The Security → Security Groups page can be reached by clicking the  menu item.


Active Directory Authentication types

Flowster Studio uses two values for the authentication type in the Active Directory entries: Secure and Secure Socket Layer.

The Secure one: requests secure authentication. When this flag is set, the WinNT provider uses NTLM to authenticate the client. Active Directory Domain Services uses Kerberos, and possibly NTLM, to authenticate the client. When the user name and password are a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic), ADSI binds to the object using the security context of the calling thread, which is either the security context of the user account under which the application is running or of the client user account that the calling thread is impersonating. 

The Secure Socket Layer one: Attaches a cryptographic signature to the message that both identifies the sender and ensures that the message has not been modified in transit. Active Directory Domain Services requires the Certificate Server be installed to support Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption.

Active Directory supports both Kerberos and NTLM. Windows will first try Kerberos and if all the requirements are not met, it will fallback to NTLM. 

Kerberos is the default authentication method for AD but it can fallback to NTLM in some cases, but that is handled by Windows itself. Kerberos is used every time a login to an AD is made.

As an example, accessing file share by name like \server1\share would invoke Kerberos and should succeed given proper permission. But accessing same file share using IP address would invoke Kerberos first and fail (as there is no SPN for IP Address) and then fail over to NTLM.

Here are some links for a better understanding of how the two protocols are working:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742516.aspx

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chiranth/2013/09/20/ntlm-want-to-know-how-it-works/


Flowster Studio defines following user roles and permissions:

Users are grouped in Security Groups of the type presented above. The membership and permission of the user is valid only on the parent tenant. If the same user exists in another tenant, the role and permissions will be defined when accessing that tenant via Switch Tenant option in Administrator/Portal/Designer.

Security Groups 

SuperAdmins type security group

During installation, a super admin user must be entered in order to successfully install the application on a computer. The Super Admin set during installation, can be a custom user or selected from an Active Directory OU, is the only one that can access Flowster Studio components at login. He will be the only one that can define other Active Directory, Google, Azure or Local/Custom users/groups as super adminsadministrators or users, by adding them into specific security groups types.

NOTE: A custom user is a database user that does not require any authentication provider defined

The predefined SuperAdmins group cannot be deleted from Administrator. Also, if there is only one user in the SuperAdmins group, it will not be deleted (there should be at least one user in this type of group). 

On the SuperAdmins group can be performed the following operations:

The following operations cannot be performed on the SuperAdmins group:

All users from this group type can access all Flowster Studio components without the need of creating a Permission Role (e.g. case for administrators groups). Only users from the SuperAdmins group will have visibility and control over this group in the Security Groups page.


Admins/Users type security groups


Administrator gives users the possibility to create unlimited number of security groups and subgroups, as well as adding Active Directory, Google, Azure or Local users or groups into manually created groups.


Add group/subgroup


In order to add a subgroup, right-click on an existent security group and select the Add subgroup option. The Add new group window will open.


Add group/subgroup children

In order to add a child to a group/subgroup, follow the next steps:

                    

                    




            


                    

                    




User can manage the defined groups by editing or removing them. The added children can also be managed by dragging them from a group to another one or by completely removing them.
In order to edit a group/subgroup, follow the next steps:

NOTE: if a group is assigned to a Permission Role, the group cannot be edited.


In order to move a user from a group to another one, follow the next steps:

For removing a group, follow the next steps:

NOTE: if a group is assigned to a Permission Role, the group cannot be deleted.

For removing a child, follow the next steps:


Execution Groups Assignment 

The super admin can configure which Security Group has access to which Execution Group (For more details regarding execution groups and agents, please visit Execution Groups page). An admin that belongs to a Role that has permission to configure security groups -> execution groups mappings can configure for other security groups only the execution groups that are visible to him.


In order to assign Execution Groups to a security group/subgroup , follow the steps:


Other Options

The Update cache for users button can be used when the data (ex. users) update from database was not automatically done.

Load only custom users: if this option is checked, the user can see only the custom users spread through all security groups.

Export Custom Users: 

Import Custom Users:

 Note: Passwords can be filled in the csv file and imported with the user's data. Dates can be modified, but the format must be kept dd/mm/yyyy.