From IBM Connected 2015 Connections 5 introduces us to a new model of access - the external user. Originally designed to have limited rights within your Connections environment, the security surrounding external user access is deliberately very restrictive.  To achieve appropriate access for the external user, we must tell Connections how to identity an external user by flagging either an LDAP attribute or a new LDAP source.  In this session we’ll discuss the options for external user configuration, how to manage registration and passwords as well as how everyone in your Connections world can work together.

1. BTE201: Working With
External Users in IBM
Connections
Gabriella Davis
Technical Director - The Turtle Partnership
gabriella@turtlepartnership.com

2. Let’s talk about me for a minute
▪ Admin of all things and especially quite
complicated things where the fun is
– Working with security , healthchecks, single sign on,
design and deployment of Domino, ST, Connections
and things that they talk to
▪ Stubborn and relentless problem solver
▪ Lives in London about half of the time
▪ gabriella@turtlepartnership.com
▪ twitter: gabturtle

3. Notices and Disclaimers
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4. Why do external users need to be configured differently?

6. How Does It Work - The Brief Version

7. What Can An External Person Do?
▪ Be a full member of a Community that allows external users
▪ Share Files with others as well as Download files shared with you
▪ See Activity Streams that they are invited into
▪ Edit Their Profile
▪ View business cards of anyone who has shared content with them

8. What Can’t An External Person Do?
▪ See Any Public Content
▪ Create a community
▪ Follow people
▪ See or search the company directory
▪ Use type-ahead to find people
▪ See recommended content or people
▪ Access the Profiles menu
▪ Access other user profiles
▪ See @Mentions for them

9. ▪ An existing Community can’t become a Community that allows external users
▪ Once created as either internal or allowing external user access - a Community cannot be
changed
▪ Only internal users with a specific role can invite and share with external users
▪ Communites with external users must be restricted

10. This isn’t a bad thing
In general an external user is limited to participating in
a restricted community they are invited into

11. Let’s set things up or
… here comes the technical bit

12. Internal vs External User Directories
▪ Who am I talking to? Who am I sharing with?
▪ There needs to be a simple way of identifying internal vs external users
▪ We need to tell Connections how to identify an internal and external user
▪ There are three ways to do this
– They all involve using TDI scripts

13. A Quick Catch Up On TDI
▪ To enable external users, the Profile DB must be used as a Directory
▪ TDISOL found in the Connections install directory
– Updated on Fix Central
▪ Files we change for External users
– profiles_tdi.properties
– map_dbrepos_from_source.properties
– sync_all_dns

14. Separate LDAP Branch or Server
▪ In map_dbrepos_from_source.properties
– mode={func_mode_visitor_branch}
– displayName={func_decorate_displayName_if_visitor}
– displayNameLdapAttr=cn
– decorateVisitorDisplayName= - External User
▪ In profiles_tdi.properties
– source_ldap_url_visitor_confirm
– source_ldap_search_base_visitor_confirm*
– source_ldap_search_filter_visitor_confirm

15. Separate LDAP Branch or Server
▪ In map_dbrepos_from_source.properties
– mode={func_mode_visitor_branch}
– displayName={func_decorate_displayName_if_visitor}
– displayNameLdapAttr=cn
– decorateVisitorDisplayName= - External User
▪ In profiles_tdi.properties
– source_ldap_url_visitor_confirm
– source_ldap_search_base_visitor_confirm
– source_ldap_search_filter_visitor_confirm

16. Separate LDAP Steps
▪ Ensure the External directory is also configured as a Federated Repository in WAS
– otherwise your external users can’t authenticate
▪ source_ldap_search_base_visitor_confirm must not be empty
▪ In mapdb_repos_from_source add sync_source_url_enforce=true so TDI doesn’t remove
one directory’s entries

17. LDAP Attribute
▪ This is a bit easier but needs careful managing
▪ In mapdb_repos_from_source assign an LDAP attribute so that mode=“external”
– displayName={func_decorate_displayName_if_visitor}
– displayNameLdapAttr=cn
– decorateVisitorDisplayName= - External User

18. LDAP Attribute As A Function
▪ Instead of mapping an LDAP attribute containing “external” to the mode= entry you can
use a javascript function
– The function must compute to the word ‘external’ for external users
– It must be placed in profiles_functions.js file

19. Whatever Method You Choose
sync_all_dns.bat when done
.. on failure check the logs ibmdi.log and SyncUpdates.log

20. Exployee-Extended Role
▪ Not all internal users / employees can invite external users - they must have the special
Connections role
– “Employee-Extended
▪ The only way to get this role is to be assigned it via wsadmin

21. Assigning Roles
▪ From /profiles/dmgr01/bin directory
▪ wsadmin.bat/sh -lang jython -username <wasadmin> -password <password>
▪ execfile(“profilesAdmin.py”)
▪ ProfilesService.setRole(“gabriella@turtlepartnership.com, EMPLOYEE_EXTENDED)

22. Securing the Perimeter

23. Directory Decisions
▪ How will external users register
▪ Who will have rights to invite external users
▪ Password quality

24. Anonymous Access
▪ Disable Anonymous access for all applications
▪ Edit each application’s “security role to user group mapping”
– Ensure “reader” is not set to “Everyone”

25. Public Files
▪ External users can’t see public files
– or can they?
▪ If you use a caching proxy then the public cache will contain information external users
shouldn’t see
– Disable public caching in LotusConnections-config.mxl using
<genericProperty name="publicCacheEnabled">false</genericProperty>

26. Working with Libraries
▪ With CCM installed the URL /dm can provide access to any public Libraries
– External users shouldn’t see public ANYTHING
▪ Ensure the /dm URL is blocked from public interfaces

27. Desktop Plugin
▪ When using Connections, the interface constantly warns you if you are going to share with
internal users
▪ The desktop plugin doesn’t do that
▪ This quote from the documentation
says it all
– “In addition, some operations
might result in unexpected errors” !

28. Internal and External (Visitor) Views
or.. Spot What’s Missing

29. Internal - Homepage

30. Visitor Homepage

31. Internal Community Page

32. Visitor Community Page

33. Internal - My Profile

34. Visitor My Profile

35. You can do this but not that
▪ As A Visitor…
– You can add tags but not see existing tag lists
– You can view partial business cards but not full profiles
– You can search for content but that only finds things that are shared with you
– You can share files but only with the Communities you are part of, not with people
directly

36. ▪ All of this is good - it keeps your environment secure
▪ It protects your users from accidentally sharing something unintended
▪ It doesn’t give up any information the external user doesn’t already know
▪ Some things are a bit buggy but hopefully being fixed

37. Questions?
▪ Gab Davis - Technical Director
▪ The Turtle Partnership
▪ gabriella@turtlepartnership.com
▪ GabriellaDavis on Skype
▪ gabturtle on twitter

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