The Security Policy Administrator configures the security policies that govern the access rights to accounts and assets, including the requirements for checking out passwords, such as the maximum duration, if password or SSH key reasons are required, if emergency access is allowed, and so on. This user may not know any details about the assets.
This user configures time restrictions for entitlements and who can request, approve and review access requests.
- Creates account groups, asset groups, and user groups.
- Creates entitlements.
- Configures access request policies.
- Adds users or user groups to entitlements to authorize those accounts to request passwords.
- Can assign linked accounts to users for entitlement access policy governance.
On some pages, it may appear the administrator can edit data, but the change cannot be saved. A message like the following will display: Authorization is required for this request.
Preparing systems for management
Before you add systems to SPP (Adding an asset), you must ensure they are properly configured.
Generally, to prepare an asset for SPP:
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Create a functional account (called a "service" account in SPP) on the asset and assign it a password or an SSH key, if the platform supports SSH keys.
- Grant the service account sufficient permissions.
- Test the service account connectivity.
- Configure the security protocol.
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For platforms that support SSL server certificate validation, add the server’s signing authority certificate to the Trusted Certificates store in SPP. For more information, see Trusted CA Certificates..
The following topics can help you prepare your hosts for management by SPP:
SPP supports a variety of platforms. For more information, see Supported platforms..
This applies to both ACF2 - Mainframe and ACF2 - Mainframe LDAP platforms.
To prepare IBM ACF-mainframe systems for SPP
- Create a service account on the asset and assign it a password. The service account must have the SECURITY attribute enabled for ACF2 ChangePassword to work properly.
- Grant the service account the privileges required to use the ALTERUSER command on other profiles.
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If not already installed, install a telnet server on the z/OS system. If required, secure telnet with SSL.
NOTE: Please refer to your IBM z/OS system documentation for details on installing and configuring the telnet server (and SSL).
- Test the telnet server using a Windows-based 3270 emulator or on Linux, use the telnet-ssl or x3270 programs to test SSL and non-SSL connections to an z/OS system.
- In SPP, create the asset and accounts for the z/OS system using password authentication.
About certificate support for the telnet protocol
SPP automatically accepts any server certificate that the connection offers and does not verify the trust chain on the telnet certificate. In addition, SPP does not support client certificate selection, so if telnet requires that the client present a certificate that is signed by a recognized authority, SPP cannot support that configuration.