Add Administrator ACL on Virtualizor: Easy Guide Steps

Thanks for following our website posts for any IT pro tutorials and skills, especially the Virtualizor Tutorials. In this tutorial, we want to learn how to Add Administrator ACL on Virtualizor.

Virtualizor is a powerful control panel often favored for creating and managing a substantial number of VPS instances. A crucial aspect of managing such a system is the ability to delegate administrative tasks without compromising the security of the root account. Virtualizor addresses this need by providing a flexible system for defining administrator access levels (ACL). This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough on how to Add Administrator ACL on Virtualizor, ensuring that you can grant appropriate permissions to users without exposing your root access.

Let’s dive into how you can effectively manage administrative privileges within Virtualizor.

Login to your Virtualizor panel and navigate to the “Users” menu and select the “Administrator ACL” sub-menu. You will see one Access control list that is available by default for the Virtualizor API.

Step 2 – How to Add an Administrator Access Control List?

After locating the Administrator access level (ACL) menu in the last step, click on “Add ACL” to open a page where you can define the Name and access levels. According to the below image, you should define a name for the ACL and check the checkbox if you want the user to have access to this section or not.

In the end, click on “Save” to create a new ACL.

Step 3 – How to edit and delete ACL in Virtualizor?

Simply, you can find the administrator access level “ACL” menu from Step 1 and see all ACL lists. At the end of each line, you can see 2 icons, use them to edit or delete each ACL you want.

Conclusion

Now, we learn how to create, edit, and delete an ACL in a Virtualizor panel. I hope you enjoy reading this tutorial. Please don’t hesitate to inform us if you have any questions about this post by commenting on the page. Properly managing administrator ACL within Virtualizor is crucial for maintaining a secure and efficient VPS management environment.

Alternative Solutions for Managing Administrator Access in Virtualizor

While the Virtualizor panel provides a user-friendly interface for managing administrator ACL, exploring alternative methods can offer greater flexibility, automation, and integration with other systems. Here are two alternative solutions:

1. API-Driven ACL Management

Virtualizor provides a comprehensive API that can be leveraged to manage administrator ACL programmatically. This approach is particularly useful for automating ACL creation, modification, and deletion, especially in environments with a large number of users or when integrating with other user management systems.

Explanation:

Instead of manually configuring ACLs through the web interface, you can write scripts or applications that interact with the Virtualizor API to perform these tasks. This allows for centralized management of user permissions and reduces the risk of human error.

Case Study:

Imagine a scenario where a hosting provider automatically provisions VPS instances for new customers. Using the API, the provider can automatically create an administrator ACL for each customer, granting them access to manage their VPS resources within Virtualizor. When a customer cancels their subscription, the associated ACL can be automatically deleted, ensuring that their access is revoked promptly.

Code Example (Python):

This example demonstrates how to create a new administrator ACL using the Virtualizor API. Note: You’ll need to install the requests library (pip install requests).

import requests
import json

# Virtualizor API credentials and URL
api_url = "https://your_virtualizor_server:4085/index.php"
api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"
api_pass = "YOUR_API_PASSWORD"

# ACL parameters
acl_name = "Customer_ACL"
permissions = {
    "vps": 1,  # Allow VPS management
    "iso": 1,   # Allow ISO management
    "backups": 1 # Allow backups
}

# API request parameters
params = {
    "act": "adminacl",
    "adminaclact": "add",
    "name": acl_name,
    "permissions": json.dumps(permissions),
    "api": "json",
    "apikey": api_key,
    "apipass": api_pass
}

try:
    response = requests.post(api_url, data=params, verify=False)  # Disable SSL verification for self-signed certificates
    response.raise_for_status()  # Raise HTTPError for bad responses (4xx or 5xx)
    data = response.json()

    if data["done"]:
        print(f"ACL '{acl_name}' created successfully.")
    else:
        print(f"Error creating ACL: {data['error']}")

except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
    print(f"Request failed: {e}")
except json.JSONDecodeError:
    print("Failed to decode JSON response.")
except KeyError:
    print("Missing key in the JSON response.")

Important Notes:

• Replace "https://your_virtualizor_server:4085/index.php" with your actual Virtualizor API URL.
• Replace "YOUR_API_KEY" and "YOUR_API_PASSWORD" with your Virtualizor API credentials.
• The verify=False option disables SSL certificate verification. Use this with caution, especially in production environments. Ideally, you should configure proper SSL certificate verification.
• The permissions dictionary defines the access levels for the new ACL. Adjust these values based on your specific requirements. A value of 1 enables the permission, and 0 disables it.
• Error handling is included to catch potential issues during the API request and response processing.
• Refer to the Virtualizor API documentation for a complete list of available API calls and parameters.
  

  2. Integrating with LDAP/Active Directory for Authentication and Authorization

Instead of managing user accounts and ACLs directly within Virtualizor, you can integrate it with an existing LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) or Active Directory (AD) server.

Explanation:

LDAP and AD are widely used directory services for managing user accounts, groups, and permissions. By integrating Virtualizor with these services, you can leverage your existing user management infrastructure to control access to Virtualizor resources.

Case Study:

A large enterprise uses Active Directory to manage all employee accounts and permissions. They deploy Virtualizor to provide developers with access to virtualized development environments. By integrating Virtualizor with Active Directory, they can automatically grant developers access to Virtualizor based on their existing AD group memberships. When an employee leaves the company, their AD account is disabled, automatically revoking their access to Virtualizor.

Implementation Steps (Conceptual):

While specific configuration steps vary depending on your LDAP/AD server and Virtualizor version, the general process involves:

1. Configuring Virtualizor to authenticate against your LDAP/AD server. This typically involves providing the server address, port, base DN (Distinguished Name), and authentication credentials.
2. Mapping LDAP/AD groups to Virtualizor administrator ACLs. This allows you to define which LDAP/AD groups should have specific levels of access within Virtualizor. Virtualizor may allow specifying a group attribute from the LDAP/AD server that corresponds to a specific ACL.
3. Ensuring that user accounts in Virtualizor match the corresponding accounts in LDAP/AD. Typically, the username attribute in Virtualizor will need to match the sAMAccountName or userPrincipalName attribute in Active Directory.

Benefits:

• Centralized User Management: Manage user accounts and permissions in a single location (LDAP/AD).
• Simplified Administration: Automatically grant or revoke access to Virtualizor based on group memberships.
• Improved Security: Enforce consistent security policies across your organization.
• Reduced Overhead: Eliminate the need to manage separate user accounts in Virtualizor.

Code Example (Conceptual – demonstrating LDAP authentication using Python):

This example illustrates a basic LDAP authentication process. This is not a direct integration with Virtualizor but shows how authentication against LDAP can be achieved.

import ldap

# LDAP server details
ldap_server = "ldap://your_ldap_server"
ldap_base_dn = "dc=example,dc=com"
ldap_user_dn = "ou=Users,dc=example,dc=com"

# User credentials
username = "your_username"
password = "your_password"

try:
    # Connect to the LDAP server
    ldap_connection = ldap.initialize(ldap_server)
    ldap_connection.protocol_version = ldap.VERSION3

    # Authenticate the user
    user_dn = f"cn={username},{ldap_user_dn}"  # or uid={username},{ldap_user_dn} depending on your schema
    ldap_connection.simple_bind_s(user_dn, password)

    print("Authentication successful!")

    # You would then use the username to look up group memberships
    # and map them to Virtualizor ACLs (this part requires Virtualizor API interaction)

except ldap.LDAPError as e:
    print(f"Authentication failed: {e}")
finally:
    try:
        ldap_connection.unbind_s()  # Disconnect from the LDAP server
    except:
        pass

Important Notes:

• Install the python-ldap library (pip install python-ldap).
• Replace "ldap://your_ldap_server", "dc=example,dc=com", "ou=Users,dc=example,dc=com", "your_username", and "your_password" with your actual LDAP server details and user credentials.
• The user_dn format depends on your LDAP schema.
• Error handling is included to catch potential LDAP errors.
• After successful authentication, you would need to use the Virtualizor API to assign the appropriate ACLs based on the user’s group memberships in LDAP. This involves querying LDAP for the user’s group memberships and then using the Virtualizor API to create or update the user’s ACL accordingly.

By exploring these alternative solutions, you can enhance your administrator access management strategy in Virtualizor, improve security, and streamline your administrative workflows.