Managing administrator credentials centrally for rolling out BCM agents

You can centrally manage administrator credentials using the Account Credentials functionality. The Account Credentials functionality is represented as a node on the BMC Client Management console. You can associate one or more rollouts to credentials.

When you update an administrator credential that is centrally managed under the Account Credentials node, BMC Client Management automatically applies any changes you made to that credential to all the associated rollouts. Any update to credentials are automatically refreshed for each rollout. Therefore, managing several rollouts that are associated to a single account becomes efficient.

This topic covers the following topics:

Before you begin

• Ensure that you have credential details to create an account
• Rollouts are ready to be associated with accounts

Enable capability to use the Account Credentials functionality

• On the BMC Client Management console, go to Global Settings > ClientManagementAdmin > Security Profile.
• Enable Account Credentials.

Creating a new account credential

Create your account under the Account Credential node. Later you can associate it to rollouts.

1. On the BMC Client Management console, click Global Settings > Account Credentials.
2. In the Account Credentials window, right-click and click Create Account Credentials.

3. In the Properties window, enter the required information and click OK.
   A new account credential is created.

Associating accounts with rollouts

As an administrator, you can associate accounts to rollouts. Rollouts on several assets can be efficiently managed even when administrator credentials change.

1. On the BMC Client Management console, click Global Settings > Rollouts.
2. Click a rollout > Servers.
3. Click target server where you want to add the new account credential.
4. Click the User Accounts tab.
5. Right-click in the User Account window and click Add Account.
6. From the Add an account credentials window, select the accounts you want to add to the rollout.
   The selected account credentials are added to the rollout.

Updating account credentials

You can update account credentials only from the Account Credentials node.

1. On the BMC Client Management console, click Account Credentials > Account Credential Name.
2. To update the account credentials, click F2 or double-click the account credential, or right-click > Properties.
3. Click Ok.
   The new account credentials are used while rolling out agents on assets.

Status of rollouts when an associated account is modified

When a parameter of the account is modified, then roll out configurations take specific states. 

• If the Domain name or Login ID is modified, the status of the rollout configurations is updated to Paused state.
• If the Password is modified, BMC Client Management displays a popup asking whether the rollout package should be rebuilt.
  • If you select Yes, the rollout package must be rebuilt, the rollout configuration state is updated to Reassign Waiting.
  • If you select No, the rollout package must be rebuilt, the rollout configuration state is updated to Paused.

Upgrade considerations

• When you upgrade, BMC Client Management checks every account under the User Accounts node and creates a corresponding account under the Account Credentials node. The account takes the domain or login user name as the account name if the domain field is not empty. Otherwise, the account name is set to New Account Credential x.
• If several user accounts exist with the same domain and login user name, only one Account Credential account is created with the password of the last updated user account.
• All administrators or admin groups having the Rollout Populate capability and the Assign Access rights on a rollout, automatically have the Account Credentials capabilities and the access rights on the account credentials assigned to the configurations linked to the rollout.

Results

Possible results

• Check whether rollouts are populated under the Account Credentials node.
• Check whether accounts are populated under the Rollouts node.
• Upon changing credential details, BMC Client Management automatically authenticates rollouts with the new credential details. The Account Credentials functionality ensures that you do not have to manually authenticate each rollout.

Where to go from here

Perform rollouts on assets that are associated to the Account Credentials node.

Related topics

Rolling out agents