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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.
Simple password encryption
The simple password communication support module (SPWDCSM) provides password encryption.
Configuring password encryption
For password encryption, you must specify password encryption libraries and connection options for the simple password communication support module (CSM).

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
      - Simple password encryption
        The simple password communication support module (SPWDCSM) provides password encryption.
        CSM configuration file
        To use a communication support module (CSM), you must have a concsm.cfg file.
        Configuring password encryption
        For password encryption, you must specify password encryption libraries and connection options for the simple password communication support module (CSM).
        SMI tables and concsm.cfg setting
        Example concsm.cfg entries for password encryption
        You must specify parameters and fields in the concsm.cfg file for 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

Configuring password encryption

For password encryption, you must specify password encryption libraries and connection options for the simple password communication support module (CSM).

Informix® provides the following shared libraries for use as CSMs. The paths and fixed file names are:

$INFORMIXDIR/lib/client/csm/libixspw.so (UNIX™ and Linux™)
%INFORMIXDIR%\bin\libixspw.dll (Windows™)

The shared libraries also have version-specific names that can be used in place of the fixed names. If you use the version-specific name, and the server is updated, you must update the concsm.cfg file.

To configure the CSM for password encryption, use the following syntax to add a line to $INFORMIXDIR/etc/concsm.cfg (UNIX™ and Linux™) or %INFORMIXDIR%\etc\concsm.cfg (Windows™).

Figure 1. Syntax


Option	Description
`clientlib`	The full path and name of the shared library that is the CSM on the client computer.
`csmlib`	The full path and name of the shared library that is the CSM if the CSM is shared by both the database server and the client computers.
`csmname`	The name that you assign to the CSM.
p	The password option. For CSDK version 2.3 and later, if the field is null (`""`), the default behavior is p=0. For CSDK before version 2.3, if the field is null, the default behavior is p=1. 1 The password is mandatory for authentication. 0 The password is not mandatory for authentication. If the client provides the password, it is encrypted and used for authentication.
`serverlib`	The full path and name of the shared library that is the CSM on the database server.