Last time, I talked about one of the most frequent reasons for users to call help desks and IT departments: forgotten passwords. Though Novell finally put functionality into NetWare 5 to support "password administrators," this won't work with NetWare 4 or mixed NetWare 4 and 5 environments. There is an unsupported application from Novell, as well as some supported third-party apps to create NetWare 4 password administrators, but how about an application that allows users to reset their own passwords?

Network World first brought your attention to John McCann's Visual Click Software a year and a half ago, when Click: Vision Manager (since renamed DSRazor - a very good move) was first introduced:

http://www.nwfusion.com/archive/1999/76479_09-27-1999.html

DSRazor lets you construct standalone Novell Directory Services (NDS)-enabled applications - such as password administrator programs. But McCann went one step further and created MyReset, a utility that allows users to reset their own NDS passwords!

http://www.visualclick.com/content/myreset.htm

You decide which information you need a user to enter to verify his or her identity (birth date, logon name, e-mail address, etc.) from any one or more attributes of the user object in NDS. Once the user verifies identity, the password is set to the value of another attribute (or concatenation of attributes) in NDS (phone number, employee ID, last name, etc.) chosen by you.

How much easier, yet secure, can it be? How much time will it save?

While you're at the Visual Click Web site, check out the new features in DSRazor, including the "Zero Privilege Helpdesk" application which (surprise!) allows help-desk personnel to reset passwords without other supervisory privileges.

Take a look also at the new DSMeter utility, which can help you track NDS Security. It includes the ability to find and disable all Hidden User accounts, as well as lock down NDS Create and Delete Privileges to just those object classes you desire.

There are a lot of good things at Visual Click these days - tools to give you more time, more control or more peace of mind. Check them out today.

» posted by ITworld staff

Network World

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