Anlex, your question is essentially upside-down. The real question is “Can <cloud service x> use OpenLDAP for authentication?” That totally depends on the service in question: same can, others cannot. Generally, for cloud services, we want them to use our single sign-on service for authentication rather than direct LDAP queries since it allows us much greater control (not to mention require multi-factor). Our SSO authenticates against OpenLDAP…which authenticates users against Kerberos.
// John Pfeifer Division of Information Technology University of Maryland, College Park > On Mar 12, 2026, at 9:45 AM, Norman Gray <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Anlex, hello. > > On 12 Mar 2026, at 6:25, anlex N wrote: > >> Have you tried to use `OpenLDAP` or other LDAP server to sign in `Google >> Cloud` or `AZure` or `Amazon AWS`? > > That's still rather a vague question. > > OpenLDAP is potentially a component of an IAM system, but it's not really > something you'd use ‘to sign in to Google Cloud’. > > OpenLDAP is a server which implements the LDAP query protocol. As such, it > maintains a directory of users (and other things) and attributes related to > them (such as usernames). It also contains client libraries which allow you > to use LDAP to query suitable servers, from the command-line or from a > program. > > LDAP is a protocol, which you might use to query a server which implements > that interface. > > The Wikipedia page on OpenLDAP [1] includes links to the openldap.org site, > to further information about LDAP, and to associated software such as SASL. > > I don't know anything about Google Cloud. Azure has its own (intricate!) > permissions system which is based on Active Directory. To use that, you'd > want to study the Azure documentation. Note that Active Directory implements > an LDAP interface, and shares much of the LDAP data model, though I don't > know much about how deeply the interoperability _really_ goes. > > A local LDAP directory (eg, one using OpenLDAP) may work in consort with a > separate IAM system such as the ones you mention, but that's starting to get > intricate, and wouldn't be one of the core use-cases. > > Good luck with your research. > > Best wishes, > > Norman > > > > [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenLDAP > > > -- > Norman Gray : https://nxg.me.uk
