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Introduction to adutil - Active Directory utility

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Applies to: SQL Server - Linux

The adutil tool is a command-line interface (CLI) utility for configuring and managing Windows Active Directory domains for SQL Server on Linux and containers, without switching between Windows and Linux machines to manage Active Directory.

Support for adutil is limited for SQL Server use cases only.

You don't need to use adutil to enable Active Directory authentication for SQL Server on Linux or containers. You can also use utilities like ktpass, as explained in Tutorial: Use Active Directory authentication with SQL Server on Linux.

The adutil tool is designed as a series of commands and subcommands, with extra flags that you specify as further input. Each top level command represents a category of administrative functions. Within that category, each subcommand is an operation. This article shows you how you can download and get started with adutil.

Configure adutil for LDAP over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

You should use Lightweight Directory Access Protocol over SSL (LDAPS) instead of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). If you want to learn more about LDAP, see Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP).

You can set the useLdaps option to true in the adutil.json configuration file, which is located at: /var/opt/mssql/.adutil/adutil.json when run under the mssql user. This JSON code sample shows how to configure the setting:

{
    "useLdaps": "true"
}

By default, the useLDAPS setting is set to false. When configuring this setting and using mssql-conf to create the keytab (key table), make sure you run mssql-conf as the user mssql, which you can do by running the following command:

sudo su mssql

To set up the keytab using mssql-conf, see Create the SQL Server service keytab file using mssql-conf.

Install adutil

If you don't accept the EULA during the time of install, when you run the adutil command for the first time, you must run it with the --accept-eula flag (for all distributions).

  1. Download the Microsoft Red Hat repository configuration file.

    RHEL 9

    sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/msprod.repo https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/9/prod.repo

    RHEL 8

    sudo curl -o /etc/yum.repos.d/msprod.repo https://packages.microsoft.com/config/rhel/8/prod.repo

  2. If you had a previous preview version of adutil installed, remove any older adutil packages using the below command.

    sudo yum remove adutil-preview

  3. Run the following commands to install adutil. ACCEPT_EULA=Y accepts the EULA for adutil. The EULA is placed at the path /usr/share/adutil/.

    sudo ACCEPT_EULA=Y yum install -y adutil

Use adutil to manage Windows Active Directory

Make sure that you download adutil to a host that is already joined to an Active Directory domain. You also need to obtain or renew the Kerberos TGT (ticket-granting ticket), using the kinit command and a privileged domain account. The account you use must have permission to create accounts and Service Principal Names (SPNs) on the domain.

Here are some examples of actions that you can perform using adutil. To see a list of top-level commands, type adutil --help. This command shows you the top-level commands that you can use to manage and interact with Active Directory.

$ adutil --help
adutil - A general AD utility
  Usage:
    adutil [account|delegation|group|keytab|machine|ou|spn|user|config]
  Subcommands:
    account      Functions for generic account operations
    delegation   Functions for configuring delegation permissions
    group        Functions for group management
    keytab       Functions for keytab management
    machine      Functions for managing machine accounts
    ou           Functions for managing organizational units
    spn          Functions for service principal name (SPN) management
    user         Functions for user account management
    config       Functions for modifying adutil configuration
  Flags:
       --version       Displays the program version string.
    -h --help          Displays help with available flag, subcommand, and positional value parameters.
    -d --debug         Display additional debugging information when making LDAP/Kerberos calls.
       --accept-eula   Accepts the current EULA for adutil. This has no effect if the EULA has already been accepted.

To seek help with the next level of commands, you can run the following help option:

$ adutil spn --help
spn - Functions for service principal name (SPN) management
  Usage:
    spn [add|addauto|delete|search|show]
  Subcommands:
    add       Adds the provided SPNs to an account
    addauto   Automatically generate SPNs based on SPN component inputs and add them to an account
    delete    Deletes the provided SPNs from an account
    search    Search for an SPN by name or list all SPNs in the directory
    show      Get the list of SPNs assigned to an account
  Flags:
    --version       Displays the program version string.
    -h --help          Displays help with available flag, subcommand, and positional value parameters.
    -d --debug         Display additional debugging information when making LDAP/Kerberos calls.
       --accept-eula   Accepts the current EULA for adutil. This has no effect if the EULA has already been accepted.

$ adutil spn search --help
search - Search for an SPN by name or list all SPNs in the directory
  Usage:
     search [name]
  Positional Variables:
    name   OPTIONAL: Name of the SPN to search for in the directory. * can be used as a wildcard
  Flags:
    --version       Displays the program version string.
    -h --help          Displays help with available flag, subcommand, and positional value parameters.
    -n --name          OPTIONAL: Name of the SPN to search for in the directory. * can be used as a wildcard
    -f --filter        OPTIONAL: Filter for the search (User,Machine,Group)
    -o --ouname        OPTIONAL: Distinguished name of OU in which SPNs should be searched. If omitted, the entire directory will be searched.
    -d --debug         Display additional debugging information when making LDAP/Kerberos calls.
       --accept-eula   Accepts the current EULA for adutil. This has no effect if the EULA has already been accepted.

Samples

Each command is documented so you can get started right away. Here are some of the typical activities that adutil is used for when configuring or administering Active Directory authentication for SQL Server on Linux and containers:

  • Create an account in Active Directory:

    adutil user create --name sqluser --distname CN=sqluser,CN=Users,DC=CONTOSO,DC=COM

  • Create SPNs associated with an account or service:

    adutil spn addauto -n sqluser -s MSSQLSvc -H mymachine.contoso.com -p 1433

  • Create keytabs using adutil:

    adutil keytab createauto -k /var/opt/mssql/secrets/mssql.keytab -p 1433 -H mymachine.contoso.com --password 'P@ssw0rd' -s MSSQLSvc

You can refer to the reference manual page of adutil using the command man adutil.

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