topic Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application? in Administration and Deployment

How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

DJWanna — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 19:21:06 GMT

We are running a Platform grid 9.4M6 and 9.4M8 SAS environment and were recently told we need to rotate every password used within the application. Has anyone done this before? How would we go about finding all the places to change?

Thank you

Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

ronf_sas — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 19:27:35 GMT

Hi @DJWanna . Passwords that are stored in the SAS configuration can be managed using the SAS Deployment Manager 'Update Passwords' task. For instructions, refer to:

https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/bicdc/9.4/bisecag/n0rze9kvk0b7b0n16r2dsvfuq14r.htm

Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

DJWanna — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 19:41:50 GMT

Thanks for the link. This will change the installer account, lsf and pm accounts as well? We use all Active Directory accounts.

Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

ronf_sas — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 21:05:47 GMT

The SAS installer account is not managed by the SAS Deployment Manager. Changing its password on the host or domain should not impact SAS.

The lsf and pm account passwords cannot be changed with the SAS Deployment Manager. I am unfamiliar with the steps for updating those passwords.

If you don't get an answer here, you can open a case with SAS Technical Support.

Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

gwootton — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 15:12:35 GMT

The SAS Installation Account and Platform Suite for SAS accounts (e.g. lsfadmin) passwords are not stored in SAS or Platform Suite for SAS, so would only need to be changed at their source (i.e. Active Directory).

Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

JuanS_OCS — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 15:39:23 GMT

Hi @gwootton ,

I am sorry, but I believe they are actually stored.

On one hand, lspasswd is needed to register some accounts passwords - which go into an LSF/EGO file.

On the other hand, if you have the Scheduling service registered in the SAS Management Console with an Authorization Domain, you would have a SAS metadata group, and in this group's Account tab, the password of the account used for scheduling (very often lsfadmin or lsfuser).

Please correct me if I am wrong. Of course, there are setups of all flavours, but I find those 2 really often, if not always.

Leaving aside LSF / JS passwords, if you have SSO with Kerberos, and the account used as UPN for the keytab file needs to change the password, you would need to regenerate the keytab file again, else SSO authentications will fail.

If you will change any of the WIP passwords, you will need to update those passwords as well in the server.xml and some AuthDomain groups too - as you would do if any database user (any outbound authentication) would change.

Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

gwootton — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 17:26:46 GMT

You're correct @JuanS_OCS, if on a Windows server lspasswd would need to be used any time an account that runs LSF jobs password changes. If this is a Windows environment and these accounts are being used to submit jobs, then this would need to be run to update LSF's database with the new password.
Also, if the password for a user has been manually stored in Metadata so that processes run as that account instead of the requesting user, those passwords would need to be updated in Metadata.

Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

sangavis37 — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 12:10:52 GMT

The first attempt of changing the passwords is always a learning experience. I changed the passwords of all internal accounts and external AD accounts in an environment for the first time in 6 years. There were a lot of unknowns but you can always figure it out thorough testing and logs. One example is the account configured as lsfadministrator in sas environment manager. The password is hardcoded (under SAS Grid Manager resource), so I removed the account, saved the configuration, changed the password and then updated it with new password. There is standard documentation for internal accounts but external AD accounts should be handled carefully.

Re: How to find and change all passwords used within the SAS Application?

SASKiwi — Thu, 30 Jan 2025 20:12:27 GMT

AFAIK, finding all of the places where passwords need changing is dependent on both your SAS architecture and the installed SAS products. So there is no documentation that can cover all of the possibilities. As @sangavis37 points out it will be a matter of investigation, trial and error. Personally I think getting an exemption from the password changing rule is a far easier option...