Hi Peter;

  In my Active Directory based Apps, I check the user security level & role(s) upon login and then set a DWO with the roles & their setting (basically Y/N). Then at run time, I have the PS App check the user's roles and adjust the controls / menus upon instantiation.

Regards ... Chris

Thank you Chris and Mike for your responses, they are a great help.

I'm still not sure of one of my questions, so I'd like to express as a concrete hypothetical scenario...

Imagine an application with users with two types of roles - Managers and Users.

Managers have access to a form with a list of users and a button that executes a NVO function to add or remove a Manager role.

This application is deployed to PowerServer and users need to authenticate before access.

Would a (non-manager) user, equipped with the right tools, be able to execute the NVO function to add/remove the Manager role? Perhaps by using a tool that would simulating logging in and directly calling the network end point for the NVO function.

I imagine it would be difficult to do so, unless a generic tool existed, but is it possible?

Or, do the server side components, know somehow, that the (non-manager) user should not have access to the button and the form and the NVO function to add/remove the Manager role?

> You could implement User "Role" security within your App by tying in PS Security feature into you App. 

Chris, I'm guessing by what you mean, but to solve the above scenario, would it be advised to add functionality to all components partitioned into the server side (datawindows and NVOs) that checks the user identity and their roles are appropriate for that object or the specific functions of that object?

Cheers Peter.

"an internal user that is permitted to use parts of the system"

what system are you talking about?  If you are talking about the powerserver AEM - then the security is not very fine grained.  however, only IT/developer admins would have access to that, the same way you don't provide end users the sa login to the database server.

If you are talking about your application, then they have whatever access you provided them within the application itself.  As chris stated, all database connections go through the powerserver application - the user does NOT have a database id/login (well, they could if you needed it for a special reason but the default is that they don't).  In that way, the system is more secure than citrix.  If your citrix deployment uses database logins per user then a user could use their applicaiton login and connect directly to the database with excel or similar. 

The database can be behind firewalls to prevent access except by powerserver.  Only powerserver requires access to the database.   The user gets access to your powerserver based application via https or http.

Hi Peter;

  PS's architecture is such that all DBMS access id from the "PS" (Application Server) middle tier and not any longer from the PB Application layer. PS is actually not a separate server. Instead, its installed underneath an Application Server (J2EE or .Net) and works as a "helper" to the App Server parent for things like DBMS connection, pooling, DML execution, result handling, etc).

  FYI:  https://www.appeon.com/support/documents/appeon_online_help/ps2019/installation_guide/ch01s02.html

  As far as App security features, PS has its own feature for that. You can read more about this here:

https://www.appeon.com/support/documents/appeon_online_help/ps2019/server_configuration_guide_for_net/Server_Security.html

  You could implement User "Role" security within your App by tying in PS Security feature into you App. The other alternative would be to use "Active Directory" (I did a presentation on AD &  the roles aspect at the Elevate 2018 Conference last year based on an actual client implemenation) .

Regards ... Chris