Chapter 4. System Administration

Table of Contents

4.1. User Management
4.1.1. Login level
4.1.2. Configuration access level
4.1.3. Login idle timeout
4.1.4. Restricting user logins
4.1.4.1. Restrict by IP address
4.1.4.2. Restrict by profile
4.2. General System settings
4.2.1. System name (hostname)
4.2.2. Administrative details
4.2.3. System-level event logging control
4.2.4. Home page web links
4.3. Software Upgrades
4.3.1. Software release types
4.3.1.1. Breakpoint releases
4.3.2. Identifying current software version
4.3.3. Internet-based upgrade process
4.3.3.1. Manually initiating upgrades
4.3.3.2. Controlling automatic software updates
4.3.4. Manual upgrade
4.4. Boot Process
4.4.1. LED indications
4.4.1.1. Power LED status indications
4.4.1.2. Port LEDs

4.1. User Management

You will have created your first user as part of the initial setup of your FB6000, as detailed in either the QuickStart Guide or in Chapter 2 in this manual.

To create, edit or delete users, browse to the config pages by clicking the "Edit" item in the sub-menu under the "Config" main-menu item, then click on the "Users" category icon. Click on the "Edit" link adjacent to the user you wish to edit, or click on the "Add" link to add a user.

To delete a user, click the appropriate "Edit" link, then click the "Erase" button in the navigation controls - see Figure 3.8. As with any such object erase operation, the object will not actually be erased until the configuration is saved.

Once you have added a new user, or are editing an existing user, the object editing page will appear, as shown in Figure 4.1 :-

Figure 4.1. Setting up a new user

Setting up a new user

The minimum attributes that must be specified are name, which is the username that you type in when logging in, and password - passwords are mandatory on the FB6000.

You can optionally provide a full name for the specified username, and a general comment field value.

4.1.1. Login level

A user's login level is set with the level attribute, and determines what CLI commands the user can run. The default, if the level attribute is not specified, is ADMIN - you may wish to downgrade the level for users who are not classed as 'system administrators'.

Table 4.1. User login levels

LevelDescription
NOBODYUnknown or not logged in user
GUESTGuest user
USERNormal unprivileged user
ADMINSystem administrator
DEBUGSystem debugging user

4.1.2. Configuration access level

The configuration access level determines whether a user has read-only or read-write access to the configuration, as shown in Table 4.2 below. This mechanism can also be used to deny all access to the configuration using the none level, without actually deleting the user definition.

This setting is distinct from, and not connected with, the login level described above. You can use the access level to define, for example, whether a USER login-level user can modify the configuration. Typically an ADMIN (or DEBUG) login-level user would always be granted full access, so for ADMIN or DEBUG level user's, the default of full is suitable.

Table 4.2. Configuration access levels

LevelDescription
noneNo access unless explicitly listed
viewView only access (no passwords)
readRead only access (with passwords)
fullFull view and edit access - DEFAULT

4.1.3. Login idle timeout

To improve security, login sessions to either the web user interface, or to the command-line interface (via telnet, see Chapter 15), will time-out after a period of inactivity. This idle time-out defaults to 5 minutes, and can be changed by setting the timeout attribute value.

The time-out value is specified using the syntax for the XML Period data type - this syntax consists of the prefix PT, followed by one or more components of a time value. Each component consists of a number followed by a unit - H (hours), M (minutes), S (seconds). As an example, the value PT5M30S represents 5 minutes and 30 seconds.

To set a user's time-out in the user interface, tick the checkbox next to timeout, and enter a value in the format described above.

4.1.4. Restricting user logins

4.1.4.1. Restrict by IP address

You can restrict logins by a given user to be allowed only from specific IP addresses, using the allow attribute. This restriction is per-user, and is distinct from, and applies in addition to, any restrictions specified on either the web or telnet (for command line interface access) services (see Section 12.1 and Section 12.2), or any firewall rules that affect web or telnet access to the FB6000 itself.

4.1.4.2. Restrict by profile

By specifying a profile name using the profile attribute, you can allow logins by the user only when the profile is in the Active state (see Chapter 8). You can use this to, for example, restrict logins to be allowed only during certain times of the day, or you can effectively suspend a user account by specifying an always-Inactive profile.