The Importance of User Credentials on Installing and Running PlanetPress Connect

OL Connect and required credentials depends heavily on the Connect component and respective tasks and what sort of user credentials are needed.

First of all, it is important to distinguish between installation and run-time

Installation

The Connect installer puts all required files, folders, registry entries and much more to their correct places and locations. As many of these locations are protected against malicious accesses, that very user under whose context the Connect installation is started and running, needs very extensive rights on the respective computer. This user must belong to the Local Administrators group on that machine. Here are some required capabilities, this user:

  • Must be able to write into the "Programs" folder.
  • Must be allowed to check for existing certificates and must also be allowed to install new ones into the global certificate store on that machine.
  • Must be able to write into HKLM and any subtree of it in the registry.
  • Must be able to INSTALL, START and RUN services and also to MODIFY service settings.
  • Must be known in the network the machine belongs to and must also need to be able to use shared network resources like shared drives and/or printers etc.

This list may not be complete, but it gives the extent of the requirements. Generally, the local administrator of the machine will have all these credentials, but there may exist network restrictions and policies, which will block one or more of these capabilities. In such cases, the respective network administrator should provide a valid user account for the installation.

User Account

The user account shall be used to later RUN one of the Connect Server flavors (Server or Server Extension). This dedicated user account has to be entered on the respective installer dialog page and must be allowed to START, STOP and RUN services on this machine. This is different from the credentials of the installation user account, which additionally requires the right to INSTALL services. Please be aware of this fact!

Additionally, the Server user must be able to access any network resources that are required for OL Connect to function properly. This includes e.g. additional drives, printers, scanners, other computers and, where appropriate, internet resources, URLs, mail servers, FTP servers, database servers and everything else planned to be used for the intended operation of Connect. The Server user is the run-time user.

Connect Components

Usually, a standard end user will only be facing Connect Designer and maybe the License Activation Tool. Designer this does not require administrator rights. Either everything required to create documents or also to run some tasks will be already available (installed by the installer) or be accessible in a way, where no specific credentials are required. However some tasks like starting an email campaign will possibly require a respective account at a mail server. But this has generally nothing to do with the credentials of the Designer user.

Activation Tool

To run the Software Activation Tool, administrator rights are required because this tool needs to write the license file in one of the protected folders of Windows. The tool will however allow to restart it with respective credentials if required.

MySQL

MySQL database service is installed by the install user (thus again the requirement of installing, starting, running and modifying services). Once running it will just work.

Merge and Weaver Engines

These components do run under the Designer (if only Designer is installed) or the Server / Extension service(s) and inherit the rights of their parent application.

Server (Extension) Configuration Tool

This component needs to access the settings of the Server. As these are stored and read by the Server, it should be clear that the user used to run the Configuration tool should be the same as the Server Service user as explained above.

  
  • Last Topic Update: 04, June, 2018 10:15 PM
  • Last Published: 2019-05-23 : 3:18 PM