not change the licenses of the components.

Since version 3.0.0, FreeIPA uses Samba to integrate with Microsoft's Active Directory by way of Cross Forest Trusts. FreeIPA provides support for Linux, Unix-based, Windows and Mac OS X computers.

02Software components

Component Details
Fedora Linux Linux operating system
389 Directory Server LDAP implementation
MIT's Kerberos 5 authentication and single sign-on
ntpd network time protocol
Apache HTTP Server Web UI and management framework
Python management framework
DogTag PKI certificate authority
Watch videos about FreeIPAExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article FreeIPA, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.