Purpose of Role-Based Access Control

In the past, Solaris system administration has been performed by using the root superuser account or a user account granted superuser privileges. Even if a user account needed to access only a few privileged operations or commands to perform a task, the account was granted complete control over the system. This all-or-nothing approach to system administration has always been a security issue. A new feature in Solaris 8, Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), addresses this issue.

The RBAC subsystem supports the concept of a special type of user account called a role. Roles are granted a set of superuser privileges to perform selected administrative tasks, such as printer management. Even though roles are a type ...

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