ODBC Security

[Guest.Visitor]

Well, an Exit Program is not the only way, but it is often the most effective and efficient way to implement security on iSeries machines that have traditional security models. And to be clear, ODBC in and of itself, does not represent a security exposure, but rather it (and other network access points such as FTP, DDM, etc.) allows your users to exploit an existing security exposure that plagues most iSeries installations. What ODBC does is bring your pre-existing security problem into sharper focus. At the heart of the matter is whether an end user has OS/400 object level access to data. ODBC cannot magically grant access when a user requests to read or change data through PC applications such as MS Excel. The ODBC driver inside Excel is still required to present a users OS/400 credentials to your operating system, and the operating system will still insist that the user has proper authority before granting access to your data. But if you are running a typical OS/400 application your application users have *ALL rights to the data by virtue of there membership in a some powerful Group Profile. In our practice we often find that the general public (*PUBLIC) has at least *CHANGE rights to application data. If this is the case in your shop you have two basic routes you can go. Rearrange your fundamental security model, or install network security exit programs. If you have the time, resources, and enough detailed knowledge of your software package to rearrange your security model, then you will want to focus on five primary areas of improvement. Exclude Based Posture, Proper Ownership, Meaningful Group Profile(s), Objects secured by Authorization Lists, and Program Authority Adoption, The Exclude based posture means that you will remove every users individual access to all of the data, and then changing *PUBLIC’s authority to *EXCLUDE on every file. This step is designed to refuse any attempted access to your data except as defined by you in the steps below. Once the general public is properly excluded from the application, you should look to setting Proper Ownership of your application objects. Do this by creating a series of special Owner User Profiles. One profile will own (nearly) all of the objects in the application (the Application Owner Profile). For future reference, lets call the set of objects owned by this user Object Set A. Next, create a series of Application Administration Profiles that will be used to give certain users access to the application. These Application Administration User profiles will each own a small number of programs and allow those programs to adopt the authority of the Application Administration User Profiles. For future reference the objects that are owned by these profiles will be referred to as Object Sets B through n. These Application Administration User Profiles will roughly match your Application Group Profiles (described later) on a one to one basis. The purpose of the Application Administration User Profiles is to grant your Users access to the data. More on that later. These new special Owner User Profile do not need passwords, any Special Authorities, nor should they be group profiles for any other system user. There primary purpose is to own the application objects and to give away as few of those ownership rights as possible. To create meaningful Group Profiles you will want to segregate your existing users into distinct Group Profiles that can be secured to specific job functions. Logical groups of users in an organization might include AP personnel, AR personnel, Shipping Dock workers, Order Entry Operators, Payroll Staff, Department Supervisors, Senior Managers, and so on. The general idea here is to tightly scope the job function so that a group of users can be given very specific action rights. Create the Group Profiles with meaningful names and assign each user to at least one group. In some cases you will need to assign a use to more than one group (the payroll Supervisor, for example might belong to both the Payroll Group and the Supervisor Group), but that won’t be a problem because Group Profile authority in OS/400 is cumulative. Once the Group Profiles and are set, you’ll want to set use two authorization lists to secure all of the objects in Object Set A. All of the data elements should be secure by one Authorization List, and all of the programs (and other static, non changing objects) should be secured should be secured by the second authorization list. Next grant the *PUBLIC *EXCLUDE authority to both lists, and grant all of the Application Administration User Profiles *CHANGE authority to the Data Authorization List and *USE authority to the Program Authorization list. To complete this step you will secure each of the Object Set’s B through n with their corresponding authorization list. Again *PUBLIC will have *EXCLUDE authority to the objects on this list. Finally, you can tie this whole scheme together by granting the various Group Profiles *USE authority to the corresponding Adopted Authority programs. Now when your users attempt to run your applications the flow will go something like this: · Mary belongs to the Group Profile OrderEntry. · The Group Profile OrderEntry has *USE right to the program OE01 through the authorization list that secures program OE01. · When program OE01 is called, it adopts the authority of Application Administration User Profile OEADMIN. · Application Administration User Profile OEADMIN has *CHANGE rights to the data in the application and *USE rights to the programs and other static objects in the application. · When Mary chooses a menu option that attempts to update the Order Entry file, she is allowed to because her job is adopting the authority of user OEADMIN. · If Mary attempts to read the Order Entry file using ODBC, she is denied access because neither User Profile Mary, or Group Profile OrderEntry has any direct authority to the file. This security model is quite secure, but if your tempted to right to me and tell me it is either confusing, too difficult to implement on software packages that you purchased, or not workable because some of your users need read or update rights to some of your data via ODBC, save the electrons – I whole heartedly agree. This is why most OS/400 shops elect to use exit programs to secure network access from PC applications. Exit programs have the advantage of being simpler to implement (especially if you purchase them rather than try to write them yourself), and less disruptive than a complete security re-org. With exit programs at the FTP, ODBC, and other various network interfaces you can quickly take an Exclude Based posture. That is, exclude *PUBLIC from using the ODBC server at all, and then, if necessary, allow certain users to have just read access. You can even provide limited data update rights to your data if you have users that you trust to do that. So, no, an exit program is not the only way to secure data from ODBC, but unless you have a lot of time on your hands, it’s likely the best way. jte

[Guest.Visitor]

ODBC Security

Can anyone tell me how to set up ODBC Security on our AS/400? Is an Exit Program the only way to do this?

[dsager@packagingcorp.com]

ODBC Security

What are you trying to do with ODBC? Open up data to PC-based applications? Write client-server applications? Or just keep anyone using CA/400 from installing (using) an ODBC driver? Keeping everyone out is a relatively straightforward process. As John pointed out, you need to have all of your applications owned by a "super user" and set to using adopted authority. From there it simply becomes a matter of changing all of your file objects to have the "super user" having *CHANGE authority and *PUBLIC having *EXCLUDE authority. (Using PDM's user-defined options is an easy was to set up a global object re-definition command.) Allowing a "look but don't touch" option can be done by setting *PUBLIC to *USE. If you are developing client-server applications, you may want to consider imbedding a "super user" user ID in you app's. (Note that this option has some additional considerations if you are noting "last updated by user" information from your client-side app, as you will need to first establish your connection by having the user sign on and then switch to the profile that has data access.) Variations on these could include... - specific group profiles having *USE authority on (some of) your files (i.e. giving your accountants who love Excel read access to your accounting-related files). - creating multiple database libraries to separate your data. The data could be separated by area (i.e. A/R, A/P, order processing) or by the options that can be performed (i.e. "files that can be updated by a VB app"). Any of these solutions need to be reviewed before implementing. Like John pointed out, the key is to keep *PUBLIC out of your data.