Database user authentication

Understanding how users are authenticated to the database server.

When connecting to a database server, the user must be identified by the server. Once connected, the current user is authenticated and identified by the db server, and the database system can then apply specific privileges, audit user activity, and so on.

Database user authentication is typically achieved by specifying a login and password in the CONNECT TO instruction. However, most database servers support additional user authentication methods, such as OS user authentication, trusted connections, LDAP authentication, Single Sign-On authentication, and even specific pluggable authentication methods.

Follow these simple security patterns to avoid basic user authentication problems:

• Make sure that application files installed on your production server have the appropriate file system permissions set. For regular users it is recommended that they have read-only access to program and resource files. If any OS user can replace a program file with another program, it could harm your database or retrieve sensitive private data.
• Each physical end user must have a specific database account. If several end users connect as the same db application account, they cannot be distinguished in the security and auditing system.
• For normal application users, always use database accounts with the minimum database privileges required to achieve the daily work (GRANT/REVOKE). For example, regular users are not given permission to execute Data Definition Language statements (drop tables).
• Instead of asking a name and password in a login dialog when an application starts, some applications hard code the db user names and passwords in the program code, in scripts or configurations files such as FGLPROFILE. This is not a good practice and must be avoided. If a login dialog is not appropriate, you must set up another user authentication method supported by the database server, such as Single Sign-On.