Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Oh god, at megacorp we implemented our own OAuth2 stack. Much sadness ensued.


Been there, done that - wish it upon no one.

If anyone ever brings up the idea of building out oauth or even vaguely user management, I try to point them to at least try a POC (Proof of Concept) with https://www.keycloak.org/ (Apache 2.0 License) or https://www.gluu.org/ (MIT License) before they considering building.


Another solution is OpenLDAP (or JumpCloud) at the root and then supporting software:

  OpenLDAP

   ├── PrivacyIDEA (TOTP/MFA with LDAP auth backend)  

   ├──---└──  SAML iDp (e.g. SimpleSAMLphp or Shibboleth) for SSO: AWS, Google, Github, Atlassian, Snowflake, Azure etc.

   ├── Dex (https://github.com/dexidp/dex) for anything that wants Oauth flow

   ├── Native LDAP for apps that support it (e.g. Metabase, Grafana)

   ├── Any other custom authT that supports LDAP as a backend
OpenLDAP itself isn't for the faint hearted but I've had a lot of success with JumpCloud (and Okta also have an LDAP directory service... though starting price is high).


I don’t think anyone building a modern identity solution should base it on openldap. LDAP is amazing as an identity provider in a data center, but does not offer support for modern authentication methods like oath and oidc. As such, it’s not a very good base for creating your organizations identity.

I’m happy to be proven wrong about this. I love open standards and protocols.


> LDAP is amazing as an identity provider in a data center, but does not offer support for modern authentication methods like oath and oidc.

I don't think lack of support for OAuth is a problem here. OAuth is specifically designed to obtain access to an HTTP service[1], and OpenID Connect is specifically designed for OAuth. LDAP is not an HTTP service.

[1]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6749


I think you've misunderstood my comment. LDAP gives you an extremely well supported back end from which to easily extend to virtually any form of authZ, including oauth.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: