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Users, Groups, and Roles Management

This section is about managing access control policies for users, groups, and roles in Microsoft SQL Server.

Privacera's Microsoft SQL Server connector includes an option to restrict which users, groups, and roles are managed in Microsoft SQL Server. This is achieved by explicitly specifying which entities should be managed or ignored by the connector.

This section provides details on how to configure the connector to manage them.

It is recommended to exclude admins from being managed by the connector and instead manage them manually in Microsoft SQL Server.

Managing Users, Groups, and Roles

These properties determine whether users, groups, and roles fetched from ranger should be managed in Microsoft SQL Server. When enabled, Privacera can create, update, and delete these entities within Microsoft SQL Server.

  • Manage Users, Groups, and Roles::
    Specifies whether the Privacera MSSQL connector should manage users, groups, and roles—collectively referred to as principals—in Microsoft SQL Server.

    • When enabled (true), the connector automatically manages the creation, update, and deletion of principals.
    • It also grants and revokes privileges based on policies retrieved from Ranger.
    • This setting is enabled by default to support automated access and identity management.

  • Filter Specific Users, Groups, and Roles:
    Use these properties to selectively manage specific identities—users, groups, and roles—in Microsoft SQL Server.

    • Provide a comma-separated list of exact names or wildcard prefixes (e.g., user_prefix*, group_prefix*, role_prefix*) to target specific principals.
    • To manage all principals, leave the property empty or set it to *.
    • Alternatively, use the Manage Entity Prefix property to filter principals by prefix pattern.
    These filter properties only apply if general management is enabled:

    • Self Managed (YAML Configuration) deployments:

      • CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_USERS
      • CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_GROUPS
      • CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_ROLES

    • PrivaceraCloud deployments:

      • Enable the following in Access Management → ADVANCED tab of the MSSQL application.
        • Manage users from portal
        • Manage groups from portal
        • Manage roles from portal

  • Ignore Specific Identities:

    • Use this property to exclude specific users, groups, or roles from being managed by the Privacera MSSQL connector.
    • Ignored identities take precedence over any included or managed identities.

  • User Filtering Based on Groups or Roles:

    • This option allows you to restrict which users are managed by the connector based on their group or role membership.
    • Only users who belong to the specified groups or roles will be considered for management.

  1. SSH to the instance where Privacera Manager is installed.

  2. Run the following command to open the .yml file to be edited.

    If you have multiple connectors, then replace instance1 with the appropriate connector instance name.

    Bash
    1
    vi ~/privacera/privacera-manager/config/custom-vars/connectors/mssql/instance1/vars.connector.mssql.yml

  3. Set the following properties to enable management of users, groups, and roles:

    YAML
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    CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_USERS: "true"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_GROUPS: "true"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_ROLES: "true"

  4. If you want to manage only specific users, groups, and roles, specify them using one of the following methods:

    Option 1: Using prefix pattern

    YAML
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    CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_ENTITY_PREFIX: "dev_*,sa_*"

    Option 2: Using explicit lists

    YAML
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    CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_USER_LIST: "user1, user2"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_GROUP_LIST: "group1, group2, group_prefix*"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_ROLE_LIST: "role1, role2, role_prefix*"

  5. To exclude specific users, groups, and roles from MSSQL, set the following properties:

    YAML
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    CONNECTOR_MSSQL_IGNORE_USER_LIST: "user_a, user_b"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_IGNORE_GROUP_LIST: "group_a, group_b, group_prefix*"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_IGNORE_ROLE_LIST: "role_a, role_b, role_prefix*"

  6. To further filter users based on the groups and roles they belong to, use the following properties:

    YAML
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    # Enable to manage only users belonging to the specified groups in the managed groups list.
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_USER_FILTERBY_GROUP: "false"

# Enable to manage only users belonging to the specified roles in the managed roles list.
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_MANAGE_USER_FILTERBY_ROLE: "false"

  7. Once the properties are configured, run the following commands to update your Privacera Manager platform instance:

    Step 1 - Setup which generates the helm charts. This step usually takes few minutes.

    Bash
    1
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    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./privacera-manager.sh setup
    Step 2 - Apply the Privacera Manager helm charts.
    Bash
    1
2
    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./pm_with_helm.sh upgrade
    Step 3 - (Optional) Post-installation step which generates Plugin tar ball, updates Route 53 DNS and so on. This step is not required if you are updating only connector properties.

    Bash
    1
2
    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./privacera-manager.sh post-install

  1. In PrivaceraCloud portal, navigate to Settings -> Applications.

  2. On the Connected Applications screen, select MSSQL.

  3. Click the pen icon or the Account Name to modify the settings.

  4. On the Edit Application screen, go to Access Management -> ADVANCED tab.

  5. Enable the following options:

    • Manage users from portal
    • Manage groups from portal
    • Manage roles from portal

  6. For including specific users, groups, and roles, enter the values in:

    • Users to set access control policies: user1, user2
    • Groups to set access control policies: group1, group2, group_prefix*
    • Roles to set access control policies: role1, role2, role_prefix*

  7. For excluding specific users, groups, and roles:

    • Users to be ignored by access control policies: user_a, user_b
    • Groups be ignored by access control policies: group_a, group_b, group_prefix*
    • Roles be ignored by access control policies: role_a, role_b, role_prefix*

  8. Additional filtering options:

    • Set access control policies only on the users from managed groups: Enable if you want to manage only users who belong to the groups defined in the managed groups list.
    • Set access control policies only on the users/groups from managed roles: Enable if you want to manage only users who belong to the roles defined in the managed roles list.

  9. Click SAVE to apply the changes.

Name Replacement for Users, Groups, and Roles

Replace Name from Regex

  • This property allows you to find and replace specific characters in user, group, or role names using a regular expression (regex). If left blank, no replacement is performed.
  • Default value:
    Text Only
    1
    [~`$&+:;=?@#|'<>.\\s^*()_%\\[\\]!\\-\\/\\\\{}]
    This regex matches special characters such as spaces, punctuation, and symbols, ensuring that user, group, and role names comply with MSSQL naming conventions.

  1. SSH to the instance where Privacera Manager is installed.

  2. Run the following command to open the .yml file to be edited.

    If you have multiple connectors, then replace instance1 with the appropriate connector instance name.

    Bash
    1
    vi ~/privacera/privacera-manager/config/custom-vars/connectors/mssql/instance1/vars.connector.mssql.yml

  3. Set the following properties:

    YAML
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    CONNECTOR_MSSQL_USER_NAME_REPLACE_FROM_REGEX: "[~`$&+:;=?@#|'<>.\\s^*()_%\\[\\]!\\-\\/\\\\{}]"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_GROUP_NAME_REPLACE_FROM_REGEX: "[~`$&+:;=?@#|'<>.\\s^*()_%\\[\\]!\\-\\/\\\\{}]"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_ROLE_NAME_REPLACE_FROM_REGEX: "[~`$&+:;=?@#|'<>.\\s^*()_%\\[\\]!\\-\\/\\\\{}]"

  4. Once the properties are configured, run the following commands to update your Privacera Manager platform instance:

    Step 1 - Setup which generates the helm charts. This step usually takes few minutes.

    Bash
    1
2
    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./privacera-manager.sh setup
    Step 2 - Apply the Privacera Manager helm charts.
    Bash
    1
2
    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./pm_with_helm.sh upgrade
    Step 3 - (Optional) Post-installation step which generates Plugin tar ball, updates Route 53 DNS and so on. This step is not required if you are updating only connector properties.

    Bash
    1
2
    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./privacera-manager.sh post-install

  1. In PrivaceraCloud portal, navigate to Settings -> Applications.

  2. On the Connected Applications screen, select MSSQL.

  3. Click the pen icon or the Account Name to modify the settings.

  4. On the Edit Application screen, go to Access Management -> ADVANCED tab.

  5. Enter the values in the following custom properties:

    • Regex to find special characters in user names: Enter a regex pattern to identify special characters in user names. These characters will be replaced based on the value specified in the String to replace with the special characters found in user names field.
    • Regex to find special characters in group names: Enter a regex pattern to identify special characters in group names. These characters will be replaced based on the value specified in the String to replace with the special characters found in group names field.
    • Regex to find special characters in role names: Enter a regex pattern to identify special characters in role names. These characters will be replaced based on the value specified in the String to replace with the special characters found in role names field.

  6. Click SAVE to apply the changes.

Replace to String

This property specifies the replacement characters for the regex matches. If left blank, no find and replace operation is performed. Default value is _.

  1. SSH to the instance where Privacera Manager is installed.

  2. Run the following command to open the .yml file to be edited.

    If you have multiple connectors, then replace instance1 with the appropriate connector instance name.

    Bash
    1
    vi ~/privacera/privacera-manager/config/custom-vars/connectors/mssql/instance1/vars.connector.mssql.yml

  3. Set the following properties:

    YAML
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    CONNECTOR_MSSQL_USER_NAME_REPLACE_TO_STRING: "_"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_GROUP_NAME_REPLACE_TO_STRING: "_"
CONNECTOR_MSSQL_ROLE_NAME_REPLACE_TO_STRING: "_"

  4. Once the properties are configured, run the following commands to update your Privacera Manager platform instance:

    Step 1 - Setup which generates the helm charts. This step usually takes few minutes.

    Bash
    1
2
    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./privacera-manager.sh setup
    Step 2 - Apply the Privacera Manager helm charts.
    Bash
    1
2
    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./pm_with_helm.sh upgrade
    Step 3 - (Optional) Post-installation step which generates Plugin tar ball, updates Route 53 DNS and so on. This step is not required if you are updating only connector properties.

    Bash
    1
2
    cd ~/privacera/privacera-manager
./privacera-manager.sh post-install

  1. In PrivaceraCloud portal, navigate to Settings -> Applications.

  2. On the Connected Applications screen, select MSSQL.

  3. Click the pen icon or the Account Name to modify the settings.

  4. On the Edit Application screen, go to Access Management -> ADVANCED tab.

  5. Enter the values in the following custom properties:

    • String to replace with the special characters found in user names: String used to replace the characters found by the regex specified in Regex to find special characters in user names.
    • String to replace with the special characters found in group names: String used to replace the characters found by the regex specified in Regex to find special characters in group names.
    • String to replace with the special characters found in role names: String used to replace the characters found by the regex specified in Regex to find special characters in role names.

  6. Click SAVE to apply the changes.