Effect on HPSIM 5.0 when changing Local Admin Account password?

[EricP]

We want to change the local admin account password on all of our servers.

We have an HPSIM 5.0 Central Management Serve, also running MS SQL Server.

The HPSIM service runs under a different local user account -- so that service should be okay.

However, I believe the database is set up to run under the local adminnistrators group. And I believe we used the local admin account login when configuring the database permissions.

So, how do we check how this is set up for HPSIM? And what can we do to avoid database issues when changing the local admin account password?

[Steve Weeks_1]

Basically ours was set up on a SQL box for the Db connections, we had the problem not with the Local admin account, as ours are changed monthly but with my own user account when my password was changed. I used my own account to perform the install etc.

What we had to end up doing was renaming my user account to #sim-admin for example and set for a non-expiring p/w. I then had one of the guys create me a new user account.

So i guess it depends on which account you used for the initial setup. As at the time of set-up i used a 'service' account for Services etc, but it was still tied into my user account that i was logged on as.

I guess the only sure-fire way to know for your case, is to change it and see. You'll get logs in the Application log on the server pretty much straight away.

[EricP]

Don't want to change the local admin password just to see, as I'm worried that it would still be broken if I changed it back to what it is now.

Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I think I did the original HPSIM install under the local admin account. Is there anyway to check?

There must be a log file or soemthing that has the information.

[Steve Weeks_1]

when i had simillar thread up, people said it writes to reg etc, but i checked the registry etc for my username and nothing was found.

Soon as i changed the password back to what it was, the machine was 100% up and running again

[EricP]

I found the database.props file

It shows the database user as "administrator"

So the local admin account is being used.

The question is, what happens when the local admin account password changes?

Not sure if it picks it up automatically?

[gbhpboy]

it messes up when the local admin account changes Eric, and you may be left as we are now, no one knows how to get in.
is there any way of changing the administrator account password in SMH before you change local admin password on the box ?

[EricP]

What happens if you change the local admin account password on the server back to what it was?

Does it still not let you use HPSIM?

[Joel Rubenstein]

When you change the password that the SIM service account uses you will need to change the services logins for SIM and all it's plug-ins.

in addition you will need change the database access password if that is the same account used to access the SIM DB.

To change the database access password, open a command prompt on the SIM CMS and run

mxpassword -m -x MxDBUserPassword="password"

the password can contain special characters but not the double-quote character.

This command is case sensitive.

[EricP]

Let me clarify -- I think the situation you are talking about is a little different.

HPSIM (the service itself) runs under a local service account. That password doesn't need to change and is fine -- and will not be changed.

However per the database.props file, the SQL database itself (which sits on the same server as HPSIM) runs under the local administrator account (the built in local admin account on a windows 2000 box).

We now need to change the local admin passwords on our servers for security reasons.

So what exactly needs to be done? Is it simply a matter of running mxpassword -g (which brings up a gui), and then changing the mxdbuser password to the new local admin password?

Or should the mxdbuser password be changed first, and then change the local admin account on the server?

There is nothing in mxpassword -g that indicates that the account called "administrator" is tied to the "mxdbuser" account.

So how do we know that changing "mxdbuser" will tie into the change to the "administrator" account on the server.

Thanks!

[Joel Rubenstein]

Let me clarify.

The SIM service should never be running under the local system account it should always use a defined local or domain account. The SIM installer should not have created the service in this manner? There are some of the functions in SIM that do not work correctly when it is run from the local system account.

It makes no difference if you change the local admin or the database user password first. In either case you will need to restart the SIM service after they are both changed.

[EricP]

You misread my post. HPSIM is running under a manually created local SERVICE account (not the local "system" account). I call it a service account, since it is not used for anything but the HPSIM service and was created locally on the machine (not a domain service account).

My sole concern is with the local administrator account, which apparently is running the SQL database for HPSIM.

2 different accounts.

HPSIM service is fine.

The concern is strictly with the local built-in admin account and how that ties in with SQL for HPSIM.

[Joel Rubenstein]

Normally when you install SIM the installer uses the same account for the SIM service and the database access.

Starting with SIM 5.0 it is no longer necessary for the same account to be used for both the SIM service and SIM DB access.

You can modify the database.props file and change the account used to access the database if you wish. In either case you will need to change the database access password.