Net Management Tools

The Net management tools include the following:

• The forms-based Net Management Utility, netutil
• The GUI-based Network Utility and Visual DBA

These tools allow you to store and manage the vnode information (connection data and remote user authorizations) used by the Communications Server and the Bridge Server to connect to remote Ingres instances.

For information on using these Ingres Net management tools, see the chapter "Establishing Communications."

Net and Bridge Users

At a site, several levels of users are often defined by the tasks and responsibilities they have within the installation. For installations with Ingres Net and Ingres Bridge, these levels are:

• Operating system administrator

  The operating system administrator sets up the operating system environment in which Ingres is installed. This person is the owner of the operating system account (for example, root in UNIX, system in VMS), which provides all permissions and privileges available from the operating system.

• Network administrator

  The network administrator is responsible for the physical installation and maintenance of the network. These responsibilities include designing a network configuration that provides optimal user and database access, and installing and maintaining the necessary hardware and software.

• System administrator

  The system administrator is the owner of the user account that provides permissions in the Ingres environment. Responsibilities include installing and maintaining Ingres and Ingres Net, authorizing user access, and maintaining and troubleshooting the installation.

• Database administrator (DBA)

  Each database in an installation has a DBA who is responsible for maintaining and tuning the database, granting permission to access objects in the database (such as tables and views), and backup and recovery of the database.

• End users

  An end user is anyone who uses the instance and is not an operating system administrator, system administrator, DBA, or user with special privileges.

A person may have responsibilities at more than one level. For example, a user can be the database administrator of one database and simply an end user of another.

Users at the system administrator, database administrator, and end user levels have specific Ingres Net responsibilities.

System Administrator and Ingres Net

The system administrator often performs the following Ingres Net-specific tasks, however any user with the appropriate privileges can perform these tasks:

• Defining global connection data entries and remote user authorizations. This task requires the GCA privilege NET_ADMIN.
• Starting, stopping, configuring, and monitoring Ingres servers, including the Name, Communications, and Bridge servers. These tasks require the GCA privilege SERVER_CONTROL.

The NET_ADMIN and SERVER_CONTROL privileges are assigned by default to the installation owner user ID, system (on VMS), and root (on UNIX). To assign these privileges to another user, the system administrator must manually add the following line to the config.dat file:

ii.node_name.privileges.user.user:   SERVER_CONTROL,NET_ADMIN

For example:

ii.panther.privileges.user.joan:   SERVER_CONTROL,NET ADMIN

Database Administrator and Ingres Net

The DBA must ensure that users who remotely access an Ingres instance have a user profile that permits access.

End Users and Ingres Net

End users are responsible for the following Ingres Net and Ingres Bridge-specific tasks:

• Defining their private connection data entries, if any
• Defining their private remote user authorizations, if any