Manage User Profiles and Access

Manage your system users that log on to the HMC. A user profile is a combination of a user ID, server authentication method, permissions, and a text description. Permissions represent the authority levels assigned to the user profile for the objects the user has permission to access.

Users can be authenticated using local authentication on the HMC, by using Kerberos remote authentication, or by using LDAP authentication. For more information on setting up Kerberos authentication on the HMC, see KDC Configuration. For more information about LDAP authentication, see Configuring the HMC so that it uses LDAP authentication.

If you are using local authentication, the user ID and password are used to verify a user’s authorization to log on the HMC. The user ID must start with an alphabetic character and consist of 1 to 32 characters. The password has the following rules:

• Must begin with an alphanumeric character.
• Must contain at least seven characters, however, this limit may be changed by your system administrator.
• The characters should be standard 7-bit ASCII characters.
• Valid characters to use for the password can be: A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and special characters (~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + - = { } [ ] \ : " ; ’).

If you are using Kerberos authentication, specify a Kerberos remote user ID.

The user profile includes managed resource roles and task roles that are assigned to the user. The managed resource roles assign permissions for a managed object or group of objects and the task roles define the access level for a user to perform on a managed object or group of objects. You can choose from a list of available default managed resource roles, task roles, or customized roles created by using the Manage Task and Resource Roles task.

See HMC tasks, user roles, IDs, and associated commands for a listing of all the HMC tasks and the predefined default user IDs that can perform each task.

To add or customize a user profile, do the following:

1. Open the Manage User Profiles and Access task from the HMC Management work pane.
2. Complete one of the following steps:
   • From the User Profiles window, if you are creating a new user ID, point to User on the menu bar and when its menu is displayed, click Add. The Add User window is displayed.
   • From the User Profiles window, if the user ID already exists in the window, select the user ID from the list, and then point to User on the menu bar and when its menu is displayed, click Modify. The Modify User window is displayed.
3. Complete or change the fields in the window, click OK when you are done.

Use the online Help if you need additional information for creating, modifying, copying, or removing a user profile.