The Secure Workplace v4.0- by Jon F. Kaminsky

The new v4.0 of Syntegration Inc.'s The Secure Workplace advances the art of OS/2 security. As a user of The Secure Workplace v3, I was not anticipating the degree of change that v4.0 brought to my Desktop. For this reason, a review of this nature cannot hope to cover all the new aspects of the Secure Workplace v4.0. Therefore, in this article, I will concentrate on the object security features that users will find most attractive, saving most of the administrative features and utilities for another review.

What is The Secure Workplace

The Secure Workplace (SWP) is a collection of OS/2 Workplace Shell (WPS) object, Desktop and security management utilities. Upon installation, the security functions of SWP are integrated into the WPS; there is no program to execute and nothing to shut down. Additional pages are added to all objects' settings notebooks, allowing the customization of security level and passwords. Security can be set at the object, folder, or Desktop level if more global security measures are required. Two versions of SWP are available, the standard edition and the professional edition. The standard edition of the SWP includes: The professional edition adds file access control and multi-Desktop management (provided by bundling Syntegration's Traveling Workplace product).

What's new in v4.0

SWP v4.0 provides additional power over earlier versions as well as a restructured security paradigm. New with v4.0 is the concept of privileges at the user level rather than the older notion of security set at the object level. Security is now implemented dynamically and is preemptive rather than reactive.

These new features add more flexibility, but for those more familiar with v3.0 of SWP, the new version requires a different mindset and the implementation may seem overwhelming at first. However, those more familiar with, say, Novell Netware's security functions, will be right at home. Although I'm no network engineer, having previously set up Novell Netware 3.12 for a former employer, I welcomed the similarity in function (although architecturally, SWP is a completely different product). Setting up security for users has been streamlined in v4.0 and it takes less time to navigate through the available options.

SWP v4.0 also enables single sign-on to a network operating system or remote host. With this feature, users only identify and authenticate themselves once. Single sign-on is accomplished by interfacing with the Network Sign on Coordinator (NSC), User Profile Manager (UPM), or your own custom program. NSC and UPM are provided with OS/2 Warp Connect, LAN Server, and OS/2 Warp Server. NSC works with Novell Netware File Servers and remote hosts.

Installation

The manual guides the user through the installation process, and also lists all the files which are copied to your hard drive, which is a nice touch (I wish more companies provided this information). The setup program can also be run with several options which, allow for unattended installation, generation of a logfile or deinstallation of the product.

The setup program starts with a dialog listing the installation options. For the default install (all options) you simply click "OK". The program files are copied to the location of your choice, and during this process the user is updated as to what files are being copied, the list of new classes registered with the WPS and the modifications made to the OS/2 config.sys file. During this time, the Secure Workplace folder (GIF, 7.6k) is installed automatically on the Desktop. In addition to several on-line guides, this folder contains program objects for such utilities as Sign-ON/Sign-OFF, Workplace Reset, System Shutdown, Object Editor, and the Object Manager.

Upon reboot, the user is greeted with the SWP login dialog (GIF, 7.6k). At this point, no Desktop objects are visible and if the User ID and Password are not supplied, you cannot progress any further. By default, until you explicitly change them, the User ID and Password are set to "userid" and "password" respectively. Therefore, the first thing you should do as the administrator is to change these default settings, and give yourself administrative privileges with the Security Administration object located in the SWP folder. This object opens a settings notebook where the administrator sets up users (including him or herself) either individually or as a group and grants certain privileges either on an individual basis or on a group basis.

How it works

The Secure Workplace is well-integrated into the WPS and is implemented as a SOM class controlled by a security kernel. The immediate evidence of this is the addition of a "log-off" item on the Desktop pop-up menu, and several pages in the settings notebook of all objects, whether on the Desktop or in a drive object. Instead of the each object's settings notebook containing the "Setup","Security" and "Password" items as in versions 3.x and earlier, only the "Privileges" tab is now present. This is a much cleaner way to set up security, and passwords at the object level are no longer required.

The Privileges tab contains up to three pages depending on what object you are accessing. For example, the Desktop settings notebook privileges tab contains three pages: one for setting individual object privileges (GIF, 9.6k) such as copy or move, one for setting privileges for Desktop folder menus (GIF, 8k) such as sort or arrange, and one for the Desktop Menu (GIF, 7.7k) which allows or disallows the normal OS/2 Shutdown, Lockup, or System setup menu items. Drive objects contain the individual privileges page, the folder page and a Disk Menu page which controls access to the commands copy disk, check disk, format disk, and partition disk commands. (The partition command is not available to users.) Data or program objects simply contain the single page for individual privileges.

SWP handles security by allowing administrators to set up security for individual users or groups of users. Users are granted "Privileges" to objects on the Desktop or on any of the drives (or to entire drives themselves). Users are required to log on the system using a defined User ID and Password and once they pass this stage, they get the view of the Desktop and the privileges afforded them by the administrator. If so desired, guests can log on to the workstation and be afforded some level of function defined by the administrator.

A basic level of function for all users can be specified easily by setting up a group called "Everyone", and then adding all users (including guests) to that group. The Everyone group could be allowed, say, the "visible" and "open or execute" privilege which would allow that group's members to see and use any object on the Desktop, except drive objects and their contents. However, with only these privileges, a member of the Everyone group cannot copy, move, delete, shadow, rename, drag, drop, create another, or otherwise modify any object.

Because an object's security is controlled by the settings notebook, without access to this notebook, security for any object cannot be changed by a user unless he or she is granted that access by the administrator. However, while certain functions are removed from an object's pop-up menu by revoking privileges, clever users could circumvent some restrictions from the command line.

Therefore, for airtight security, administrators may also want to hide the OS/2 System folder so that users cannot open a command prompt or the System Setup icon. You can even restrict the Alt-F1 key combo to prevent users from accessing the Desktop Recovery function at boot-up, or prevent Ctrl-Alt-Del keyboard reboots. It's really that flexible!

Configuring security

To test SWP, I set myself as the administrator and then defined three groups: "Everyone", "Geology", and "Documents". I also created several fictitious users: Tom, Ward, Fred, Mary, and Guest. To serve the needs of several of these users and groups, I also created the following Desktop folders: The Everyone group was given visible and open-execute privileges for the Desktop, and also copy, move, delete, visible, drag, drop, and open-execute privileges for the Drive A: object (so any user could do what they wanted with their own floppies). By default, the Everyone group was not allowed access to any other drive objects. Therefore, guests logging on this machine would see all objects on the Desktop and be able to open them (as they are only defined only as members of the Everyone group).

The Geology group was given visible, copy, and open-execute privileges for the entire D: drive object, which contains nothing but data I wanted members of that group to be able to manipulate. Members of the Documents group were granted full privileges to the Documents folder on the Desktop. The users had full access to their own folders. All users were added to the Everyone group and were further set up as follows:

As a final measure, I set the "Auto Guest" login so when the machine boots, it automatically defaults to the Everyone level of security. This is strictly a convenience function: if Autoguest is not specified, the workstation will not show any Desktop objects until a user supplies the proper User ID and Password.

SWP proved to be very easy to configure, all options being set by the familiar OS/2 check buttons and pull-down list boxes. Once a user has been added to the system by the administrator, his or her name automatically appears in the settings notebook of every object. The best part is how easy it is to make changes after you have invested the time in deciding who gets what. For example, I decided Ward got transferred to the Documents group and therefore no longer needed access to Geology data, but now needed to work with Mary. Simply opening up the system administration setup and removing Ward from the Geology group and adding him to the Documents group changed his privileges across the board.

What the users see

Starting up the machine boots the OS and bypasses the login dialog since the Auto Guest access was implemented. The security at this point defaults to the privileges of a Guest, and the immediate evidence of this is the disappearance of the SWP Desktop folder and the OS/2 system folder. Other than that, the Desktop looks as normal as any other OS/2 machine.

Security clearance was implemented dynamically as I repeatedly logged in and out as any one of my users. Logging in as Tom allowed me access to the D: drive object and I was able to work on data. Logging in as Mary revoked that access but gave me access to all files and folders within the DeScribe folder (so I could perform file maintenance duties) and I moved some files that I wanted Documents group members to work on to the Desktop Documents folder. Logging in as Fred set me back to the Everyone group security level but with the added function of being able to manipulate objects inside Fred's personal folder on the Desktop. I then logged in as myself to see what I could see. Once I was authenticated, the SWP utilities folder and OS/2 System folder magically appeared on the Desktop and my system basically performed as if I had never installed the SWP product -- complete unfettered access to everything!

Caveats and suggested improvements

From my brief working with SWP v4.0, I would like to point out a couple items and offer a few suggestions. First, users may notice a very slight system degradation due presumably to security kernel functions. I tested SWP on a P90 with 32 meg and did notice that the time it took for objects to populate a folder or drive was slightly increased. The delay seemed proportional to the complexity of the set privileges and the number of objects present in a container. In addition, PM Patrol's CPU monitor told me that a process running deep in the WPS was periodically asking for a small timeslice -- presumably the security kernel working in the background.

Shadows seem to be somewhat troublesome to work with. Shadows are the rogue objects of any OS/2 system -- they retain properties of the parent object, and you can change properties of the parent object by changing the shadow, yet you can shred them with impunity. While SWP does provide security against the creation of shadowed objects, shadowed objects that already exist sometimes exhibit strange behavior (although never resulting in security breaches). This is more a result of how OS/2 deals with shadows than a deficiency in SWP. With SWP it is best just to avoid using shadows and if users need a program object on the Desktop, simply create an object for that purpose using templates.

It would also be nice for the administrator to see what privileges an object inherits by virtue of being a child of an object whose privileges were previously set. For example, DeScribe 5 installs 16 sub-folders inside the X:\DeScribe folder with additional folders rooted down into these. By inheritance, all folders and objects within the X:\DeScribe folder have the same security if set at the X:\DeScribe level. But suppose you want to change privileges for one folder or object within that structure. Opening the settings for that object does not display the inherited security from the previous changes made to the parent (X:\DeScribe) folder object. This isn't a limitation, but it would be a convenience some may appreciate.

Finally, I would prefer that Guests be prevented from changing the guest password. For example, a malicious guest could change the password from the default "Guest" and therefore prevent subsequent guests from logging on until the Administrator is called to reset the password.

Summary

I found The SWP to be a top-notch security product and, at least in the case of the Standard edition, it is appropriate for both the business and home user. Home users will appreciate the flexibility in tailoring privileges to the level of expertise of the many users likely to access a home machine -- spouses, teenage students, children, etc. Important financial data can be protected while game privileges can be granted to the little ones in the household without fear of losing a carefully configured Desktop. Worried about the teenagers accessing inappropriate newsgroup material on the Internet? No problem -- you can give them access to other Internet utilities while easily restricting access to the Newsreader.

Next Month

We take the review of The Secure Workplace a step further by reviewing the administrative features of SWP, including the security utilities and the partnering of Syntegration's The Traveling Workplace to manage multiple Desktops.

 * The Secure Workplace v4.0
by Syntegration, Inc.
MSRP: $79.95 Standard edition
MRSP: $29.95 Standard upgrade
MSRP:$120.00 Professional edition


Jon F. Kaminsky is principal hydrogeologist of Northwest Environmental Geoscience Co. in Tacoma, Washington and when not practicing geology, he indulges in writing shareware OS/2 utilities. He has written articles for scientific journals, and now, an on-line magazine.

[Index]  [® Previous] - [Feedback] - [Next ¯]
Our Sponsors: [InterStream] [J3 Computer Technologies] [Mount Baker] [Post Road Mailer]


This page is maintained by Falcon Networking. We welcome your suggestions.

Copyright © 1996 - Falcon Networking