Considering security for the workbench

During this task you consider the factors for deciding which users can take actions within the workbench.

Consider the following:

  1. Are you running with domain awareness enabled?
  2. Are you running with domain awareness disabled?
  3. Securing the channel between the workbench and the Configuration Manager

Ensure that the IDs of the users who will run the workbench are not more than eight characters long.

Are you running with domain awareness enabled?

It is recommended that you run with domain awareness enabled. With this option, the domain information for a workbench user is flowed with the userid to the Configuration Manager for increased security. Assume that you are running the Configuration Manager on a computer named WKSTN1, which is a member of a domain named DOMAIN1. Users from DOMAIN2 also want to use the workbench. Perform the following steps:

  1. Add any domain users or groups to the local group names that you will be using in your ACLs.

  2. When you create the Configuration Manager use the -m option on the mqsicreateaclentry command to ensure that the domain is considered when verifying the user.

When you start the workbench, it automatically sends the domain information for your user ID to the Configuration Manager. Enable domain awareness in the Configuration Manager to access domain information.

Note: If you are running a Configuration Manager with one user ID and a broker with a different user ID on another computer, you might see an error message when trying to deploy message flows to the broker. To avoid this, do the following:
  • Ensure that the broker's user ID is a member of the mqm and mqbrkrs groups.
  • Define the broker's user ID on the computer where the Configuration Manager is running.
  • Define the Configuration Manager's user ID on the computer where the broker is running.
  • Ensure that all IDs are in lowercase so that they are compatible between computers.

Are you running with domain awareness disabled?

You can set domain awareness to disabled, but running with this option means that the domain information for the workbench user is not flowed with the userid information, thus reducing security. It is therefore recommended that you run with domain awareness enabled.

You can use the -a option on the mqsicreateaclentry command to allow a user to be verified without considering the domain.

To set domain awareness to disabled, answer the following questions:

  1. Are your workbench users drawn from a local domain?
    1. No: Go to the next question.
    2. Yes: Add any users to the local groups that you will be using in your ACLs.

      Go to Securing the channel between the workbench and the Configuration Manager.

  2. Are your workbench users drawn from another domain?
    1. Yes: Make the other domain a trusted domain of the Configuration Manager's computer then add the groups and users from the trusted domain to the local groups of the Configuration Manager.

For additional security, run with both domain awareness and security exits enabled. For more information about security exits, refer to Security exits.

Turning off the toolkit domain awareness

The toolkit sends the user and domain name to the Configuration Manager queue manager, regardless of the domain awareness setting on the Configuration Manager. This can cause problems connecting to the queue manager because of the security required to connect, put or get messages.

To turn off the domain awareness on the toolkit, run the toolkit in the following way:
  1. Change to the install_dir\eclipse directory.
  2. Run the toolkit using the command mqsistudio -vmargs -DDomainAware=0.
Alternatively, modify the shortcut that runs the toolkit and add on -vmargs -DDomainAware=0.

Go to Securing the channel between the workbench and the Configuration Manager

Securing the channel between the workbench and the Configuration Manager

Create and enable a pair of security exits to run at the workbench and Configuration Manager ends of the connection. Use these exits to verify workbench users with the Windows security manager on the Configuration Manager computer.
For more information about creating and enabling security exits, refer to Security exits.
Related tasks
Using security exits