VCRM Clients/Agents not able to use DOMAIN\Username for authentication

[Eric Snyder]

My servers Version Control Repository Agents are still using the old Administrator/Operator/User username and password format because I cannot authenticate using the new DOMAIN\Administrator format. How / where do I check on my VCRM that it is set up to use domain authentication?

Thank you.

[Richard Ward_6]

Eric. Did you get any answer to this? Is there a way to set the administrator password for VCRM? None of my passwords work for it. I may reinstall the VCRM and see if it prompts me for a password to configure it.

Richard Ward

[Rich Purvis]

Ok, if you are using VCRM from the Management CD version 7.20 or later, OR if you have the System Management Homepage component, available in SS7.20 and later, installed on the system with VCRM it will then use OS based authentication. HOWEVER, because of concerns that misconfigured VCA's could lock-out the OS Administrator ID, by exceeding the failed login count of the OS, on the VCRM it was decided not to allow the "Administrator" ID to be used for VCA logins using OS-based authentication.

The exception is if you have or had a pre-SS7.20 VC setup with VCRM - a backwards compatibility check was added so that VC would not break when the new SMH was landed on it. In other words if you have your VCA's setup to use the old "Administrator" id it will still work as before.

If you have older VCA's that only understand Administrator/Operator/User - then you can configure them to use "Operator" in a OS based login - just make sure you have an ID setup on the VCRM system called Operator and in a group that the SMH recognizes.

If you are using new VCA's then you can place whatever id you want for them to login to the VCRM, such as MyVCAdmin. Just make sure that MyVCAdmin is a valid ID and is in a group that is identified to the SMH to have either Administrator or Operator level authority for SMH - part of the SMH configuration.

The majority of this information is documented here:

http://h200005.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00293375/c00293375.pdf

in chapter 2.

Hopefully, some of this information is of use,

-Rich

[Rob Buxton · Accepted solution]

As a different approach, you can configure a separate local account on the VCRM Server and then use that for the VCA's to access the VCRM.

This worked for me as I was having problems with Domain Accounts, but there may have been improvements in the authentication mechanism since then.

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Isn't it stated by the documentation that the vcrm user must be local to the server and not a domain user ?

Just wondering since we really do not like local users but had to set that up during our installation of the new sim version.

[Eric Snyder]

I opened a case with HP and they recommended reinstalling or, removing and reinstalling the agents, making sure I reinstalled the most current version:

"In order to get your client servers to use the Windows authentication when connecting to VCRM, please update the client servers to the latest Proliant Support Pack, available at:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/22274.html for Windows Server 2003 or http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/22272.html for Windows 2000.

If you are still experiencing issues with the client servers using the previous authentication method, please remove the Version Control Agent using Add/Remove Programs from Control Panel, then reapply the Proliant Support Pack."

I did take everyone's advice and already created a local Windows account on my HP SIM / VCRM server and added that local account to the SIM administrators group and it works fine, so I will probably stick with that since it works.

Rich and Rob hit the nail on the head for this one; I was using a previous version of the VCRM and it must have accepted my domain logon but with the newest version, I had to create an account; THANKS!

Richard, with the latest version, you should do as Rob suggests and create a local account on the VCRM box and add that local account to the Administrators group in SIM then use that local account in all of the agents for connecting; works like a charm!