User Administration

There are two types of users to be administered with DataCaster, local users and remote users. For remote access, there is another level of access permissible, i.e. server-level access where all users on a given remote server can be granted access to the local server. Please see the section on Network Authentication the the Security Guide for more information.

DataCaster provides a few ways to do User Administration.

• WebAdmin console
• Command-line console
• Command-line tools

Managing Users

Any user in DataCaster may be an Administrator, which gives them complete access to all functions in DataCaster. Any user that is not an Administrator has limited access to data, and may not view or modify data that is owned by other users unless granted permission to do so.

The DataCaster WebAdmin administration client provides a Manage Users page to add or remove users, including specify whether they should be administrators. This page also provides tools to change passwords for users. Only administrators can add users, or change other users passwords.

Remote Users and Clients

As a distributed database, DataCaster? allows users on remote DataCaster? servers or access tables and views on this server. For example, this allows users or applications on remote web sites to access data on your site, and vice-versa.

As a first step, you need to setup permissions for remote users to access your server. Access can be setup for remote users at the user-level or server-level. With user-level access, an individual user can access this server with the specified username and password. With server-level access, any authenticated user on the remote server can access this server.

To setup access for remote users to access data on your server, you need to use the WebAdmin utility for this purpose. This is the Remote Users page under the Remote Clients section of WebAdmin. Use this page to allow access to this server for remote users.

Before remote users can access tables and views from this server, they will need to setup their clients to use this username and password for user-level access to this server. Access to specific tables and views on this server is subject to the necessary SQL authorization with GRANT statements. Remote users will have access to specific tables or views if granted for the specific user, or public access is granted.

In addition, remote access can be setup at a server-level, so that all users on a specified remote client system have acceess to this server. This is the Remote Clients page under the Remote Clients section of WebAdmin. Use this page to allow access to this server for all users on a remote server. Before remote users can access tables and views from this server, they will need to setup their clients to use the servername and password for server-level access to this server. Access to specific tables and views on this server is subject to the necessary SQL authorization with GRANT statements. Remote users will have access to specific tables or views if granted for the specific user, or when public access is granted.

Setting Up Access to Remote Servers

With the DataCaster distributed database, you can access remote tables and views in SQL statements, scripts, applications or User API programs. Sometimes anonymous access will be permitted and used for this purpose. In other cases, you will setup authentication beforehand so it will be used when accessing data from remote servers.

DataCaster? allows users on this server to access tables and views on remote DataCaster? servers with eitehr server-level or user-level access. With user-level access, the specified local user on this server can access tables and views on the remote server. With server-level access, any authenticated user on this server can access the specified remote server.

To setup user-level access, go to the WebAdmin page User-level Access under the Access Remote Serves section. Use this page to setup access to a specified remote server for a given user on this server.

Before local users can access tables and views from the remote server, access will need to setup on the remote server, and the same username and password authorized for user-level access. In addition, access to specific tables and views on the remote server is subject to the necessary SQL authorization with GRANT statements. Remote users will have access to specific tables or views if granted for the specific user, or when public access is granted.

In addition, remote access can be setup at a server-level, so that all users on this server have acceess to a specified remote server. Use this page to allow access to a specified remote server for all users on this server. Before local users can access tables and views from the remote server, access will need to setup on the remote server, and the same servername and password authorized for server-level access.