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PASSUSER.DOC
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1991-05-16
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PassUser User's Manual
Introduction
PassUser is designed to make it a little more difficult for the
average user to use a given machine without authorization.
Although it cannot protect from the more technically oriented,
for most purposes this is enough. Since PassUser is run from
your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, it can be circumvented by booting from a
floppy.
PassUser has some unique features including that distinguish it
from other password protection systems.
- Multiple usernames and passwords
- Audit trail of users and failed attempts to log in
- The ability for the user to modify their own password
- The ability to have more then one system administrator
PassUser is still in a state of rewriting, and some features will
be added to it soon. Included in this will be an easier to use
utility for the superuser (system administrator) to add, delete,
and modify user passwords and system privilege bits. I am also
working on a companion program set that provides the password
protection of PassUser as well as a menu system to limit the
access to DOS for users.
Legalities
PassUser is distributed as Shareware. This means that you are
granted a right to use the program for a limited period of time
to determine the usefulness of the program to you. After this
period of time, you are expected to either stop using the
program, or register it with the author. In the case of
PassUser, this period of time is 3 weeks. In other words, you
may use this copy of PassUser for three weeks before you are
obligated to register the copy with me. See the file LICENSE.DOC
included in the archive for information about registration.
Although you are allowed and encouraged to pass PassUser to your
friends, you cannot claim that you have created the program, or
sell it. PassUser is, and remains, Copyright Kristian Stark and
SharkSoft. You are not allowed to modify the program, nor
reverse engineer the program. You are also not allowed to
distribute PassUser without my written permission with any of
your own programs, or charge for it in any way. The only
exception to this is for Bulletin Board Systems that charge for
general access, but not specifically for PassUser. Shareware
vendors should contact me directly to distribute PassUser through
their channels.
Note that your use of PassUser is entirely at your own risk. I,
Kristian Stark, do not take any responsibility for the
suitability of the program for your use, nor for the inability or
ability to use the program. You take responsibility for the use
of the program in all situations. I have worked to make the
program as bug free as possible, but due to the nature
programming, I cannot guarantee that the program will work for
you, nor that it will not do damage to your system or files.
Simply put, neither I, KRISTIAN STARK, nor SharkSoft, will be
held liable for PassUser under any circumstances.
I will, however, work with you to solve any unusual problems with
the program to an extent defined entirely by me.
Use
Now that we've gotten over that bit of nasty business, here is
the general use of the program...
PassUser is distributed with four files in the archive not
including the documentation files. The programs are:
PASSWD.EXE This is the main program that does all of the
password checking and logging users in.
MAKEPASS.EXE This is used to set up the machine to use the
PassUser package. You will have to make a few
modifications to your AUTOEXEC.BAT file as well,
which will be discussed later on.
SETPASS.EXE This program is used to change passwords of users
by themselves.
ADMIN.EXE You will need to use this program to add users to
the system, as well as to delete users from the
system.
Setting up PassUser
To set up PassUser, first copy the four files to a directory on
your hard drive, and set the PATH statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT
to include this directory. If you don't know how to do this,
look at the end of this document for instructions.
Initially, to set up PassUser to work with your system, the
system administrator must run MAKEPASS. There are no command
line options for the program, and it will prompt you for the
required responses. Note that the person who runs is entered at
the prompt becomes the superuser automatically, and the password
is recorded for that person. MAKEPASS will check to see if the
system has already been set up previously and look for the
password file. If it finds a copy of the password file, it will
not allow further operation of the program, and the old password
file will not be overwritten.
However, after running MAKEPASS, only one user is installed. To
add other users, up to a maximum of 40 different users, the
superuser must use the ADMIN program. ADMIN will allow you to
add or delete users from the password file. NOTE: ADMIN will
allow you to delete all the users from the file, so you must take
care in deleting users, or you will not be able to log into the
system again or do any modifications to it. However, only users
with superuser privileges will be allowed to modify the password
file.
Once you have set up PassUser with the MAKEPASS and ADMIN
programs, you will need to modify your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to run
PASSWD as the first program of the file. To make sure that
PASSWD is run every time that the system is started up. If you
are using MS-DOS or PC-DOS version 3.30 or greater, insert the
following as the first lines in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
@C:\pathname\PASSWD
@IF ERRORLEVEL 1 AUTOEXEC.BAT
(pathname refers to the path to the directory where you placed
the PassUser files.)
With DOS versions lower then 3.30, use the following instead:
C:\pathname\PASSWD
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 AUTOEXEC.BAT
CLS
You should also edit your CONFIG.SYS file to see if a SHELL
statement is declared in the file. If there is one, make sure
that the switch /P is placed at the end of the SHELL statement.
If you do not have a SHELL statement in your CONFIG.SYS, add the
following line into the file:
SHELL=x:\path\COMMAND.COM /P
(where x:\path\ should be replaced by the full path to your copy
of COMMAND.COM - usually C:\)
NOTE: You cannot use PassUser on a system that is not equipped
with a hard drive.
Once you have done all of the above, PassUser is installed for
use on your system and will come up with the initial password
screen when you turn on the computer or reset it.
Changing Passwords
Any valid user on the system can change their own password. To
do this, they simply have to run the program SETPASS, and follow
the instructions on screen. SETPASS will confirm that the
password has been changed if the old password and the new
passwords are entered correctly.
The SYSTEM.LOG
Every time a user logs in to the system, or attempts to log in
with an incorrect password, PassUser will write an entry into the
SYSTEM.LOG file located in the root directory of your C: drive.
This is an ASCII file, and can be viewed and edited as such.
Because of this, the file is not a secure way of keeping track of
who was on the system, since all users can theoretically edit the
file. It is meant more as a general guide to see who has logged
on and when, and to help in possible troubleshooting.
Other miscellaneous items
When logging on, a user is allowed three attempts to get their
password and username correct. If after three attempts, the
password and username still do not match, PassUser will sound the
system bell, and then proceed to do a cold reboot on the system.
Currently, the limit on the number of users is fixed at 40,
although this may slow processing a little bit. If you need the
capacity for more users, contact me and I can modify the program
for your use.
Editing your CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files
Editing these files is easiest if you have a full-screen text
editor. If you do, this program can also be used to view the
system log, C:\SYSTEM.LOG. However, the EDLIN line editor which
is supplied with DOS can also be used for this purpose. Please
consult your DOS manual for help in editing with EDLIN. DO NOT
use a word processor to edit these files, since they add extra
characters into the files that DOS will not be able to
understand.
Contacting me
I would be grateful if you let me know of any bugs, and
suggesting improvements for PassUser. Since I am a student, I do
not want to give out a mail address which would change
constantly, but I can be reached by e-mail through the following
systems:
FidoNet Kristian Stark @ 1:260/420 \ Preferred
Bitnet STARK@ITHACA.BITNET / Addresses
Compu$erve 71321,3200
UUCP nstar!bluemoon!viesti!shark@uunet.uu.net
Internet shark@clinet.FI
Bix STARK