Citrix Systems 5.6 manual Roles, Rbac process

The local super user (LSU), or root, is a special user account used for system administration and has all rights or permissions. In XenServer, the local super user is the default account at installation. The LSU is authenticated via XenServer and not external authentication service, so if the external authentication service fails, the LSU can still log in and manage the system. The LSU can always access the XenServer physical host via SSH.

RBAC process

This is the standard process for implementing RBAC and assigning a user or group a role:

1.Join the domain. See Enabling external authentication on a pool

2.Add an Active Directory user or group to the pool. This becomes a subject. See the section called “To add a subject to RBAC”.

3.Assign (or modify) the subject's RBAC role. See the section called “To assign an RBAC role to a created subject”.

Roles

XenServer is shipped with the following six, pre-established roles:

•Pool Administrator (Pool Admin) – the same as being the local root. Can perform all operations.

Note:

The local super user (root) will always have the "Pool Admin" role. The Pool Admin role has the same permissions as the local root.

•Pool Operator (Pool Operator) – can do everything apart from adding/removing users and modifying their roles. This role is focused mainly on host and pool management (i.e.. creating storage, making pools, managing the hosts etc.)

•Virtual Machine Power Administrator (VM Power Admin) – creates and manages Virtual Machines. This role is focused on provisioning VMs for use by a VM operator.

•Virtual Machine Administrator (VM Admin) – similar to a VM Power Admin, but cannot migrate VMs or perform snapshots.

•Virtual Machine Operator (VM Operator) – similar to VM Admin, but cannot create/destroy VMs – but can perform start/stop lifecycle operations.

•Read-only(Read Only) – can view resource pool and performance data.

Note:

You cannot add, remove or modify roles in this version of XenServer.

Warning:

You can not assign the role of pool-adminto an AD group which has more than 500 members, if you want users of the AD group to have SSH access.

For a summary of the permissions available for each role and more detailed information on the operations available for each permission, see the section called “Definitions of RBAC roles and permissions”.

All XenServer users need to be allocated to an appropriate role. By default, all new users will be allocated to the Pool Administrator role. It is possible for a user to be assigned to multiple roles; in that scenario, the user will have the union of all the permissions of all their assigned roles.

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