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IBM AIX - Creating Users and Passwords

Users and Passwords

The following sections explain how to create users and passwords.

Administrative (User) Security Levels and Guidelines

Administrative functions require access logins and passwords to prevent the possibility of one administrator reallocating or removing storage resources belonging to other clients and hosts without authorization.

You assign separate passwords for the three levels of security for SANscape. You do this by setting up three users on the agents that have storage devices that are managed by SANscape. These three users are automatically added during the installation of the agent.

    The SANscape security levels must have these exact names:

  • ssmon - Represents the monitoring level of the software.


  • ssadmin - Represents the administration level of the software and provides access to the Rebuild, Parity Check, and Schedule Parity Check functions, as well as monitoring.


  • ssconfig - Represents the configuration level of the software and gives the installer direct access to the configuration functions and all other related aspects of the program.

These names are required for the three security levels. After installation, you must assign a password to each security name. ssmon, ssadmin, and ssconfig are logins that correspond only to security levels within SANscape.

SANscape can be set up so that monitoring does not require users to type the ssmon password. This is done by selecting the Auto Discovery option when the servers are added to the Managed Servers list at the console. You can set up these three logins and passwords locally on each server. (The accounts can have different passwords on each server, if desired.) Once you have set up these three logins on the agents to be managed, the system administrator typically provides user access to SANscape by assigning employees appropriate passwords, which are based on the level of security required to complete tasks. For example, everyone who has administration privileges on a particular server is assigned the same password that was established for the user ssadmin.

NOTE:To add servers to the Managed Servers List, see Adding a Server.

To Create Passwords and Permissions

Create a password for each of the new users by typing

# passwd user-name

Administrators might also want to change group permissions, which are defined in the svrlist.dat file located in the /usr/DotHill/sanscape directory during installation.

The console is a Java-based utility, and as such, cannot provide facilities to control permissions or ownership of files that SANscape creates. The svrlist.dat file is easily readable by various forms of ASCII text processors. It contains the encrypted password for the user ssmon and can be decrypted.

NOTE: Do not change the permissions and group ownership of svrlist.dat after adding all agents that are being monitored.

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