NetScaler native OTP does not work for users with many group memberships

Some days ago, I have implemented one-time passwords (OTP) for NetScaler Gateway for one of my customers. This feature was added with NetScaler 12, and it’s a great way to secure NetScaler Gateway with a native NetScaler feature. Native OTP does not need any third party servers. But you need a NetScaler Enterprise license, because nFactor Authentication is a requirement.

To setup NetScaler native OTP, I followed the availbe guides on the internet.

• NetScaler Gateway 12 Native One Time Passwords (OTP) by Carl Stalhood
• NetScaler native OTP by George Spiers
• Native OTP Support by Citrix

The setup is pretty straightforward. But I used the AD extensionAttribute15  instead of userParameters, because my customer already used userParameters  for something else. Because of this, I had to change the search filter from userParameters>=#@  to extensionAttribute15>=#@ .

Everything worked as expected… except for some users, that could not register their devices properly. They were able to register their device, but a test of the OTP failed. After logoff and logon, the registered device were not available anymore. But the device was added to the extensionAttribute. While I was watching the nsvpn.log with tail -f , I discovered that the built group string for $USERNAME  seemed to be cut off (receive_ldap_user_search_event). My first guess was, that the user has too many group memberships, and indeed, the users was member for > 50 groups. So I copied the user, and the copied user had the same problem. I removed the copied user from some groups, and at some point the test of the OTP worked (on the /manageotp website).

With this information, I quickly stumbled over this thread: netscaler OTP not woring for certain users. This was EXACTLY what I discovered. The advised solution was to change the “Group Attribute” from memberOf  to userParameter , or in my case, extensionAttribute15. Problem solved!