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Configuring a Read-Only LDAP User Store

User management functionality is provided by default in all MWARE Carbon-based products and is configured in the deployment.toml file found in the <API-M_HOME>/repository/conf/ directory and the changes will be automatically applied to user-mgt.xml file in <API-M_HOME>/repository/conf/ directory as well. This file is shipped with user store manager configurations for all possible user store types (JDBC, read-only LDAP/Active Directory, read-write LDAP and read-write Active directory). The instructions given below explains how to configure a read-only LDAP as the primary user store for the ESB server.

Info

The default User Store

The primary user store that is configured by default in the user-mgt.xml file is a JDBC user store, which reads/writes into the internal database of the product server. By default, the internal database is H2 for all MWARE products excluding the Identity Server.

Note that the RDBMS used in the default configuration can remain as the database used for storing Authorization information.

Follow the given steps to configure a read-only LDAP/AD as the primary user store:

• Step 1: Setting up the read-only LDAP/AD user store manager
• Step 2: Updating the system administrator
• Step 3: Starting the server

Step 1: Setting up the read-only LDAP/AD user store manager

Info

ESB is compatible with multiple user store. In MWARE IAM, the embedded user store is LDAP. Instead of using the embedded user store, you can set your own user store as the primary user store.

Before you begin

• Navigate to <API-M_HOME>/repository/conf directory to open deployment.toml file and do user_store_properties configurations according to the LDAP user store provider. Following is the sample read-only user store configurations:

  [user_store.properties] 
  TenantManager="org.wso2.carbon.user.core.tenant.CommonHybridLDAPTenantManager"
  ConnectionURL="ldap://localhost:10390"
  ConnectionName="uid=admin,ou=system"
  ConnectionPassword="admin"
  AnonymousBind="false"
  UserNameAttribute="uid"
  UserNameSearchFilter="(&(objectClass=person)(uid=?))"
  ReadGroups="true"
  GroupSearchBase="ou=system,CN=Users,DC=wso2,DC=test"
  GroupNameAttribute="cn"
  GroupNameSearchFilter="(&(objectClass=groupOfNames)(cn=?))"
  GroupNameListFilter="(objectClass=groupOfNames)"
  MembershipAttribute="member"
  BackLinksEnabled="false"
  UsernameJavaRegEx="[a-zA-Z0-9._\\-|//]{3,30}$"
  PasswordJavaRegEx="^[\\S]{5,30}$"
  SCIMEnabled="true"
  PasswordHashMethod="PLAIN_TEXT"
  MultiAttributeSeparator=","
  MaxUserNameListLength="100"
  MaxRoleNameListLength="100"
  UserRolesCacheEnabled="true"
  LDAPConnectionTimeout=5000
  ReplaceEscapeCharactersAtUserLogin="true"
  ConnectionRetryDelay="120000"
  GroupSearchFilter="(objectClass=groupOfNames)"
  UserEntryObjectClass="identityPerson"
  IsBulkImportSupported="true"
  defaultRealmName="WSO2.ORG"
  EmptyRolesAllowed="true"
  UserSearchBase="ou=Users,dc=wso2,dc=org"            
  ConnectionPoolingEnabled="false"
  StartTLSEnabled="false"
  WriteGroups="true"
  RolenameJavaRegEx="[a-zA-Z0-9._\\-|//]{3,30}$"
  GroupEntryObjectClass="groupOfNames"
  EnableMaxUserLimitForSCIM="false"
  PasswordJavaRegExViolationErrorMsg="Password length should be within 5 to 30 characters"
  PasswordJavaScriptRegEx="^[\\S]{5,30}$"
  UsernameJavaRegExViolationErrorMsg="Username pattern policy violated"
  UserNameListFilter="(objectClass=person)"
  UsernameJavaScriptRegEx="^[\\S]{3,30}$"
  kdcEnabled="false"

• The class attribute for a read-only LDAP/Active Directory is org.wso2.carbon.user.core.ldap.ReadOnlyLDAPUserStoreManager.

  [user_store]
  class="org.wso2.carbon.user.core.ldap.ReadOnlyLDAPUserStoreManager"
  type = "read_only_ldap"

Note

Note that these configurations will automatically applied to the user-mgt.xml file so you do not need to edit it.

Given below is a sample for the LDAP/AD user store configuration in read-only mode. You can change the values to match your LDAP/AD in deployment.toml file. For descriptions on each of the properties used in the <API-M_HOME>/repository/conf/deployment.toml file which are used for configuring the primary user store , see Properties of User Stores. The configuration for the external read-only user store in the user-mgt.xml file looks as follows for the above configurations:

<UserManager>
  <Realm>
    <UserStoreManager class="org.wso2.carbon.user.core.ldap.ReadOnlyLDAPUserStoreManager">
        <Property name="IsBulkImportSupported">true</Property>
        <Property name="MaxUserNameListLength">100</Property>
        <Property name="defaultRealmName">WSO2.ORG</Property>
        <Property name="MultiAttributeSeparator">,</Property>
        <Property name="EmptyRolesAllowed">true</Property>
        <Property name="ConnectionPassword">admin</Property>
        <Property name="UserNameUniqueAcrossTenants">false</Property>
        <Property name="StoreSaltedPassword">true</Property>
        <Property name="TenantManager">org.wso2.carbon.user.core.tenant.CommonHybridLDAPTenantManager</Property>
        <Property name="UserSearchBase">ou=Users,dc=wso2,dc=org</Property>
        <Property name="GroupNameSearchFilter">(&amp;(objectClass=groupOfNames)(cn=?))</Property>
        <Property name="ConnectionPoolingEnabled">false</Property>
        <Property name="StartTLSEnabled">false</Property>
        <Property name="CaseInsensitiveUsername">true</Property>
        <Property name="UserNameSearchFilter">(&amp;(objectClass=person)(uid=?))</Property>
        <Property name="LDAPConnectionTimeout">5000</Property>
        <Property name="UserNameAttribute">uid</Property>
        <Property name="GroupNameAttribute">cn</Property>
        <Property name="UsernameJavaRegEx">[a-zA-Z0-9._\-|//]{3,30}$</Property>
        <Property name="WriteGroups">true</Property>
        <Property name="AnonymousBind">false</Property>
        <Property name="ConnectionName">uid=admin,ou=system</Property>
        <Property name="ConnectionURL">ldap://localhost:10390</Property>
        <Property name="RolenameJavaScriptRegEx">^[\S]{3,30}$</Property>
        <Property name="GroupSearchFilter">(objectClass=groupOfNames)</Property>
        <Property name="RolenameJavaRegEx">[a-zA-Z0-9._\-|//]{3,30}$</Property>
        <Property name="GroupEntryObjectClass">groupOfNames</Property>
        <Property name="PasswordJavaRegEx">^[\S]{5,30}$</Property>
        <Property name="EnableMaxUserLimitForSCIM">false</Property>
        <Property name="PasswordHashMethod">PLAIN_TEXT</Property>
        <Property name="GroupSearchBase">ou=system,CN=Users,DC=wso2,DC=test</Property>
        <Property name="ReadGroups">true</Property>
        <Property name="ReplaceEscapeCharactersAtUserLogin">true</Property>
        <Property name="ConnectionRetryDelay">120000</Property>
        <Property name="MembershipAttribute">member</Property>
        <Property name="UserEntryObjectClass">identityPerson</Property>
        <Property name="PasswordJavaRegExViolationErrorMsg">Password length should be within 5 to 30 characters</Property>
        <Property name="MaxRoleNameListLength">100</Property>
        <Property name="PasswordJavaScriptRegEx">^[\S]{5,30}$</Property>
        <Property name="BackLinksEnabled">false</Property>
        <Property name="UsernameJavaRegExViolationErrorMsg">Username pattern policy violated</Property>
        <Property name="UserRolesCacheEnabled">true</Property>
        <Property name="GroupNameListFilter">(objectClass=groupOfNames)</Property>
        <Property name="SCIMEnabled">true</Property>
        <Property name="PasswordDigest">SHA-256</Property>
        <Property name="UserNameListFilter">(objectClass=person)</Property>
        <Property name="UsernameJavaScriptRegEx">^[\S]{3,30}$</Property>
        <Property name="ReadOnly">false</Property>
        <Property name="kdcEnabled">false</Property>
    </UserStoreManager>
  </Realm>
</UserManager>

1. Update the connection details to match your user store. For example:

   ConnectionURL="ldap://localhost:10390"

   For Active Directory, the connection URL should have the following format:

   ConnectionURL="ldap://<AD host-ip>:<AD_listen_port>"

   Note

   If you are using ldaps (secured LDAP) to connect to the LDAP/Active Directory:

   • You need set the ConnectionURL as shown below.

     ConnectionURL="ldaps://10.100.1.100:636"

   • For Active Directory, you need to import the certificate of Active Directory to the client-truststore.jks of the MWARE product. For information on how to add certificates to the truststore and how keystores are configured and used in a system, see Using Asymmetric Encryption .

   • You also need to enable connection pooling for LDAPS connections at the time of starting your server, which will enhance server performance.

2. Obtain a user who has permission to read all users/attributes and perform searches on the user store from your LDAP/Active Directory administrator. For example, if the privileged user is admin and the password is admin, update the following sections of the user store configuration as shown below. Note that this user does NOT have to be the system administrator that you define here .

   ConnectionName="uid=admin,ou=system"
   ConnectionPassword="admin"

3. Update UserSearchBase with the directory name where the users are stored. When LDAP searches for users, it will start from this location of the directory.

   UserSearchBase="ou=system"

4. Set the attribute to use as the username, typically either cn or uid for LDAP. Ideally, UserNameAttribute and UserNameSearchFilter should refer to the same attribute. If you are not sure what attribute is available in your user store, check with your LDAP/Active Directory administrator. For example:

   UserNameAttribute="uid"
   UserNameSearchFilter="(&(objectClass=person)(uid=?))"

5. Set the ReadGroups property to 'true', if it should be allowed to read roles from this user store. When this property is 'true', you must also specify values for the GroupSearchBase , GroupSearchFilter and GroupNameAttribute properties. If the ReadGroups property is set to 'false', only Users can be read from the user store. You can set the configuration to read roles from the user store by reading the user/role mapping based on a membership (user list) or back link attribute as shown below. To read the user/role mapping based on a membership (This is used by the ApacheDirectory server and OpenLDAP) :

   • Enable the ReadGroups property.

     ReadGroups="true"

   • Set the GroupSearchBase property to the directory name where the Roles are stored. That is, the roles you create using the management console of your product will be stored in this directory location. Also, when LDAP searches for users, it will start from this location of the directory. For example:

     GroupSearchBase="ou=system,CN=Users,DC=wso2,DC=test"

   • Set the GroupSearchFilter and GroupNameAttributes. For example:

     GroupSearchFilter="(objectClass=groupOfNames)"
     GroupNameAttribute="cn"

   • Set the MembershipAttribute property as shown below:

     MembershipAttribute="member"

     To read roles based on a backlink attribute, use the following code snippet instead of the above:

     ReadGroups="true"
     GroupSearchBase="ou=system,CN=Users,DC=wso2,DC=test"
     GroupSearchFilter="(objectClass=groupOfNames)"
     GroupNameAttribute="cn"
     MembershipAttribute="member"
     BackLinksEnabled="false"
     MembershipOfAttribute="memberOf"

6. For Active Directory, you can use Referral="follow to enable referrals within the user store. The AD user store may be partitioned into multiple domains. However, according to the use store configurations in the deployment.toml file, we are only connecting to one of the domains. Therefore, when a request for an object is received to the user store, the Referral="follow" property ensures that all the domains in the directory will be searched to locate the requested object.

7. In MWARE products based on Carbon 4.5.x, you can set the LDAPConnectionTimeout property: If the connection to the LDAP is inactive for the length of time (in milliseconds) specified by this property, the connection will be terminated.

Step 2: Updating the system administrator

The admin user is the super tenant that will be able to manage all other users, roles and permissions in the system by using the management console of the product. Therefore, the user that should have admin permissions is required to be stored in the user store when you start the system for the first time. By default, the system will create an admin user in the LDAP that has admin permissions. But this cannot be done it the LDAP user store is read-only. Hence that capability should be disabled as follows:

[super_admin]
username = "admin"
admin_role = "admin"
create_admin_account = false

• create_admin_account: This should be set to 'False' as it will not be allowed to create users and roles in a read-only user store.
• admin_role: The admin role you enter here should already exist in the read-only user store. Otherwise, you must enter an internal role, which will be saved to the internal database of the system when the system starts the first time.
• username: Since we are configuring a read-only LDAP as the primary user store, the user that should have admin permissions is required to be stored in the user store when you start the system for the first time. For example, say a valid username is AdminSOA. Update the admin_role section of your configuration as shown above. You do not have to update the password element as it is already set in the user store.

If the user store can be written to, you can add the super tenant user to the user store. Therefore, create_admin_account should be set to true as shown below.

[super_admin]
username = "admin"
admin_role = "admin"
create_admin_account = true

For information information about the system administrator user, see Configuring the System Administrator , and for information on how keystores are used in MWARE products, see Using Asymmetric Encryption .

Step 3: Starting the server

Start your server and try to log in as the admin user you specified. The password is the admin user's password in the LDAP server.

Properties used in Read-only LDAP user store manager

The following are the minimum configurations that are needed to be provided to configure the Read-only LDAP user store manager.

Configuration Name	Display Name	Description
type	User Store Type	Type of the user store manager that we are using. For Read-only LDAP user store manager this value should be read_only_ldap.
base_dn	User Search Base	DN of the context or object under which the user entries are stored in the user store. When the user store searches for users, it will start from this location of the directory Sample values: ou=Users,dc=wso2,dc=org

Following are the minimum user store properties that are needed to be provided to configure Read-only LDAP user store manager.

Property Id	Primary User Store Property	Secondary User Store Property	Description
ConnectionURL	connection_url	Connection URL	Connection URL to the user store server. In the case of default LDAP in Carbon, the port is specified in the carbon.xml file, and a reference to that port is included in this configuration. Sample values: ldap://10.100.1.100:389 ldaps://10.100.1.102:639 If you are connecting over ldaps (secured LDAP) Need to import the certificate of user store to the client-truststore.jks of the MWARE product. For information on how to add certificates to the truststore and how keystores are configured and used in a system, see Using Asymmetric Encryption. Using asymmetric encryption If LDAP connection pooling is used, see enable connection pooling for LDAPS connections.
ConnectionName	connection_name	Connection Name	The username used to connect to the user store and perform various operations. This user does not need to be an administrator in the user store or have an administrator role in the MWARE product that you are using, but this user MUST have permissions to read the user list and users' attributes and to perform search operations on the user store. The value you specify is used as the DN (Distinguish Name) attribute of the user who has sufficient permissions to perform operations on users and roles in LDAP This property is mandatory. Sample values: uid=admin,ou=system
ConnectionPassword	connection_password	Connection Password	Password for the ConnectionName user.

Any of the following properties can be configured for the PRIMARY user store by adding them as follows to <API-M_HOME>/repository/conf/deployment.toml.

Property Id	Primary User Store Property	Secondary User Store Property	Description
UserEntryObjectClass	user_entry_object_class	User Entry Object Class	Object class used to construct user entries. Default: identityPerson
UserNameAttribute	user_name_attribute	Username Attribute	The attribute used for uniquely identifying a user entry. Users can be authenticated using their email address, UID, etc. The name of the attribute is considered as the username. Default: uid Note: email address is considered as a special case in MWARE products, if you want to set the email address as username, see Using email address as the username
UserNameSearchFilter	user_name_search_filter	User Search Filter	Filtering criteria used to search for a particular user entry. Default : (&(objectClass=person)(uid=?))
UserNameListFilter	user_name_list_filter	User List Filter	Filtering criteria for searching user entries in the user store. This query or filter is used when doing search operations on users with different search attributes. Default: (objectClass=person) In this case, the search operation only provides the objects created from the person object class.
UserDNPattern	user_dn_pattern	User DN Pattern	The pattern for the user's DN, which can be defined to improve the search. When there are many user entries in the LDAP user store, defining a UserDNPattern provides more impact on performances as the LDAP does not have to travel through the entire tree to find users. Sample values: uid={0},ou=Users,dc=wso2,dc=org
DisplayNameAttribute	display_name_attribute	Display name attribute	This is an optional property. The Display Name Attribute is the name by which users will be listed when you list users in the management console. Default: blank
ReadGroups	read_groups	Read Groups	When WriteGroups is set to false, this Indicates whether groups should be read from the user store. If this is disabled by setting it to false, none of the groups in the user store can be read, and the following group configurations are NOT mandatory: GroupSearchBase, GroupNameListFilter, or GroupNameAttribute. Default: true Possible values: true: Read groups from user store false: Don’t read groups from user store
WriteGroups	write_groups	Write Groups	Indicates whether groups should be write to the user store. Default: true Possible values: true: Write groups to user store false: Do not write groups to user store, so only internal roles can be created. Depend on the value of ReadGroups property, it will read existing groups from user store or not
GroupSearchBase	group_search_base	Group Search Base	DN of the context or object under which the group entries are stored in the user store. When the user store searches for groups, it will start from this location of the directory Default: ou=Groups,dc=wso2,dc=org
GroupEntryObjectClass	group_entry_object_class	Group Entry Object Class	Object class used to construct group entries. Default: groupOfNames
GroupNameAttribute	group_name_attribute	Group Name Attribute	Attribute used for uniquely identifying a group entry. This attribute is to be treated as the group name. Default: cn
GroupNameSearchFilter	group_name_search_filter	Group Search Filter	Filtering criteria used to search for a particular group entry. Default: (&(objectClass=groupOfNames)(cn=?))
GroupNameListFilter	group_name_list_filter	Group List Filter	Filtering criteria for searching group entries in the user store. This query or filter is used when doing search operations on groups with different search attributes. Default: ((objectClass=groupOfNames)) In this case, the search operation only provides the objects created from the groupOfName object class.
RoleDNPattern	role_dn_pattern	Role DN Pattern	The pattern for the group's DN, which can be defined to improve the search. When there are many group entries in the LDAP user store, defining a RoleDNPattern provides more impact on performances as the LDAP does not have to traverse through the entire tree to find a group. Sample values: cn={0},ou=Groups,dc=wso2,dc=org
MembershipAttribute	membership_attribute_range	Membership Attribute	Defines the attribute that contains the distinguished names (DN) of user objects that are in a group. Default: member
MemberOfAttribute	member_of_attribute	Member Of Attribute	Define the attribute that contains the distinguished names (DN ) of group objects that user is assigned to. Possible values: memberOf
BackLinksEnabled	back_links_enabled	Enable Back Links	Defines whether the back link support is enabled. If you are using MemberOfAttribute attributes this should be set to 'true'. Default : false
UsernameJavaRegEx	username_java_regex	Username RegEx (Java)	The regular expression used by the back-end components for username validation. By default, strings with non-empty characters have a length of 3 to 30 allowed. You can provide ranges of alphabets, numbers and also ranges of ASCII values in the RegEx properties. Default: [a-zA-Z0-9.-|//]{3,30}$</td> </tr> <tr class="even"> <td>UsernameJava<br>ScriptRegEx</td> <td>username_java<br>_script_regex</td> <td>Username RegEx (JavaScript)</td> <td>The regular expression used by the front-end components for username validation.<br /> Default: ^[\S]{3,30}$
UsernameJavaReg ExViolationErrorMsg	username_java_reg _ex_violation_error_msg	Username RegEx Violation Error Message	Error message when the Username is not matched with UsernameJavaRegEx Default: Username pattern policy violated
PasswordJavaRegEx	password_java_regex	Password RegEx (Java)	The regular expression used by the back-end components for password validation. By default, strings with non-empty characters have a length of 5 to 30 allowed. You can provide ranges of alphabets, numbers and also ranges of ASCII values in the RegEx properties. Default: ^[\S]{5,30}$</td> </tr> <tr class="odd"> <td>PasswordJava<br>ScriptRegEx</td> <td>password_java<br>_script_regex</td> <td>Password RegEx (JavaScript)</td> <td>The regular expression used by the front-end components for password validation.<br /> Default: ^[\S]{5,30}$
PasswordJavaReg ExViolationErrorMsg	password_java_reg ex_violation_error_msg	Password RegEx Violation Error Message	Error message when the Password is not matched with passwordJavaRegEx Default: Password length should be within 5 to 30 characters
RolenameJavaRegEx	rolename_java_regex	Role Name RegEx (Java)	The regular expression used by the back-end components for role name validation. By default, strings with non-empty characters have a length of 3 to 30 allowed. You can provide ranges of alphabets, numbers and also ranges of ASCII values in the RegEx properties. Default: [a-zA-Z0-9.-|//]{3,30}$
SCIMEnabled	scim_enabled	Enable SCIM	This is to configure whether user store is supported for SCIM provisioning. Possible values: True : User store support for SCIM provisioning. False: User does not store support for SCIM provisioning. Default: false
PasswordHashMethod	password_hash_method	Password Hashing Algorithm	Specifies the Password Hashing Algorithm used the hash the password before storing in the user store. Possible values: SHA - Uses SHA digest method. SHA-1, SHA-256 MD5 - Uses MD 5 digest method. PLAIN_TEXT - Plain text passwords.(Default) If you just configure as SHA, It is considered as SHA-1, It is always better to configure algorithm with higher bit value as digest bit size would be increased. Most of the LDAP servers (such as OpenLDAP, OpenDJ, AD, ApacheDS and etc..) are supported to store password as salted hashed values (SSHA) Therefore WSO2IS server just wants to feed password into the connected user store as a plain text value. Then LDAP user store can store them as salted hashed value. To feed the plain text into the LDAP server, you need to set PasswordHashMethod to “PLAIN_TEXT” But; if your LDAP does not support to store user password as hashed values. You can configure ESB server to hash the password and feeds the hashed password into the LDAP server. Then you need to configure PasswordHashMethod property with SHA (SHA-1), SHA-256, SHA-512. Please note MWARE server cannot create a salted hashed password (SSHA) to feed into the LDAP.
MultiAttribute Separator	multi_attribute separator	Multiple Attribute Separator	This property is used to define a character to separate multiple attributes. This ensures that it will not appear as part of a claim value. Normally “,” is used to separate multiple attributes, but you can define ",,," or "..." or a similar character sequence Default: “,”
MaxUserName ListLength	max_user_name _list_length	Maximum User List Length	Controls the number of users listed in the user store of a MWARE product. This is useful when you have a large number of users and don't want to list them all. Setting this property to 0 displays all users. Default: 100 In some user stores, there are policies to limit the number of records that can be returned from the query. Setting the value 0 it will list the maximum results returned by the user store. If you need to increase that you need to set it in the user store level. Eg : Active directory has the MaxPageSize property with the default value 1000.
MaxRoleName ListLength	max_role_name list_length	Maximum Role List Length	Controls the number of roles listed in the user store of a MWARE product. This is useful when you have a large number of roles and don't want to list them all. Setting this property to 0 displays all roles. Default: 100 In some user stores, there are policies to limit the number of records that can be returned from the query, Setting the value 0 it will list the maximum results returned by the user store. If you need to increase that you need to set it n the user store level. Eg: Active directory has the MaxPageSize property with the default value 1000.
kdcEnabled	kdc_enabled	Enable KDC	If your user store is capable of acting as a Kerberos, Key Distribution Center (KDC) and if you like to enable it, set this property to true. Default: false
UserRoles CacheEnabled	user_roles_ cache_enabled	Enable User Role Cache	This is to indicate whether to cache the role list of a user. Default: true Possible values: false: Set it to false if the user roles are changed by external means and those changes should be instantly reflected in the Carbon instance. Default: true
Connection PoolingEnabled	connection_ pooling_enabled	Enable LDAP Connection Pooling	Define whether LDAP connection pooling is enabled Possible values: True: Enable connection pooling. Enabling it will improve the performance False: Disable connection pooling Default: false
LDAPConnection Timeout	ldap_connection timeout	LDAP Connection Timeout	Timeout in making the initial LDAP connection. This is configured in milliseconds. Default: 5000
ReadTimeout	read_timeout	LDAP Read Timeout	The value of this property is the read timeout in milliseconds for LDAP operations. If the LDAP provider cannot get a LDAP response within that period, it aborts the read attempt. The integer should be greater than zero. An integer less than or equal to zero means no read timeout is specified which is equivalent to waiting for the response infinitely until it is received. Default: not configured
Membership AttributeRange	membership attribute_range	Membership Attribute Range	This is to define the maximum users of role returned by the LDAP/AD user store. This does not depend on the max page size of the user store. Default: not configured
RetryAttempts	retry_attempts	Retry Attempts	Retry the authentication request if a timeout happened Default: not configured
LDAPConnection Timeout	ldap_connection _timeout	LDAP Connection Timeout	If the connection to the LDAP is inactive for the length of time (in milliseconds) specified by this property, the connection will be terminated. Default: not configured Sample: 20

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