Is it possible to provide users with access the the Deployment Server Windows Console without granting access to SQL Server?
Answer
The Deployment Server Windows Console can be configured to use encrypted credentials to access SQL Server. These credentials will not be available to the windows user and can only be used by the console. This is the most secure way to provide access to the console.
1. If you have not already done so, create a SQL-only account on SQL Server.
2. Make that account a member of the DBO role of the Deployment (eXpress) Database.
3. On your Deployment Server, open the “Altiris Deployment Server” control panel applet.
a. Click “Options…”
b. Select the “Authentication” tab.
c. Enable the option to “Use SQL Server account authentication”
d. Type in the SQL-only account user name and password.
e. Click “OK” to close the Options dialog.
f. Click “OK” to close the applet.
4. On your Deployment Server, click Start > Run, type “regedit”, and click OK.
5. In the registry editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Altiris eXpress\Options
6. Double-click on the registry value “SqlPassword”.
7. Copy the content of that registry value into the clipboard.
8. Open Notepad.
9. Enter the following into Notepad, replacing **USER** and **PASSWORD** with the user name of your SQL-only account and the value you copied into your clipboard.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Altiris\Altiris eXpress\Options]
"SqlUsername"="**USER**"
"SqlPassword"="**PASSWORD**"
"UseSql"=dword:00000001
10. Save the file as “DS_Auth.reg”
11. Import “DS_Auth.reg” onto every computer that the Deployment Windows Console is installed to.
