SQL Option is provided with the security and administration features you would expect of a database system. Depending on how you intend to use it, however, you might not need to enable the security features. For this reason, your personal XDB Server and its client tools and utilities are initally installed with security switched off.
Security is controlled separately at the server and at the client. If you switch security on for an XDB Server, it can only be accessed by clients that also have security switched on. (In this context, a client is one of the XDB configuration tools or graphical data utilities. The client applications that you develop are expected to handle authorization in the usual way by means of CONNECT statements). If you are developing a DB2 application that handles passwords, you may want to work with a test environment that has security switched on to enable user authentication.
Use the Admin menu of SQL Wizard to manage system security. You can control security at three levels:
When security is switched off for an XDB Server, all users are effectively superusers because:
Server security status is set using the Server Configuration utility (accessible by clicking SQL For DB2 > XDB Server on the Options menu). Once security has been enabled, users must log on with a valid AuthID and, if required, password. The user's actual AuthID replaces the shared one, which means that a user cannot access a database unless they have been granted the appropriate access privileges by the database owner using GRANT and REVOKE statements.
An AuthID that has been assigned superuser status can change user, group and priority settings that affect all databases on an XDB Server. Initially an AuthID called INSTALL is set as the superuser. If you log on with this AuthID, you can create further superusers as required by clicking Users on the Admin menu and giving each user the appropriate status.
Ordinary users can use the Admin menu only to change their password. Ordinary users who want to change access privileges for specific databases and tables that they own should click New > SQL on the File menu and use the SQL statements GRANT and REVOKE to change access privileges. The AuthID of the creator of a table is deemed to be its owner.
As well as managing system security, a superuser can assign priorities to individual users or groups of users. Priorities control how much processing resource is available to the user or group, depending on criteria set by the superuser.
When you install SQL Option, the default AuthID is set to TUTORIAL. This AuthID has user privileges and is not authorized to access system tables. This means that, if you switch security on for your personal XDB Server, you cannot use this AuthID to log on to the client utilities.
You should log on using the default superuser AuthID, INSTALL. You can then either set the TUTORIAL AuthID to have superuser status or you can grant it suitable authority on system tables, as appropriate. The INSTALL superuser AuthID has no password assigned initially: you should allocate one to it as soon as possible after switching XDB Server security on.