HP Operations Manager for UNIX Administrator’s Reference

About HPOM Security
About Security in HPOM
About PAM Authentication
You can use PAM (pluggable authentication modules) to retrieve and
check user and password information. The user information is saved into
a central repository and is accessed by a PAM module. To use PAM for
authentication, use the command-line tool ovconfchg on the HP
Operations management server. For more information, refer to the
ovconfchg man page.
Setting up PAM User Authentication
The HPOM user model requires users (humans or programs) to log on to
the HP Operations management server before being able to use any
further functionality. This mainly applies to the Java-based graphical
user interface, but also to some of the HP Operations management
server APIs and command line tools.
The log-in procedure is necessary for the following checks:
❏ Authenticate the user and verify access permission.
❏ Determine the user's capabilities.
HPOM provides the possibility to use PAM alternatively to the built-in
authentication.
Using PAM has the following major advantages:
❏
❏
Use of a common user database shared with the operating system
and other applications. User accounts and passwords have to be set
up and maintained only in one place.
Higher security measures like stronger encryption, password aging,
account expiration etc. are available and can be enforced.
NOTE
This only applies to the user authentication itself; the HPOM user
accounts must still exist to determine the user's capabilities.
To Configure PAM User Authentication
1. To enable PAM user authentication in HPOM, set the variable
OPC_USE_PAM_AUTH to TRUE:
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Chapter 11