User Authentication Mechanisms

Although CentraSite maintains its own database of user accounts, the users associated with those accounts are authenticated by an external authentication system at log on time.

CentraSite is delivered with one predefined authentication configuration, namely the configuration to use an internal text file, and this configuration is the default configuration. However, after installation, you can configure it to also use the following types of authentication systems:

Note:

If the CentraSite registry/repository is installed on a UNIX or Linux machine, you can only use the Active Directory Server as the user repository if it is configured via the LDAP interface.

If you are working in a distributed environment, where one or more Application Server Tiers and a separate registry/repository are involved, you must configure CentraSite to use an external authentication system. If you are working in a mixed Windows and UNIX environment, CentraSite can use Active Directory or LDAP as the user repository for both.

Note:

Although CentraSite allows you to define multiple user repositories for authentication, only one is the default at any given time. Users who log on to the system by just providing the user name will be authenticated against the default authentication system. If you wish to log on to CentraSite with a user name that does not reside in the default authentication system, you need to prefix the user name by the Domain ID that was defined for the respective authentication system.

Users defined in the external directory are not automatically entitled to log on to CentraSite. You must explicitly create users accounts for valid users on CentraSite as described in Adding a User.

For information about how to configure the authentication for CentraSite, see Authentication Topics and LDAP.

Note:

Any change of the external user management is not synchronized with CentraSite. If a user is removed from the external user management (for instance on operating system level) the corresponding CentraSite user is not automatically deactivated. The CentraSite user associated with a deleted external user must be deactivated manually in CentraSite.