Coldfusion provides the Coldfusion Administrator as a way to define Data Source Names (DSNs) that we can use to connect to various databases. My question is this - Say I define the following DSNs in the administrator:
DSN1
DSN2
DSN3 etc.
We have a shared server situation and do not want all the programmers who are using the server to have access to all of the above DSNs (I believe by default, if they knew the DSN name, they could simply use it). So for example, we may want programmer X to be able to use DSN1 but not DSN2 and DSN3.
Is there a way to prevent/restrict access to DSNs in a situation like the above?
Thanks in advance for any insights.
yes you need to enable security sandboxes and restrict each site to only have access to its own DSN's
I am entirely new to MS Dynamics and have inherited an MS Dynamics environment with my new job. I replaced an employee who had sole ownership and knowledge about the Dynamics set up.
So I am slowly going through all the database tables and fields attempting to learn.
I have come across a problem which is, when I attempt to open a Timecard Correction module I get an "You do not have proper access rights for this screen" message.
Would someone kindly describe to me what I must do in order to be able to access this screen using my user account?
Note that I have access to the SQL Server databases. And I could only find a "Database Maintenence" application for Dynamics as well as the end user application.
FYI this is what I see when I open MS Dynamics.....
Does anyone in your organization have access to this? If so, then you can check that user's privileges and apply them to your own login. It could be a license issue if no one can access it. In that case, you may have to contact your Microsoft partner that you purchased NAV from to get proper licensing. Good luck.
It was privileges in the end - I found a SYSADMIN account and that did the trick!
thanks.
I am writing a C++ application with a postgresql 9.2 database backend. It is an accounting software. It is a muti user application with privilege separation features.
I need help in implementing the user account system. The privileges for users need not be mutually exclusive. Should I implement it at the application level, or at the database level?
The company is not very large at present. Assume about 15-20 offices with an average of 10 program users per office.
Can I make use of the roles in postgres to implement this? Will it become too tedious, unmanageable or are there some flaws in such an approach?
If I go via the application route, how do I store the set of privileges a user has? Will a binary string suffice? What if there are additional privileges later, how can I incorporate them? What do I need to do to ensure that there are no security issues? And in such an approach I am assuming the application connects with the privileges required for the most privileged user.
Some combination of the two methods? Or something entirely different?
All suggestions and arguments are welcome.
Never provide authorization from a client application, which is run on uncontrolled environment. And every device, that a user has physical access to, is an uncontrolled environment. This is security through obscurity — a user can simply use a debugger to get a database access credentials from client program memory and just use psql to do anything.
Use roles.
When I was developing an C++/PostgreSQL desktop application I've chosen to disallow all users access to modify all tables and I've created an API using Pl/PgSQL functions with VOLATILE SECURITY DEFINER options. But I think it wasn't a best approach, as it's not natural and error prone to use for example:
select add_person(?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?);
I think a better way would be to allow modifications to tables which a user needs to modify and, when needed, enforce authorization using BEFORE triggers, which would throw an error when current_user does not belong to a proper role.
But remember to use set search_path=... option in all functions that have anything to do with security.
If you want to authorize read-only access to some tables then it gets even more complicated. Either you'd need to disable select privilege for these tables and create API using security definer functions for accessing all data. This would be a monster size API, extremely ugly and extremely fragile. Or you'd need to disable select privilege for these tables and create views for them using create view with (security_barrier). Also not pretty.
These two APIs are very similar but it is unclear what the differences are and when each should be used (Except that LoadUserProfile is specified for use with CreateProcessAsUser which I am not using. I am simply impersonating for hive accesss).
LoadUserProfile
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762281(VS.85).aspx
RegOpenCurrentUser
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms724894(VS.85).aspx
According to the Services & the Registry article:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms685145(VS.85).aspx
we should use RegOpenCurrentUser when impersonating.
But what does/should RegOpenCurrentUser do if the user profile is roaming - should it load it?
As far as I can tell from these docs, both APIs provide a handle to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER for the user the thread is impersonating. Therefore, they both "load" the hive i.e. lock it as a database file and give a handle to it for registry APIs.
It might seem that LoadUserProfile loads the user profile in the same way as the User does when he/she logs on, whereas RegOpenCurrentUser does not - is this correct? What is the fundamental difference (if any) in how these two APIs mount the hive?
What are the implications and differences (if any) between what happens IF
A user logs-on or logs-off while each of these impersonated handles is already in use?
A user is already logged-on when each matching close function (RegCloseKey and UnloadUserProfile) is called?
But what does/should RegOpenCurrentUser do if the user profile is roaming - should it load it?
It doesn't load the profile. Think about it this way: If it did, you'd have to somehow call UnloadUserProfile() when finished with the handle to HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
It might seem that LoadUserProfile loads the user profile in the same way as the User does when he/she logs on, whereas RegOpenCurrentUser does not - is this correct?
Yes.
What is the fundamental difference (if any) in how these two APIs mount the hive?
None.
What are the implications and differences (if any) between what happens IF
A user logs-on or logs-off while each of these impersonated handles is already in use?
They'll get their own handle (to the same key) that's opened and closed.
A user is already logged-on when each matching close function (RegCloseKey and UnloadUserProfile) is called?
Ditto.
As I am currently trying to accomplish the same thing you are I thought I would chime in with what I've found over the last few days.
I'm working in a Windows XP sp3 environment and trying to achieve impersonation with CurrentUser registry access in two different scenarios
If you come across anything useful I would be greatly appreciative if you share your experience. My stack overflow question can be found here
Administrator > Limited User & Limited User > Administrator
What I've noticed so far is (in Windows XP sp3)
LoadUserProfile():
Only works when the impersonating user has SeRestoreName and SeBackupName privileges enabled among others (simply enabling these two for the limited user in question was not enough as it still failed with an access denied error - See my StackOverflow question for more details on that). The only way I'm able to successfully call LoadUserProfile() so far is to do so by an Administrator account before starting impersonation.
RegOpenCurrentUser():
Only works "properly" when the user's profile is already loaded, In every attempt I've made so far I'm only able to get a handle to the S-1-5-18 hive unless the users hive is loaded and accessible under HKEY_USERS already
The two functions are used in different situations.
LoadUserProfile is suitable if the user profile is not already loaded.
RegOpenCurrentUser is suitable if the user profile is already loaded, i.e., if you want to access the registry hive for a user who is already interactively logged on.
Note that LoadUserProfile is usually called without impersonation (because you must have admin privilege to use it) but RegOpenCurrentUser has to be called with impersonation.
I've written a small service (plain Win32) and I'd like to know if it's possible to run multiple instances of it when multiple users are logged on.
Basically, let's say we've got UserA and UserB for UserA the service would log on as "domain\UserA" and for UserB the service would log on as "domain\UserB" - this is from the same executable of course. I can change the logon dynamically using the ChangeServiceConfig() function, but it changes it system-wide it seems, while I'd like each user to have his own copy of the service running only for him.
Thank you in advance for any pointers.
Win32 services are designed to be system-wide, and start running before any user is logged in. If you want something to run on a per-user basis, it's probably better to design it as a regular application and run it from the user's Startup group.
Is it possible to perhaps have the service create child processes which then adopt the user credentials (or be started with them)? This way you're still limited to a single instance of the service, but it is able to do its per-user jobs all the same. IIRC the Windows Task Scheduler service does this.
The whole concept of a service is that it is started before any user is even logged on. so even if this was possible, you wouldn't be able to choose between userA and userB when the service starts because none of them is logged on yet.
A possible direction would be for the service to run as SYSTEM And every few minutes check if there is a user logged in, if there is- impersonate that user and do this stuff.
Yes, that sounds close (I'm answering comment from Greg, but comments are too short to fit my reply).
I don't know the list of users beforehand, but there's a GUI control application that would be used to enter username/password pairs for each user. So, userA would log on, run the application, enter his credentials and service would use that. At the same time (after userA has logged off, but the service is still running with userA's credentials) userB logs on, uses the app, and another copy of the service starts running as logged on userB. Thus, at the same time userA and userB services are running.
Is that possible?
You are probably looking to Impersonate the users. Check out some references I found with a quick Google search here:
MSDN Article on WindowsIdentity.Impersonate
.Net Security Blog Article
It sounds as if you actually have two different, conflicting requirements, as to timing and identity.
Run as each logged in user
Run automatically even if no user is logged in.
No way to do this trivially, instead consider wrapping your program in a service; the program will run normally on startup for each user (either thru the startup folder or taskscheduler), and in addition create a service to run your app as a system user (or any other user you define).
Since you also need (you mention this in the comments) the app to keep running as the enduser even after he logs out, you can have the service manage this process for you.
HOWEVER this might not be the best idea, since the user is still effectively logged in. This can have numerous side effects, including security, performance (too many users logged in at once...), etc.
You could create an service application and a non-service(normal) application and make them communicate through IPC (Mapped File, Pipes, MailSolts ... you name it).
This way you solve all the troubles.
NOTE: The same application can behave differently - when started as a process and when started by a user, but in the end it is the same thing, you still have 2 applications (no matter if you got only one executable).
Running with different accounts is possible. In fact, this is common. See svchost.exe, which implements a bunch of OS services.
I just don't get how you determine which accounts. In a big company, many PCs are set up so all 100.000+ employees could use it. You don't want to run your service as the logged-in users, nor can you want to run it for all 100.000 users. So for which accounts, I have to ask?
A Windows process can only execute with the privileges of one single user at a time. This applies to services and other processes. With enough privileges it is possible to "switch" between different users by using impersonation. The most common pattern for what you are trying to do is to have one instance of a privileged service which registers to log in/log out events and creates children processes accordingly, each one of them impersonating the logged in user. The pattern will also simplify UI as each process runs on each separate user's Desktop, as if it were a regular application.
If you keep the privileged service's code as simple as possible this pattern has the added benefit that you are minimizing the attack surface of your code. If a user finds a security problem on the "running as user" side of your service it is a non-issue, while security problems in the privileged services could lead to privilege escalation. In fact, before Vista privileged services implementing a Windows message processing loop are vulnerable to a type of attack called Shatter attacks, which you should be aware of given what you are trying to do.
You want this running all the time, so you want a service.
You want something tracking each user, so you want an application which runs in the user session and communicates with the service (using named pipes or DCOM or whatever fits your requirements).
You don't need multiple instances of your service. From the description of your problem it looks like what you need is one service that can impersonate users and execute jobs on their behalf.
You can do this by implementing a COM object hosted in a service. Your client application (that the end user runs) will call CoCreateInstanceEx on your CLSID. This would cause new instance of your COM object to be created in your service. Then the application can use a method on one of your interfaces to pass the collected user credentials to the COM object (though I'd be wary of collecting credentials and instead see if I can pass the user token instead). The COM object which is running in the context of the service can then call LogonUser() to log on the user and impersonate it, so it can do whatever on her behalf (like finding the user local appdata folder :-)). Other answers havve good links to impersonating users using credentials or token.
If you feel comfortable with COM, I'd suggest you create your objects as multithreaded (living in the MTA), so that their execution is not serialized by COM. If not, the default single threaded model would be good enough for you.
The Visual Studio ATL wizard can generate the skeleton of a COM object living in a service. You can also read about implementing Windows Service with ATL here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/74y2334x(VS.80).aspx
If you don't know COM at all, you can use other communication channels to pass the credentials to your service.
In any case, once your service gets the credentials, all the work on behalf of the user will have to be executed on a background thread, so as to not block the application running as the user.