Planning Security for the MicroKernel Engine

In contrast, under Classic security, a user who successfully logs into the computer has access to the database contents, at whatever level of file system rights that the user has been assigned to the file that contains the data.

Lastly, the Mixed security policy has aspects of both of the other policies. Under this scheme, users log in using their OS user names and passwords, but then the users access rights to the data are governed by user permissions set up in the database.

Choosing Your Policy

This section describes some of the major reasons you might choose one security policy over another.

Reasons to Choose Classic

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You are comfortable with your users having file system access to your data files. For example, any user with rights to delete records from the data file can also delete the entire file from your operating system.

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You want the minimum administrative hassle; you don’t want to set up both OS user accounts for each user and at least one database account.

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You do not need to have a variety of data access rights that vary from each user’s file system rights.

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You don’t want your users to have a separate login for the database.

Reasons to Choose Mixed

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You don’t want your users to have a separate login for the database.

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You want to prevent valid database users from having any rights to the data files on the operating system. For example, you can prevent users who have all rights in the database from having rights to delete data files from the operating system.

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You are willing to set up database user accounts that have the same user names as OS user accounts, and you are willing to assign permissions to each database user. If you choose, all of your users can have the same level of permissions by inheriting them from the special group PUBLIC.

Reasons to Choose Database

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You want to have a separate login for the database. That is, after logging into the operating system, users must log in again to the database. This behavior is useful when some authorized computer users are permitted access to the database and some are not.

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You want database user accounts that use different names than the operating system accounts. For example, operating system user jsmith might be required to log in to the database as john.

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The users and their permissions stay with the database, not with the server or machine. This allows you to move a database from one machine to another without having to recreate the users and their permissions for the database.

Preparing to Set Up Security

Setting up security for the MicroKernel Engine is a simple process, but it affords enough flexibility that some preparation is necessary. This section describes the information you should know before you begin to set up Btrieve security.

How Many Databases?

For Mixed or Database security, you must either assign all users the same level of permissions, or create a set of defined users for each database.

In some cases where your Btrieve data files encompass two or more completely unrelated bodies of data, you may want to set up two or more separate databases, each with its own set of authorized users. Generally speaking, however, you want to minimize the number of separate databases so that you do not have to create and maintain multiple sets of defined users. Often, a single database is sufficient. User permissions within the database will allow you to regulate each user’s access to the database, so you do not need to create separate databases just to limit certain users’ access.

If you determine that you need only one database, you may use the pre-existing database, DefaultDB, as the database associated with your Btrieve files. You may also set up your own named database instead.

Where are the Data Files?

You associate a Btrieve data file with a database by specifying the directory containing the data file as a Data Directory for the given named database. Thus, you need to know the directories containing all the data files that you want to associate with the database. If all the data files reside in a sub-directory tree within a specific directory, all you need to know is the top-level directory path name. You can even use "C:\" if you wish to include all data files on the hard drive.

What are the User Names?

If you plan to use Mixed security, you must either assign all users the same permissions, or set up user accounts for the users whose rights differ. If you are going to set up individual users, you must have a list of the operating system user names that you want to make into database user names. The database user names that you set up must match the operating system user names exactly. You can always add additional user names later, but it is more efficient to create several users at once.

What Security Policy?

Before you set up security, you must know what policy you plan to use. The setup process varies somewhat for each policy. Considerations in choosing a policy are presented in Choosing Your Policy.

Process Overview

This section outlines the high-level procedure used to set up security for a database. Detailed, step-by-step instructions are provided in the section that follows.

Preparation. As specified above in Preparing to Set Up Security, gather the information you need and make the decisions necessary to get started. How many databases? Where are the Btrieve files located? What are the user names? What security policy will you use?

Select a database to use with your Btrieve files, and populate the database with the data directory specifying the location of your data files. This step is only necessary for Mixed or Database security.

For details on this step, see To use an existing database, including the predefined DefaultDB, with your PSQL files in PSQL User's Guide.

Turn on security.

For details on this step, see To turn on security using PSQL Explorer in PSQL User's Guide.

Create users and permissions. Using SQL statements or PCC, create your user accounts and/or relevant user privileges. This step is only necessary for Mixed or Database security.

For the fastest, easiest way to grant users access, see To assign permissions to all users using PSQL Explorer in PSQL User's Guide.

Set the Btrieve Security for your database to Mixed or Database.

For details on this step, see To set or change the security policy for a database in PSQL User's Guide.

Secure the data files in the operating system. For Mixed or Database security, users now can access the data without having any rights to access the data files in the operating system. Refer to your operating system documentation for information on securing access to files.

Summary of Tasks for MicroKernel Engine Security

The following table illustrates the basic level of effort required using the different security models. The tasks required to implement the security models, see Security Tasks in PSQL User's Guide.

Table 26