Since the Thinklogical Secure Console Server is running a variation of RedHat Linux, it is very tempting to try to add users via the command line using the useradd command as you normally would on a Linux machine. Please note that you probably do not want to do this for several reasons.

First off your users will be unable to connect to any serial ports and possibly be unable to log into the webUI at all.

So here is the first thing you need to know about adding users or changing passwords on the command line. Do not create any passwords over 10 characters. Do this, and your users will be unable to log into the webUI.

Even worse, do this to your root account, and you have now locked yourself out of the web interface.

Second thing to note is that if you use the useradd command your new user will not be have the correct permissions to connect to any of the managed serial ports.

Instead, Thinklogical has created a wrapper script for useradd, called adduser. This custom command creates your user and adds it to the proper groups and required configuration file. When added properly each user ends up with their own config file in /etc/lsi/conf.

In this example I created a user named “admin” using the add user command. In order to connect to serial ports you must be a member of the “scsusers” group. To monitor (or view) other user’s active connections, your user will need to be a member of the “monitor” group. Below you can see my new user’s group memberships.

[root@scs config]# id admin

uid=500(admin) gid=701(scsusers) groups=701(scsusers),702(monitor)

Now even though my user id a member of the correct groups, I still need the a config file in /etc/lsi/conf. Since my userid is admin, my config file will be /etc/lsi/conf/admin.conf.

[code language=”css”]
ESCAPE_SEQ="\x1bA"
BREAK_SEQ="\x1bB"
ALLOW_CLEAR=1-48
ALLOW_CONNECT=1-48
ALLOW_MONITOR=1-48
[/code]