American Dynamics Intellex Policy Manager, User Manual

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Appendix B Frequently Asked Questions
What is propagation?
The Propagate Settings dialog box allows you to copy the security settings from one instrument to
one or more other instruments. Only the security settings are copied; the instrument name and
description remain the same.
What is inheritance?
If you are editing the security settings for an instrument and select a ‘container’ object (the objects
in the list that have a small box before the name), like ‘Multi Media Data’ or ‘Administration’, you
will get a generic editor. Since a container has no specific items, you can grant only local or remote
access to the feature. However, users and groups added at the container level are ‘inherited’ to all
features in that container (i.e. all child objects whose direct parent is the container).
For example, if you add a user named JSmith to the ‘Multi Media Data’ container and grant him full
access, JSmith will be able to see everything regardless of whether he is sitting directly at the
instrument (local access) or accessing the data remotely via Network Client or the API.
This is
because the default access permission for all media streams (i.e. all the sub-features in Multi
Media Data) is ‘access allowed’. JSmith’s permissions have been automatically inherited from the
parent container to all child objects. In addition, the access granted at each child is determined by
a special set of rules enforced by the server. These rules are different for each child (feature)
object (for multi media streams access is allowed for all 16 streams; for Administration\Utility,
access is allowed to Generate Alarms, Clear Latched Alarms and Erase CD-RW. All other features
are not allowed).
Inheritance is a powerful tool that allows you to grant default permissions to several users or
groups quickly.
What happens when I propagate to a single instrument or a group of
instruments?
Propagating security settings from one instrument to one or several other instruments copies the
settings from the source instrument (the one where you select Propagate… from the menu) to any
instruments designated as target instruments in the Policy Manager > Propagate Settings dialog
box.
For example, by changing the settings for a default instrument and then propagating those settings
to other instruments or zones, the administrator can set up and maintain a consistent security
environment among several individual instruments at the same time. You can propagate the
security settings for the default instrument to any or all instruments in the same zones, or zones
that are unrelated. You can also propagate the settings to instruments outside of the zone where
the source instrument is located. The view for a zone is similar to the view for the ‘All Secured
Instruments’ node (the ‘All Secured Instruments’ node is another zone).
When an instrument first registers itself with Policy Manager, it receives a copy of the current
security settings for the default site instrument. In a sense, the settings for the default site
instrument have been automatically propagated to the new instrument.
Propagation does NOT change the name or description of the target instrument(s).