VBA authentication through Novell

[BakeMan]

I am creating my own security module for Access and was looking for a way to authenticate the users through our Novell system. I have a table that houses the users' names in the database but wanted a way to authenticate them through Novell. This way I won't have to assign and maintain passwords for the users. All I will have to do is add their Novell username to the table. Does anyone have any code that could help me. I did this a couple of years ago for another VBA based program, but I can't seem to find the code again (I've since moved on and do not have a copy of it).

Thank you all for your help,

BAKEMAN

 

[lameid]

Have you tried ...

Environ ("username")

If that does not work perhaps another Environment variable would help.

See: thread705-1312065

 

[BakeMan]

I'm really looking for a way that I can pass the user name and password to Novell and tell weather or not they are a correct set. I can then look up the user name in my table and tell if the user has rights and what level. This is different than just reading the user name of the logged in user. This does not offer a second level of security if the user walks away from their PC nor does it allow for another user to log into the database on their PC without first logging into the PC. I know, it's a strange set of requirements, but I just give them what they ask for.

Thanks for the suggestion,
BAKEMAN

 

[jrbarnett]

http://databaseadvisors.com/pipermail/accessd/2004-September/027558.html

is a VBA function that will query the Novell client for their username; this could be different from the Windows username (if for example, they log into the local PC, right click the Novell system tray icon then use the login option from there to connect to the Novell services).

This needs the Novell client installed on the PC, and is known to work properly with clients up to and including 4.91 SP3 on Windows 2000 and XP; not tested on Vista yet but because of the problems Novell are having getting a client working and the architectural changes in the Vista security model, this may not work on a Vista client.
I haven't yet tested this on a Vista box.

A few points:
* If logged into the local PC but not Netware, it returns [Public]
* If run on a PC that doesn't have the Novell client installed, it will crash because it can't access the DLLs.

Lameid's solution will work if you force people to login to the Network at the same time as they login to the PC, so their Windows username will be the same as their Netware username.

John

 

[jrbarnett]

Given your response above, I should also say that I've tried setting up my own black box that I can call to validate a login ID/password combination using both NDAP and LDAP, and so far have failed to do so.
Novell have some ActiveX controls on their developer website which (amongst other things) can be used to validate a login ID/password combination against an NDS replica, but I've not really had much experience using them.

What I tend to do therefore is use the above function to obtain the login ID of the current user and use that.
Our network security policy is set to force a passworded screensaver after 10 minutes of inactivity; if somebody else gets access to their password it is treated as a breach of our information security policy.
As with many things, this contains a sentence about keeping your network password secret and never passing it onto other people regardless of who they are or the position in the organisation they hold.

John