Become a Bomgar™ Jedi: Tips from the Master

Nathan McNeill:
Q: Okay. Here's one from Steve. He says, "Can LDAP be used if the Box is behind the DMZ or if it is hosted by a third party?

Joel Bomgar:
A: Good question. Yes, it can but the LDAP can be set up in two different ways. One, you can have the Bomgar Box™ directly query the LDAP server. So, that would be if it's physically inside your network or if it's in a DMZ and it has access to the domain controller. If it does not, what we have is called an LDAP agent. Essentially what you do is you install the agent on a machine that has, you know, is in the same physical network as your domain controller. I believe you can actually install it on the domain controller. What that agent does is it essentially serves as a go-between between your Bomgar Box™ and your domain controller. So, let's assume that your Bomgar Box™ is hosted in a third party data center somewhere.

What you can do is you can install the LDAP agent behind your firewall in a secure location on a system that's on the same network as your domain controller. What that agent will then do is it will form a connection with your domain controller, but it will also form an outbound connection through your firewall, so you don't have to alter your firewall, and it will form a connection with your LDAP - excuse me - or with your Bomgar Box™. That way, every time a request comes in to a Bomgar Box™ it will immediately ask the agent, which it has a persistent connection with, "Hey, can you go ahead and query the LDAP server for me real quick? Find out about this username and password and let me know if this user is allowed to access the system."

So, yes you can. You would not - again, the recap is you would not configure the Bomgar Box™ to query your active directory domain controller directly because obviously you don't want to configure your firewall to allow any type of traffic like that. All you would need to do is install the Bomgar™ LDAP agent on a system inside your network and then it would handle the secure connection to the Bomgar Box™ that was out there on the internet. It would also handle the secure connection to your domain connection and you would to be opening any security avenues or needing to touch your firewall in any way for that.