Security Attributes That Must Be Assigned to Users

The Security Administrator role must specify some security attributes for new users, as the following table shows. For information about the files that contain default values, see Default User Security Attributes in Trusted Extensions.

Table 12-2 Security Attributes That Are Assigned After User Creation

Security Attribute Assignment to Users in Trusted Extensions

The Security Administrator role assigns security attributes to users in the Solaris Management Console after the user accounts are created. If you have set up correct defaults, your next step is to assign security attributes only for users who need exceptions to the defaults.

When assigning security attributes to users, the security administrator considers the following information:

Assigning Passwords

The Security Administrator role assigns passwords to user accounts after the accounts have been created. After this initial assignment, users can change their passwords.

As in the Solaris OS, users can be forced to change their passwords at regular intervals. The password aging options limit how long any intruder who is able to guess or steal a password could potentially access the system. Also, establishing a minimum length of time to elapse before changing a password prevents a user with a new password from reverting immediately to the old password. For details, see the passwd(1) man page.

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Note - The passwords for users who can assume roles must not be subject to any password aging constraints.

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Assigning Roles

A user is not required to have a role. A single user can be assigned more than one role if doing so is consistent with your site's security policy.

Assigning Authorizations

As in the Solaris OS, assigning authorizations directly to a user adds those authorizations to existing authorizations. In Trusted Extensions, you add the authorizations to a rights profile, then assign the profile to the user.

Assigning Rights Profiles

As in the Solaris OS, the order of profiles is important. The profile mechanism uses the first instance of the command or action in an account's profile set.

You can use the sorting order of profiles to your advantage. If you want a command to run with different security attributes from those attributes that are defined for the command in an existing profile, create a new profile with the preferred assignments for the command. Then, insert that new profile before the existing profile.

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Note - Do not assign rights profiles that include administrative actions or administrative commands to a regular user. The profile would not work because a regular user cannot enter the global zone.

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Changing Privilege Default

The default privilege set can be too liberal for many sites. To restrict the privilege set for any regular user on a system, change the policy.conf file setting. To change the privilege set for individual users, use the Solaris Management Console. For an example, see How to Restrict a User's Set of Privileges.

Changing Label Defaults

Changing a user's label defaults creates an exception to the user defaults in the label_encodings file.

Changing Audit Defaults

As in the Solaris OS, assigning audit classes to a user creates exceptions to the audit classes that are assigned in the /etc/security/audit_control file on the system. For more information about auditing, see Chapter 24, Trusted Extensions Auditing (Overview).

.copy_files and .link_files Files

In Trusted Extensions, files are automatically copied from the skeleton directory only into the zone that contains the account's minimum label. To ensure that zones at higher labels can use startup files, either the user or the administrator must create the files .copy_files and .link_files.

The Trusted Extensions files .copy_files and .link_files help to automate the copying or linking of startup files into every label of an account's home directory. Whenever a user creates a workspace at a new label, the updatehome command reads the contents of .copy_files and .link_files at the account's minimum label. The command then copies or links every listed file into the higher-labeled workspace.

The .copy_files file is useful when a user wants a slightly different startup file at different labels. Copying is preferred, for example, when users use different mail aliases at different labels. The .link-files file is useful when a startup file should be identical at any label that it is invoked. Linking is preferred, for example, when one printer is used for all labeled print jobs. For example files, see How to Configure Startup Files for Users in Trusted Extensions.

The following lists some startup files that you might want users to be able to link to higher labels or to copy to higher labels: