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Oracle® ZFS Storage Appliance Security Guide
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Document Information

Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance Security Overview

Initial installation

Physical Security

Administrative Model

ZFSSA Users

Access Control Lists (ACL)

Storage Area Network (SAN)

Data Services

NFS Authentication and Encryption Options

Security Modes

Kerberos Types

iSCSI

RADIUS Support

Server Message Block (SMB)

Active Directory (AD) Domain Mode Authentication

Workgroup Mode Authentication

Local Groups and Privileges

Administrative Operations via the Microsoft Management Console (MMC)

Virus Scan

Delay Engine for Timing Attacks

Data Encryption on the Wire

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP)

Remote Replication

Shadow Migration

SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)

Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP)

Directory Services

System Settings

Remote Administrative Access

Logs

More Information

Documentation Mapping

Server Message Block (SMB)

The SMB protocol (also known as Common Internet File System (CIFS)) primarily provides shared access to files on a Microsoft Windows network. It also provides authentication.

The following SMB options have security implications:

Active Directory (AD) Domain Mode Authentication

In Domain Mode, users are defined in Active Directory. SMB clients can connect to the ZFSSA using Kerberos or NTLM authentication.

When a user connects via a fully-qualified ZFSSA hostname, Windows clients in the same domain or a trusted domain use Kerberos authentication otherwise they use NTLM authentication.

When an SMB client uses NTLM authentication to connect to the ZFSSA, the user's credentials are forwarded to the AD Domain Controller for authentication. This is called pass-through authentication.

If Windows security policies restricting NTLM authentication are defined, Windows clients must connect to ZFSSA via a fully-qualified hostname. For more information, see this MSDN article: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj865668%28v=ws.10%29.aspx.

After authentication a "security context" is established for the user's SMB session. The user represented by the security context has a unique Security Descriptor (SID). The SID denotes file ownership and is used to determine file access privileges.

Workgroup Mode Authentication

In Workgroup Mode, users are defined locally on the ZFSSA. When an SMB client connects to a ZFSSA in Workgroup Mode, that user's user name and password hashes are used to authenticate the user locally.

The LAN Manager (LM) compatibility level is used to specify the protocol used for authentication when the ZFSSA is in workgroup mode.  

The following list shows the ZFSSA behavior for each LM compatibility level:

Once the Workgroup user is successfully authenticated a security context is established. A unique SID is created for users defined on the ZFSSA using a combination of the machine's SID and the user's UID. All local users are defined as UNIX users.

Local Groups and Privileges

Local groups are domain user groups that provide additional privileges to those users. Administrators can bypass file permissions to change the ownership on files. Backup Operators can bypass file access controls to backup and restore files.

Administrative Operations via the Microsoft Management Console (MMC)

To ensure that only the appropriate users have access to administrative operations there are some access restrictions on the operations performed remotely using MMC.

The following list shows the users and their allowed operations:

Virus Scan

The Virus Scan service scans for viruses at the file system level. When a file is accessed from any protocol, the Virus Scan service first scans the file, and both denies access and quarantines the file if a virus is found. The scan is performed by an external engine that the ZFSSA contacts. The external engine is not included in ZFSSA software.

Once a file has been scanned with the latest virus definitions, it is not rescanned until it is next modified. Virus scanning is provided mainly for SMB clients who are likely to introduce viruses. NFS clients can also use virus scanning, but due to the way the NFS protocol works a virus may not be detected as quickly as with the SMB client.

Delay Engine for Timing Attacks

SMB does not implement any delay engine to prevent timing attacks. It relies on the Solaris cryptographic framework.

Data Encryption on the Wire

The SMB service uses version 1 of the SMB protocol, which does not support data encryption on the wire.