Enabling smart card authentication in the database server

After you set up your users, you enable smart card authentication in the database server by using command line switches.

Before you begin

Before you perform this task, set up your smart card users and associate a distinguished name with the administrator user.

To use smart card authentication, you must use an instance of Rational® DOORS® database server V9.3 or later that is configured to exclude Rational DOORS clients that are earlier than V9.3. To exclude earlier clients, on the General tab of the Database Properties window, set the minimum client version to 9.3.

About this task

To enable smart card authentication, you run the doorsd command and the dbadmin command. First, you run doorsd to run the database server in secure mode. Then, you run dbadmin to enable and disable smart card authentication.

Procedure

  1. On a command prompt, run the database server in secure mode by entering the doorsd command with the -secure command-line switch set to on:
    doorsd -secure on
  2. Run the database server with smart card authentication enabled by entering the dbadmin command with the -useCardAuthentication command-line switch:
    dbadmin -useCardAuthentication
    You can disable smart card authentication by entering the dbadmin command with the -doNotUseCardAuthentication command-line switch.

Results

When you enable smart card authentication, you no longer use user name and password authentication to log on to the Rational DOORS client. To verify that smart card authentication is being used, on the Policy tab of the Login Properties window, make sure that the Use card authentication field is selected.

What to do next

After you complete this task, enable authentication in the client.

If you are using public key infrastructure (PKI), follow the instructions in Enabling PKI authentication in the client. If you are using Microsoft Certificate Store (MCS), follow the instructions in Enabling MCS authentication in the client.


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