External Authentication + Advanced Server 7.3

[Rob Crooks]

I have been trolling the HP site looking for any information about externally authenticating OVMS users against a RADUIS server, and found that you can do this with Advanced Server 7.3.

The docs say that I can have my Alpha with OpenVMS 7.3-2 as a member server to my Win2003 domain and OVMS users can be enabled with a unified logon, but I don't want to buy client licenses for no reason because I don't want PC users to access any OVMS resources. Just OVMS users to be authenticated against my domain.

Can someone fill me in on whether I can license the Advanced Server itself without clients and whatever else I might need to do?

Thanks.

[Ian Miller.]

I belive that you can use Advanced Server for the purpose of external authentication without an extra licence (but offical answers come from hp of course).

[Rob Crooks]

Yes, I have seen an installation example of Advanced server and it only mentioned the need for client licenses.

I am always suspicious when DEC/Compaq/HP doesn't require a license. Somehow a caveat always sneaks up to bite you.

[Bill Hall]

Advanced Server has been licensed with VMS for some time now. External authentication does not require any additional licenses. The Client Access License (CAL) is only required for file and print share access from a Windows client.

I have used external authentication since it was released in 7.1 IIRC. We have used it on 15-16 clusters spread across North America. Quite a benefit even if used just for support staff. It makes life much easier when you are supporting that many systems, with short password lifetimes, and only logging into most of them at random intervals, if and when there is a problem that requires your intervention.

If you use the same user account names on both Windows and VMS, the only additional account maintenance on the VMS side is setting the EXTAUTH flag on the specific accounts you want to externally authorize. Other than that there is just the Advanced Server upgrades as required.

[John Gillings]

Robert,

>I am always suspicious when DEC/Compaq/HP
>doesn't require a license. Somehow a
>caveat always sneaks up to bite you.

More and more components are being bundled into larger licensable units. For example, DCPS and the new "environment" licensing for IA64 which include even interactive users. It's easier for HP, and easier for customers. Win-Win.

I can confirm that you can legally install and run Advanced Server, and make use of external authentication as part of your base operating system license. No caveats, no risk of being bitten :-)

[Brad McCusker]

Not that you should have any reason to doubt Mr. Gillings, but, just in case you are still pessimistic...

As former Project Leader of various Advanced Server and PATHOWORKS releases, I too will confirm that you do not need a license for external authentication. We have a large number of customers supporting tens of thousands of OpenVMS users being externally authenticated and no licenses were involved.

[Jan van den Ende]

Robert,

from your Forum Profile:


I have assigned points to 13 of 24 responses to my questions.

Some of those are quite old.

Maybe you can find some time to do some assigning?

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/helptips.do?#33

Mind, I do NOT say you necessarily need to give lots of points. It is fully up to _YOU_ to decide how many. If you consider an answer is not deserving any points, you can also assign 0 ( = zero ) points, and then that answer will no longer be counted as unassigned.
Consider, that every poster took at least the trouble of posting for you!

To easily find your streams with unassigned points, click your own name somewhere.
This will bring up your profile.
Near the bottom of that page, under the caption â My Question(s)â you will find â questions or topics with unassigned points â Clicking that will give all, and only, your questions that still have unassigned postings.

Thanks on behalf of your Forum colleagues.

PS. â nothing personal in this. I try to post it to everyone with this kind of assignment ratio in this forum. If you have received a posting like this before â please do not take offence â none is intended!

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe