Administration Guide

Chapter 2. Security features of the SP system

The goal of this chapter is to present security in the context of a complete computer complex, often extending beyond the bounds of the SP system, and then to explain the SP system-specific support that can fit in with your security policy and implementation. This chapter introduces some terminology, some basic security concepts, and the SP system-specific security concepts.

Computer security is a large topic and there is abundant literature on the subject in the volumes of AIX and DCE publications. Do not rely solely on PSSP publications to fully explain how to implement or administer security on your SP system. The following are required to understand and exploit the security features of the SP system:

1. You must have a clearly expressed and understood security policy for your organization. This includes understanding:
   • The degree of control you require over individuals and groups to access resources and perform activities, and in which SP system partitions.
   • Which authentication services (Distributed Computing Environment (DCE), Kerberos V4, and standard AIX) are to be used to help enforce your security policy.
2. You must already understand security of computer systems and the security services (DCE, Kerberos, and AIX) that your organization does, or intends to, use.
3. You must be familiar with information in other publications that relate to your organizations's security policy and implementation.