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Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is a method of restricting or authorizing system access for users based on user roles and locales. A role defines the privileges of a user in the system and a locale defines the organizations (domains) that a user is allowed access. Because users are not directly assigned privileges, you can manage individual user privileges by assigning the appropriate roles and locales.
A user is granted write access to the required system resources only if the assigned role grants the access privileges and the assigned locale allows access. For example, a user with the Server Administrator role in the engineering organization can update server configurations in the Engineering organization. They cannot, however, update server configurations in the Finance organization, unless the locales assigned to the user include the Finance organization.
Access the system with user accounts. You can configure up to 128 user accounts in each Cisco UCS Central domain. Each user account must have a unique username and password.
You can setup a user account with an SSH public key, in either of the two formats: OpenSSH or SECSH.
The Cisco UCS Central admin account is the default user account. You cannot modify or delete it. This account is the system administrator, or superuser account, and has full privileges. There is no default password assigned to the admin account. You must choose the password during the initial system setup.
The admin account is always active and does not expire. You cannot configure the admin account as inactive.
The local admin user can login for fail over, even when authentication is set to remote.
A locally authenticated user account is authenticated through the Cisco UCS Central user database. Anyone with admin or aaa privileges can enable or disable it. Once you disable a local user account, the user cannot log in.
![]() Note | Cisco UCS Central does not delete configuration details for disabled local user accounts from the database. If you re-enable a disabled local user account, the account becomes active again with the existing configuration, including username and password. |
A remotely authenticated user account is any Cisco UCS Central user account that is authenticated through LDAP. Cisco UCS domains support LDAP, RADIUS and TACACS+.
If a user maintains a local user account and a remote user account simultaneously, the roles defined in the local user account override those maintained in the remote user account.
You can configure user accounts to expire at a predefined time. When the user account reaches the expiration time, the account disables.
By default, user accounts do not expire.
![]() Note | After you configure a user account with an expiration date, you cannot reconfigure the account to not expire. You can, however, configure the account to expire with the farthest expiration date available. |
The username is also used as the login ID for Cisco UCS Central. When you assign login IDs to Cisco UCS Central user accounts, consider the following guidelines and restrictions:
The login ID can contain between 1 and 32 characters, including the following:
The login ID must be unique within Cisco UCS Central.
The login ID must start with an alphabetic character. It cannot start with a number or a special character, such as an underscore.
The login ID is case-sensitive.
You cannot create an all-numeric login ID.
After you create a user account, you cannot change the login ID. You must delete the user account and create a new one.
You cannot use the following words when creating a local user account in Cisco UCS.
User roles contain one or more privileges that define the operations that are allowed for a user. You can assign one or more roles to each user. Users with multiple roles have the combined privileges of all assigned roles. For example, if Role1 has storage-related privileges, and Role 2 has server-related privileges, users with Role1 and Role 2 have both storage-related and server-related privileges.
A Cisco UCS domain can contain up to 48 user roles, including the default user roles. Any user roles configured after the first 48 are accepted, but they are inactive with faults raised. Each domain group in Cisco UCS Central can also contain 48 user roles, including the user roles that are inherited from the parent domain group. When user roles are pushed to Cisco UCS Manager from Cisco UCS Central, only the first 48 roles are active. Any user roles after the first 48 are inactive with faults raised.
All roles include read access to all configuration settings in the Cisco UCS domain. Users with read-only roles cannot modify the system state.
You can create, modify or remove existing privileges, and delete roles. When you modify a role, the new privileges apply to all users with that role. Privilege assignment is not restricted to the privileges defined for the default roles. Meaning, you can use a custom set of privileges to create a unique role. For example, the default Server Administrator and Storage Administrator roles have a different set of privileges. However, you can create a Server and Storage Administrator role that combines the privileges of both roles.
![]() Note | If you delete a role after it was assigned to users, it is also deleted from those user accounts. |
Modify the user profiles on AAA servers (RADIUS or TACACS+) to add the roles corresponding to the privileges granted to that user. The attribute stores the role information. The AAA servers return this attribute with the request and parse it to obtain the roles. LDAP servers return the roles in the user profile attributes.
The system contains the following default user roles:
Read-and-write access to users, roles, and AAA configuration. Read access to the remaining system.
Complete read-and-write access to the entire system. Assigns this role to the default administrator account by default. You cannot change it.
Read-and-write access to power management operations through the power management privilege. Read access to the remaining system.
Read-and-write access to fabric interconnect infrastructure and network security operations. Read access to the remaining system.
Read-and-write access to systems logs, including the syslog servers, and faults. Read access to the remaining system.
Read-only access to system configuration with no privileges to modify the system state.
Read and write access to most aspects of service profiles. However, the user cannot create, modify or delete vNICs or vHBAs.
Read-and-write access to physical server-related operations. Read access to the remaining system.
Read-and-write access to logical server-related operations. Read access to the remaining system.
Read-and-write access to server security-related operations. Read access to the remaining system.
Read-and-write access to storage operations. Read access to the remaining system.
You cannot use the following words when creating custom roles in Cisco UCS.
Privileges give users, assigned to user roles, access to specific system resources and permission to perform specific tasks. The following table lists each privilege and the user role given that privilege by default.
![]() Tip | Detailed information about these privileges and the tasks that they enable users to perform is available in Privileges in Cisco UCS available at the following URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10281/prod_technical_reference_list.html. |
Role |
Privileges |
Role to Configure in LDAP/RADIUS/TACACS Server |
---|---|---|
AAA Administrator |
aaa |
aaa |
Administrator |
admin |
admin |
Facility Manager |
facility-manager |
power-mgmt |
KVM Administrator |
kvm |
kvm |
Network |
pod-qos,pod-config,pod-policy,ext-lan-qos,pod-security, ext-lan-config,ext-lan-policy,ext-lan-security,service-profile-qos,service-profile-network,service-profile-qos-policy,service-profile-network-policy |
network |
Operations |
fault, operations |
fault, operations |
Read-Only |
read-only |
read-only |
Server-Compute Administrator |
service-profile-compute,service-profile-server-oper,service-profile-server-policy |
server-compute |
Server-Equipment Administrator |
server-policy,server-equipment,server-maintenance |
server-equipment |
Server Profile Administrator |
service-profile-config,service-profile-server,service-profile-ext-access,service-profile-server-oper,service-profile-server-policy,service-profile-config-policy |
server-profile |
Server Security Administrator |
server-security,service-profile-security,service-profile-security-policy |
server-security |
Statistics Administrator |
stats |
stats-management |
Storage Administrator |
ext-san-qos,ext-san-config,ext-san-policy,ext-san-security,service-profile-storage,service-profile-storage-policy |
storage |
Privilege |
Description |
Default Role Assignment |
---|---|---|
aaa |
System security and AAA |
AAA Administrator |
admin |
System administration |
Administrator |
domain-group-management |
Domain Group Management |
Domain Group Administrator |
ext-lan-config |
External LAN configuration |
Network Administrator |
ext-lan-policy |
External LAN policy |
Network Administrator |
ext-lan-qos |
External LAN QoS |
Network Administrator |
ext-lan-security |
External LAN security |
Network Administrator |
ext-san-config |
External SAN configuration |
Storage Administrator |
ext-san-policy |
External SAN policy |
Storage Administrator |
ext-san-qos |
External SAN QoS |
Storage Administrator |
ext-san-security |
External SAN security |
Storage Administrator |
fault |
Alarms and alarm policies |
Operations |
kvm |
Launch KVM |
Operations |
operations |
Logs and Smart Call Home |
Operations |
org-management |
Organization management |
Operations |
pod-config |
Pod configuration |
Network Administrator |
pod-policy |
Pod policy |
Network Administrator |
pod-qos |
Pod QoS |
Network Administrator |
pod-security |
Pod security |
Network Administrator |
power-mgmt |
Read-and-write access to power management operations |
Facility Manager |
read-only |
Read-only access Read-only cannot be selected as a privilege; it is assigned to every user role. |
Read-Only |
server-equipment |
Server hardware management |
Server Equipment Administrator |
server-maintenance |
Server maintenance |
Server Equipment Administrator |
server-policy |
Server policy |
Server Equipment Administrator |
server-security |
Server security |
Server Security Administrator |
service-profile-compute |
Service profile compute |
Server Compute Administrator |
service-profile-config |
Service profile configuration |
Server Profile Administrator |
service-profile-config-policy |
Service profile configuration policy |
Server Profile Administrator |
service-profile-ext-access |
Service profile endpoint access |
Server Profile Administrator |
service-profile-network |
Service profile network |
Network Administrator |
service-profile-network-policy |
Service profile network policy |
Network Administrator |
service-profile-qos |
Service profile QoS |
Network Administrator |
service-profile-qos-policy |
Service profile QoS policy |
Network Administrator |
service-profile-security |
Service profile security |
Server Security Administrator |
service-profile-security-policy |
Service profile security policy |
Server Security Administrator |
service-profile-server |
Service profile server management |
Server Profile Administrator |
service-profile-server-oper |
Service profile consumer |
Server Profile Administrator |
service-profile-server-policy |
Service profile pool policy |
Server Security Administrator |
service-profile-storage |
Service profile storage |
Storage Administrator |
service-profile-storage-policy |
Service profile storage policy |
Storage Administrator |
stats |
Statistics Management |
Statistics Administrator |
You can assign a user to one or more locales. Each locale defines one or more organizations (domains) to which a user can access. Access is usually limited to the organizations specified in the locale. An exception is a locale without any organizations. It provides unrestricted access to system resources in all organizations.
A Cisco UCS domain can contain up to 48 user locales. Any user locales configured after the first 48 are accepted, but are inactive with faults raised. Each domain group in Cisco UCS Central can contain 48 user locales, including the user locales that are inherited from the parent domain group. When user locales are pushed to Cisco UCS Manager from Cisco UCS Central, only the first 48 locales are active. Any user locales after the first 48 are inactive with faults raised.
Users with admin or aaaadmin, aaa, or domain-group-management privileges can assign organizations to the locale of other users. The assignment of organizations is restricted to only those in the locale of the user assigning the organizations. For example, if a locale contains only the Engineering organization, a user assigned to that locale can only assign the Engineering organization to other users.
![]() Note | You cannot assign a locale to users with the admin privilege. |
![]() Note | You cannot assign a locale to users with one or more of the following privileges: |
You can hierarchically manage organizations. A user who is assigned to a top-level organization has automatic access to all organizations below it. For example, an Engineering organization can contain a Software Engineering organization and a Hardware Engineering organization. A locale containing only the Software Engineering organization has access to system resources only within that organization. However, a locale that contains the Engineering organization has access to the resources for both the Software Engineering and Hardware Engineering organizations.
A user can create one or more organizations. Each organization defines sub-organizations, faults, events, UUID suffix pools and blocks of UUIDs.
Cisco UCS organizations are hierarchically managed by users. A user that is assigned at the root level organization has automatic access to all organizations and domain groups under it.
Step 1 | Click the Domain Group icon and choose root. |
Step 2 | Click the Settings icon and choose Users. |
Step 3 | In Roles, select roles to associate them with the domain group. Uncheck roles to disassociate them from the domain group. |
Step 4 | In the Network tab, click Add to update and add privileges. |
Step 5 | Update the Storage, Server, and Operations privileges for the role, in the same manner. |
Step 6 | In Locales, select locales to associate them with the domain group. Uncheck roles to disassociate them from the domain group. |
Step 7 | Assign Organizations to the locale. |
Step 8 | Click Save. |