HP Integrity Virtual Machines Release Notes

6 Guest Administration
This chapter contains information about managing Integrity VM guests.
6.1 Administrator Account Names
This version of Integrity VM lifts the restriction that the virtual console administrator account
names must be the same as the guest name. As a result, the virtual console administrator name
can be any valid HP-UX login name. To continue accessing the virtual console, existing guest
console accounts must be added to the authorization list for the associated guest with the usermod
command. This allows multiple accounts to map to the guest, and requires the account names
to be valid HP-UX login strings.
Authorization of access to the virtual console is determined by the guest configuration file (set
using the —u and —g options to the hpvmcreate, hpvmmodify, and hpvmclone commands).
This controlled access allows you to temporarily block access by using the hpvmmodify command
to change the virtual console administrator account name.
6.2 Guest User Accounts
The configuration for captive hpvmconsole guest user accounts has changed in this release to
support additional access controls and configurations. This change requires that the guest user
accounts have the correct home directory. It is also necessary to list the console access account
in the guest configuration file.
For example, using a guest named compass1 (and therefore a user account named compass1),
the home directory for user compass1 must be /var/opt/hpvm/guests/compass1. To
ensure that the user continues to have administrative console access, use the following command:
# hpvmmodify -P compass1 -u compass1:admin
6.3 Creating Virtual Machine Administrator and Operator Accounts
In prior versions of Integrity VM, only admin console access is available, and only one such
account per guest is allowed. The administrator account name must match the guest name. The
new version of Integrity VM provides proper access controls and individual accountability for
these accounts.
A captive virtual console account is a special-purpose user account created on the VM Host for
each guest administrator. These types of user accounts use /opt/hpvm/bin/hpvmconsole
for a shell, and the desired guest's per-guest directory for a home directory. For virtual console
access, the account also requires a password, and access to its associated guest. You create this
account with the hpvmcreate, hpvmclone, or hpvmmodify command. You can establish group
membership of the account using the -g option to those commands, or user membership, using
the -u option to those commands.
NOTE: Do not use the hpvmsys group for user accounts. This group is used for security isolation
between components of Integrity VM.
The HP-UX useradd command may not work as expected. To create user accounts for virtual
console access, use the useradd command before you create the virtual machine. Alternatively,
specify the user account directory completely in the /etc/passwd file, ensuring the entry is
unique.
In the following example, the useradd command is used to create three user accounts on the
VM Host system (testme1, testme2, and testme3):
# useradd -r no -g users -s /opt/hpvm/bin/hpvmconsole \
-c "Console access to guest 'testme'" \
6.1 Administrator Account Names 37