User needs Authorization to CANCEL order?

[ngoht20]

I am running OpenVMS 7.1-2 and I one of my users need access to cancel or remove orders from the system. Is there a command that I can do to let that user have the right or authorization to delete certain data?

[Andy Bustamante]

This sounds like an application question. What application/vendor provides your order management system?

Andy

[ngoht20]

Its called POWERHOUSE.

[Hoff]

This is an application-specific question, and not specifically an OpenVMS question.

OpenVMS itself has no concept of canceling an order.

The application has the concept of canceling an order. And likely also an in-built concept of controlling that cancellation process.

Assuming that the available documentation for the application does not indicate what privileges are required, do contact whomever is supporting the particular application(s) that you are using here.

The control mechanism could be OpenVMS system privileges, or could easily be some sort of application-specific authorization mechanism. (In most cases, I would tend to assume these controls would be at least partially application-specific, too. And that OpenVMS privileges might or might not have any particular influence over which user is allowed to do what within the application.)

What you need to do is entirely application specific -- I could certainly suggest to you that you add OpenVMS privileges to the particular username(s) involved, and that might or might not allow the user to cancel an order. But adding privileges might well also open up other and potentially more serious problems, or open up cancellations to everybody using (for instance) a shared username. And adding privilege(s) might or might not even allow the user to cancel the order.

If there are application profiles or users, and particularly users that can cancel orders, look there. If there is no profile and there is a user that can cancel orders, look at the authorization database.

Regardless, there needs to be more information here, and a more detailed investigation into into the application itself. This can include providing a pointer to existing documentation, to a local or commercial organization supporting the particular package, some sort of the identification of the application itself (if it's not local), or other such details.

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs

[Hoff]

Cognos PowerHouse is an application design environment and is not an end-user application -- it appears an application is in use here, so how the particular application and its application security is implemented is still a question in play.

This tool certainly also implies this menu system application is probably a local application.

From the Cognos web site:

"Your developers can build business applications with PowerHouse considerably faster than with a procedural third-generation language (3GL), such as COBOL, BASIC, C, C++ or JAVA. PowerHouse simplifies operations that might take dozens of lines of 3GL code into a single instruction. By using PowerHouse time and cost savings of up to 90%, when compared with traditional 3GL tools, are possible during both the initial development and subsequent maintenance and enhancement of business applications."

Here are the product manuals for the Cognos PowerHouse product:

http://www.cognos.com/products/powerhouse/download.html

You're likely going to have to look at the application and at the code that's been built using Cognos PowerHouse and using whatever other tools might have been applied here for the answer(s) to your questions.

[ngoht20]

I know that the application itself is designed from the Powerhouse.

But, Im now considering OpenVMS in question. How can I add a user rights or access priveledges using OpenVMS? What is the command?

For example, what if I dont want user JOE to have the access to change the time settings?

[Joseph Huber_1]

Usually in VMS there are 2 features:
privileges or (access) rights

In the case of SET TIME, there are privileges needed (use HELP SET TIME and see which ones
, and there might be time-keeping software active like DTSS, which needs other privileges and actions than SET TIME).

Rights are identifiers assigned to a user/process: use HELP ADD /IDENT in AUTHORIZE to see how to ADD an identifier, and HELP GRANT how to assign an identifier to a user.

For each object (files,devices,logical name tables,...) then a SET SECURITY command can add a list of identifiers authorized to access the object, called ACL.

For further details, read the Security chapters in the system managers manual.

[Jon Pinkley]

>>>But, Im now considering OpenVMS in question. How can I add a user rights or access priveledges using OpenVMS? What is the command?

For example, what if I dont want user JOE to have the access to change the time settings?
<<<

$ help set time


SET

TIME

Resets the system clock, which is used as a timer to record
intervals between various internal events and as a source clock
for displaying the time of day.

Requires both OPER (operator) and LOG_IO (logical I/O)
privileges.

Format

SET TIME[=time]

The utility to grant privileges to a username is the AUTHORIZE utility.

To grant user JOE the ability to set the VMS system time require a privileged account, and the command:

$ mcr authorize modify joe /priv=(oper,log_io)/defpriv=(oper,log_io)

However, this is somewhat like giving a chainsaw to someone who asks "How should I cut down a tree?"

I am not even sure that you were asking how to set the VMS system time, perhaps your application has per user time zones, and if that is the case, setting the VMS system time probably isn't what you want to do.

You really need to spend some time reading the reading the OpenVMS System Manager's Manual: Essentials, and for more specific info, the Guide to System Security. If you are supporting an application, then you need to read its documentation.

If you look at the responses to your previous question about documentation, you have all you need to find the documentation.

Here's a link to documentation for the authorize utility.

http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/83final/6048/6048pro_contents.html#toc_chapter_5

Unfortunately, learning VMS or any O/S well enough to support users is going to take time and effort.