IBM i Security and Vulnerabilities User Group

IBM i Security and Innovation

Join this online user group to communicate across IBM i Security product users and IBM experts by sharing advice and best practices with peers and staying up to date regarding product enhancements.

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  • 1.  Enhancement idea for Authority Collection

    Posted Mon March 31, 2025 10:09 AM

    Hi all!  I'm curious about your thoughts on this "IBM Idea" (and obviously I'm hoping you'll give it a "thumbs up" if you think its a good one).

    Here's a link to the IBM Idea that I'm talking about here

    When working on security remediation projects, authority collection is an invaluable tool.  In my opinion there is a weakness in this tool.  When an authority check happens on a *FILE object, many details about the object and the authority check are captured, including the library, object name, and object type.  However, it doesn't capture the object attribute, which would allow us to distinguish between a PFs, LFs, SAVFs, DSPFs, etc.  We can of course check the object attribute directly using WRKOBJ or OBJECT_STATISTICS, but this involves an extra step reaching outside of the authority collection repository.  If the object attribute were captured in the authority collection data, it would be extremely helpful.

    Any thoughts to share?  If you think this would be a good enhancement, please give it an upvote on the Ideas portal.

    Currently, this is how I'd pull in the object attribute for *FILE objects when needed for a remediate analysis:

    WITH files AS (
            SELECT DISTINCT system_object_schema,
                            system_object_name,
                            system_object_type
                FROM qsys2.authority_collection
                WHERE authorization_name = 'SOMEUSER'
                      AND OBJECT_SCHEMA = 'SOMELIB'
                      AND system_object_type = '*FILE' )
        SELECT * FROM files,
                 LATERAL ( SELECT objattribute
                               FROM TABLE ( qsys2.object_statistics(
                                                object_schema => files.system_object_schema, 
                                                object_name   => files.system_object_Name,
                                                objtypelist   => files.system_object_type) ) );
    
    


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    Steven Riedmueller
    Certified IBM i Admin
    Speaker, Mentor, and Advocate
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  • 2.  RE: Enhancement idea for Authority Collection

    Posted Tue April 01, 2025 06:06 AM

    Excellent Idea Steven , you have my vote!



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    Marius le Roux theIBMiGuy
    Owner , IBM i Consultant & Technology Strategist
    MLR Consulting
    Port Alfred
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  • 3.  RE: Enhancement idea for Authority Collection

    Posted Mon May 05, 2025 06:37 AM

    Great Idea Steven. I have voted for it. 



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    Rohit Chauhan
    Senior Technical Specialist
    Norway
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  • 4.  RE: Enhancement idea for Authority Collection

    Posted Tue May 06, 2025 03:07 AM

    Hi Steven,

    great idea. One more vote from me.

    regards,

    Nikos



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    NIKOS METAXATOS
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  • 5.  RE: Enhancement idea for Authority Collection

    Posted Tue May 06, 2025 03:05 PM

    Agreed. Ability to tell PFs, LFs, SAVFs, DSPFs, etc apart should have been baked in from the get go.  :-)

    *I voted*


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    Roman Chloupek
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