External user authentication

Authenticate user login against FTP, IMAP or SMB.

Passwords are not stored locally; authentication always happens against the remote server.

It stores users and their display name in its own database table users_external. When modifying the user_backends configuration, you need to update the database table's backend field, or your users will lose their configured display name.

If something does not work, check the log file at owncloud/data/owncloud.log.

FTP

Authenticate ownCloud users against a FTP server.

Configuration

You only need to supply the FTP host name or IP.

The second - optional - parameter determines if SSL should be used or not.

Add the following to config.php:

'user_backends' => array(
    array(
        'class' => 'OC_User_FTP',
        'arguments' => array('127.0.0.1'),
    ),
),

To enable SSL connections via ftps, append a second parameter true:

'user_backends' => array(
    array(
        'class' => 'OC_User_FTP',
        'arguments' => array('127.0.0.1', true),
    ),
),

Dependencies

PHP automatically contains basic FTP support.

For SSL-secured FTP connections via ftps, the PHP openssl extension needs to be activated.

IMAP

Authenticate ownCloud users against an IMAP server. IMAP user and password need to be given for the ownCloud login

Configuration

Add the following to your config.php:

'user_backends' => array(
    array(
        'class' => 'OC_User_IMAP',
        'arguments' => array(
            '{127.0.0.1:143/imap/readonly}',
        ),
    ),
),

This connects to the IMAP server on IP 127.0.0.1, in readonly mode.

Read the imap_open PHP manual page to learn more about the allowed parameters.

Dependencies

The PHP IMAP extension has to be activated.

Samba

Utilizes the smbclient executable to authenticate against a windows network machine via SMB.

Configuration

The only supported parameter is the hostname of the remote machine.

Add the following to your config.php:

'user_backends' => array(
    array(
        'class' => 'OC_User_SMB',
        'arguments' => array('127.0.0.1'),
    ),
),

Dependencies

The smbclient executable needs to be installed and accessible within $PATH.