MGE UPS Systems Switched PDU Serial Ports, Operations, Setting the HTTP authentication method

3. Operations

Setting the HTTP authentication method:

The Switched PDU HTTP server supports two authentication methods for security and validation of the username-password – Basic and MD5 digest.

The Basic method utilizes Base64 encoding to encode and deliver the username-password over the network to the HTTP server for decoding and authentication. This basic method is supported by all web browsers and offers a minimum level of security.

NOTE: The Base64 algorithm is widely-known and susceptible to packet-sniffer attack for acquisition of the encoded username-password string.

The MD5 digest method provides stronger protection utilizing one-way encoded hash numbers, never placing the username-password on the network. Instead, the sending browser creates a challenge code based on the hash algorithm, provided username-password and unique items such as the device IP address and timestamp, which is compared against the HTTP server internal user database of valid challenge codes. The MD5 digest method offers a higher level of security than the Basic method but at present is not supported by all browsers.

NOTE: MD5 is known to be fully supported by Internet Explorer 5.0+, Navigator 7.0+ and Firefox 1.0+.

Select Basic or MD5 from the Authentication drop-down menu and press Apply.

Setting SSL access level

Switched PDU SSL supports configuration of SSL connections as being either optional or required. The default access level is set to optional.

•Optional –Both non-secure (HTTP) and SSL encrypted connections (HTTPS) are allowed access.

•Required – ONLY SSL encrypted connections (HTTPS) are allowed access.

Select Optional or Required from the Secure Access drop-down menu and press Apply.

Serial Ports

The Serial Ports configuration page is used for maintenance of the serial ports.

NOTE: Pass through connections may only be initiated from the command line interface via a Telnet/SSH session.

Setting the data-rate for the serial ports:

Select the serial port data-rate from the drop-down menu and press Apply.

Creating a descriptive serial port name:

Click on the Edit link in the Action column next to the port to be configured.

On the subsequent Serial Port Edit page, enter the descriptive name. Up to 24 alphanumeric and other typeable characters (ASCII 33 to 126 decimal, spaces and colon characters are not allowed) are allowed. Press Apply.

Enabling or disabling serial port active signal checking:

Click on the Edit link in the Action column next to the port to be configured.

On the subsequent Serial Port Edit page, select On or Off from the DSR Check drop-down menu and press Apply.

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