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Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
Security in HCL Informix®
The Informix® Security Guide documents methods for keeping your data secure by preventing unauthorized viewing and altering of data or database objects, including how to use the secure-auditing facility of the database server.
Securing data
Connection security
You can administer the security of the connections to the database server by using authentication and authorization processes.
Authentication module deployment
Compatibility issues with authentication modules
Only specific HCL Informix® products support authentication modules. To use the other products when an authentication module is enabled on Informix, you can connect to a DBSERVERALIASES.

Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
- Security in HCL Informix®
  The Informix® Security Guide documents methods for keeping your data secure by preventing unauthorized viewing and altering of data or database objects, including how to use the secure-auditing facility of the database server.
  - Securing data
    - HCL Informix® directory security
      utilities and product directories are secure by default.
    - Network data encryption
      Use network encryption to encrypt data transmitted between server and client, and between server and other server.
    - Column-level encryption
      You can use column-level encryption to store sensitive data in an encrypted format. After encrypting sensitive data, such as credit card numbers, only users who can provide a secret password can decrypt the data.
    - Connection security
      You can administer the security of the connections to the database server by using authentication and authorization processes.
      - Authentication mechanisms
        You can configure the Informix® server authentication mechanisms to meet varying requirements, such as different security methods required for local and remote connections, database access by users without operating system accounts on the servers host computer, and non-root installation.
      - Internal users (UNIX™, Linux™)
        The DBSA can grant database access to users that do not authenticate on the OS of the host computer by mapping PAM-authenticated users to OS-level entities or by configuring the server to perform internal authentication.
      - Guest account (Windows™)
        Disable the Windows™ Guest account to prevent anonymous logins.
      - Trusted-context objects and trusted connections
        You can use trusted-context objects and trusted connections to increase system performance and security within a three-tier application model.
      - Pluggable authentication modules (UNIX™ or Linux™)
        A Pluggable Authentication Module (PAM) is a well-defined framework for supporting different authentication modules that were originally developed by Sun Microsystems. PAM is supported in both 32- and 64-bit modes on Solaris, Linux™, HP-UX and AIX®.
      - LDAP authentication support on Windows™
      - Authentication module deployment
        Implicit connections with authentication modules
        Authentication responses to authentication modules, such as PAM and LDAP, expect a password. However, in implicit connections to the database server, there is no password.
        Application development for authentication modules
        The authentication method depends on the PAM or LDAP Authentication Support module installed.
        Distributed transactions and authentication modules
        When initiates a distributed connection after the session is established, it cannot respond to authentication challenges because the timing is unpredictable. Also, the password required to connect to the local server might not be the same as the password required to connect to the remote server. Consequently, authentication for distributed connections must be completed by the remote server on the basis of trust. The remote server must trust the local server and the remote administrators must explicitly permit the user to connect from the local server to the remote server.
        Client APIs and authentication support modules
        Only specific HCL Informix® client APIs support PAM and LDAP Authentication Support modules. To use the other APIs when an authentication module is enabled on Informix, you can connect to a DBSERVERALIASES.
        Compatibility issues with authentication modules
        Only specific HCL Informix® products support authentication modules. To use the other products when an authentication module is enabled on Informix, you can connect to a DBSERVERALIASES.
      - Simple password encryption
        The simple password communication support module (SPWDCSM) provides password encryption.
      - Single sign-on
        Single sign-on is an authentication feature that bypasses the requirement to provide user name and password after a user logs into the client computer's operating system.
      - Securing local connections to a host
        The database server administrator (DBSA) can use the SECURITY_LOCALCONNECTION configuration parameter to set up security checking for local connections with the same host.
      - Limiting denial-of-service flood attacks
        Informix® has multiple listener threads (listen_authenticate) to limit denial-of-service (DOS) attacks.
    - Discretionary access control
      Discretionary access control verifies whether the user who is attempting to perform an operation has been granted the required privileges to perform that operation.
    - Label-Based Access Control
      You can use label-based access control (LBAC), an implementation of multi-level security (MLS), to control who has read access and who has write access to individual rows and columns of data.
  - Auditing data security

Compatibility issues with authentication modules

Only specific HCL Informix® products support authentication modules. To use the other products when an authentication module is enabled on Informix®, you can connect to a DBSERVERALIASES.

Not all HCL Informix® products and tools support PAM or LDAP authentication:

The DB-Access, dbexport, dbimport, dbload, and dbschema utilities support PAM. If they receive a challenge, they pass the challenge to the user and wait for a response. This process is repeated for each challenge that the PAM module raises.
The onmode, onstat, and oncheck server administration utilities do not use PAM. However, because these utilities operate on all Informix® ports, the utilities can function with a PAM-enabled port.
Other server utilities do not support PAM.

If you are using any tools that do not support PAM or LDAP authentication modules, then make connections to a DBSERVERALIASES that does not have the PAM parameters in the sqlhosts file.