About Database Authentication

If you do not use LDAP authentication, then you must create a unique database account for each user. When an administrator adds a new user to the database, the User ID field must match the user name for a database account. The user enters the database user name and password when the user logs into a Siebel application.

Database Authentication Process

The stages in a database authentication process are:

1. The user enters a database account's user name and password to a Siebel application login form.

2. The Siebel Application Interface passes the user credentials to the Application Object Manager, which in turn passes them to the authentication manager.

3. The authentication manager hashes the password, if Hash User Password is TRUE for the data source specified for the database security adapter, and passes the user credentials to the database security adapter.

4. If the user credentials match a database account, then the user is logged into the database and is identified with a user record whose user ID is the same as the database account's user name.

   In other words, the database security adapter validates each user's credentials by trying to connect to the Siebel database.

Features Not Available for Database Authentication

Some of the features that other authentication strategies provide are not available with database authentication, including:

• A single user-authentication method that is valid for Siebel Business Applications and other applications

• User self-registration (typically used with customer applications)

• External delegated administration of users (typically used with partner applications)

• Creation of users on the database server by adding users from the Administration - User screen in the Siebel application.