To start we need to understand what LDAP is. LDAP stands for a: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, a mature, flexible, and well supported standards-based mechanism for interacting with directory servers. It’s often used for authentication and storing information about users, groups, and applications, but an LDAP directory server is a fairly general-purpose data store and can be used in a wide variety of applications.
This is really helpful to organizations that already have individual accounts and authentication methods already in place.
How to Setup Active Directory with LDAP with the Drobo B810n
Step 1 – Check Firmware
To be able to use Drobo you must be on firmware 4.2.0 and Dashboard 3.4.2 or higher. To check what firmware you are on open Drobo Dashboard and select your Drobo and under “Status” it will show you your current firmware.
Note: If you are not on firmware 4.2.0 and Dashboard 3.4.2 or higher, you may check for updates by going to “Tools” and click on “Check for Update”.
Step 2 – Enabling Active Directory
To enable Active Directory open Drobo Dashboard and on your selected Drobo click on “Network Settings” and select the “Active Directory” instead of “Workgroup”
Once you select Active Directory the window will present a login window. Any domain user can login here. You will start by entering your domain address, a username and finally, their password.
Note: If you already have established users you will loose these associations, but your data will remain. This is to ensure that you are only using trusted user accounts and workgroups.
In order to have the changes applied you will have to reboot your Drobo, click “Yes” when you see the following prompt:
Step 3 – Using Active Directory
Once your Drobo has rebooted reopen Drobo Dashboard and from the left side menu select “Shares” and then select a share you want to share and from the bottom select “Share Settings”
From here you will be able to select groups or users can be granted access to specific shares you can also set access levels to Read Only, Write Only or Both Read an Write.
And thats Active Directory with LDAP support on Drobo.
4 years ago