Security falling at the final hurdle!

[TKnight]

Hi, I have implemented security using a workgroup file as I have done so in the past and everything seemed to go ok except that I can still access my DB without logging in to it?

Obviously this hints that I have left some permissions on the "Admin" user somewhere but i've poured over it for the best part of an hour now and I can't find where it is. Here is my checklist, can anyone else add anything that I need to try?

All "Users" group permissions are disabled
All "Admins" group permissions are enabled

User "TKnight" belongs to groups "Users" and "Admins"
User "admin" belongs to group "Users"

I have checked all the objects ownerships and they all say "TKnight"

Now here's the bit I don't get. If I log in as user "Admin" with the password I specified using a shortcut pointing to the .mdw file I get the message "You do not have the necessary permissions etc..."
But if I try to open the DB without using the shortcut it lets me in fine and when I check the account it says i'm logged in as "Admin"
Does anyone have any idea why this is happening...

Many thanks,

Tom.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Did you originally copy the system.mdw file to another file name in the working DB directory? And did you join that workgroup before you mucked permissions?

The behavior you describe is somewhat similar to a DB that was mucked using the standard (default) DB. The other steps sounded OK. Oh - did you ever CLEAR a password and not reset it? 'cause what you describe could also be the behavior of a DB protected by a workgroup file with a null password.

 

[TKnight]

I made a backup of system.mdw before I did anything. I then created a totally new workgroup file and joined it before changing any permissions. The new workgroup file is not in the working DB directory, it's in a sub-directory, would that matter?

Just in case I had messed up the system workgroup I have since restored it from the backup but no difference.

I didn't know that about the workgroup file requiring a password. I don't think i've ever set one before?
I tried opening the .mdw file exclusively and setting a password on the database but it said "Cannot perform this operation" (very helpfully!)

How do I do that?

Thanks, Tom

 

[Len Boorman]

Tom

If you PM me with an email address I have acouple of documents that may assist. Cannot attach to post as too large

Len B

 

[TKnight]

Ok, so I tried again, restoring the back-up I made of system.mdw

This time there was a problem setting and unsetting the permissions.
When I tried to remove all the permissions for the "Users" group it wouldn't let me alter the permissions for "New Tables/queries" as I didn't have admin rights.

I thought that maybe the system.mdw file had already been altered on this machine as we do hotdesk so it's possible, so I scrapped everything, archived the system.mdw file and retrieved a totally new one from another machine which definitely wouldn't have been ammended. This time I copied the system.mdw first and joined the workgroup rather than using the WRKGADM.EXE to create a new workgroup.
I went through and the same thing happened. No admin rights to "New Tables/Queries". I ignored it this time as there were no permissions for any of the objects in the "Users" group anyway (it wasn't like i couldn't take the permissions away). When I completed the security procedure the same thing happened. Secure through the workgroup but unsecure if you open the file directly.

The only other strange thing I noticed was that access had set me up as the owner of every object except for delete queries (?) It let me change the ownership over to myself no probs but it didn't do it automatically.

What can I do to sort this out? I've tried getting a totally new system.mdw file from an identical machine just to be sure I didnt muck it up accidentally. am I going to have to re-install access?

Len if you could mail me those Docs i'd really appreciate it cause i'm floundering big time!!

Thanks again for your help,

Tom

 

[Len Boorman]

Tom
emailed reports yesterday. Did you receive okay. Did not get any failure notices at this end so assume all was fine.

L

 

[TKnight]

Thanks Len,

Haven't received it yet but some external stuff is taking a couple of days to get through our mail server at the moment!

If it doesn't arrive soon i'll get back to you if thats ok.

Thanks again,

Tom

 

[Len Boorman]

Is there another address I can send it to ?. PM me if there is

L