The Adabas Security feature in Adabas for LUW platforms enables user authentication and role-based access controls.
Authentication requires the application to provide valid user credentials in order to establish an Adabas session. The Nucleus then applies the controls associated with the role assigned to that user to subsequent database or file operations.
Interactive applications will manage the authentication process by prompting the user for their credentials and then calling the lnk_set_uid_pw() function in the adalnkx.dll or libadalnkx.so library to authenticate the user.
Non-interactive applications must acquire the user credentials for authentication by other means. Since there are inherent risks in storing authentication credentials securely in configuration information, Data Archiving for Adabas does not attempt to authenticate the user directly.
Instead, the Adabas calls issued by Data Archiving Adabas (and the related calls from Adabas System Coordinator) contain a marker in the Adabas Control Block. This marker can be used by a Nucleus User Exit 21 to identify the sessions associated with the products. The user exit can then set the appropriate credentials for authentication by calling the set_uid_psw() function in the user exit parameter block
The Adabas Security Facilities chapter in the Adabas for Linux, UNIX and Windows documentation contains more detailed information about using the security features.
Sample source code for a Nucleus User Exit 21 can be found in the product's sdk/examples/uex21 subdirectory. The sample code shows how to identify an Adabas session associated with Data Archiving for Adabas and Adabas System Coordinator and set the credentials for authentication.
Developers should refer to the User Exits and Hyperexits chapter in the Adabas for Linux , UNIX and Windows documentation for more detailed information.