When you are setting up a new GroupWise system, you need to determine what kind of password protection you want to have on users’ GroupWise mailboxes before users start running GroupWise. In ConsoleOne, you can choose where password information is obtained when users log in to GroupWise and you can set defaults under Client Options to enforce your choices. You and GroupWise client users should keep in mind that GroupWise passwords are case sensitive.
When you create a new post office, you must select a security level for it.
If you select Low Security for the post office, users are not required to set passwords on their GroupWise mailboxes. However, passwordless mailboxes are completely unprotected from other users who know how to use the @u-user_ID startup switch.
If you select for the post office, users are still not required to set passwords on their GroupWise mailboxes, but they are required to be successfully logged in to a network before they can access their own passwordless mailboxes. Users cannot access other users’ passwordless mailboxes.
After you select , you can further enhance post office security by requiring specific types of authentication before users can access their passwordless GroupWise mailboxes. You can require eDirectory authentication so that users must be logged in to eDirectory before they can access their passwordless GroupWise mailboxes.
In spite of these passwordless solutions to GroupWise mailbox security, users are always free to set their own GroupWise passwords on their mailboxes. When they do, the post office security settings no longer apply (except for LDAP authentication as discussed below) and users are regularly faced with both logins unless some additional password options are selected for them, as described in the following sections.
Users are required to set passwords on their GroupWise mailboxes if they want to access their GroupWise mailboxes in any of the following ways:
Using Caching mode or Remote mode in the GroupWise Windows client
Using their Web browsers and GroupWise WebAccess
Using an IMAP email client
Accessing a GroupWise mailbox as an external entity rather than as an eDirectory user
When GroupWise passwords are used in addition to network passwords, there are a variety of things you can do to make GroupWise password management easier for you and to make the additional GroupWise password essentially transparent for your GroupWise users.
NOTE:A GroupWise password can contain as many as 64 characters and can contain any typeable characters.
If you want to require users to have GroupWise passwords on their mailboxes, you can establish the initial passwords when you create the GroupWise accounts. In ConsoleOne, you can establish a default mailbox password to use automatically on all new GroupWise accounts, as described in Section 13.1, Establishing a Default Password for All New GroupWise Accounts. Or you can set the password on each new GroupWise account as you create it.
Keep in mind that some situations require users to have passwords on their GroupWise mailboxes, as listed in Section 82.1.2, Requiring GroupWise Passwords.
When you create users in eDirectory, you typically assign them network passwords, which users must provide when they log in to the network. If you want to make it easy for client users to access their GroupWise mailboxes, you can select (ConsoleOne > . This allows GroupWise users to select (Windows client > ).
NOTE:This option is not available in GroupWise WebAccess.
As long as users who select this option are logged into eDirectory as part of their network login, they are not prompted by GroupWise for a password when they access their GroupWise mailboxes. If they are not logged in to eDirectory, they must provide their GroupWise passwords in order to access their GroupWise mailboxes.
If users have Novell SecureLogin installed on their workstations, you can select (ConsoleOne > ). This allows GroupWise users to select (Windows client > ). Users need to provide their GroupWise mailbox password only once and thereafter SecureLogin provides it for them as long as they are logged in to eDirectory.
NOTE:This option is not available in GroupWise WebAccess.
If you want to allow password information to be stored on Windows workstations, you can select (ConsoleOne > ). This allows GroupWise users to select (Windows client > ). Users need to provide their GroupWise mailbox passwords only once and thereafter Windows provides them automatically.
This option applies only to older GroupWise clients running on older Windows versions, such as Windows 2000 and earlier, which are not supported for the GroupWise 2012 Windows client.
NOTE:This option is not available in GroupWise WebAccess.
Intruder detection identifies system break-in attempts in the form of repeated unsuccessful logins. If someone cannot provide a valid user name and password combination within a reasonable time, then that person probably does not belong in your GroupWise system.
Intruder detection for the GroupWise Windows client is performed by the POA and is configurable. You can set the number of failed login attempts before lockout, the length of the lockout, and so on. If a user is locked out, you can re-enable his or her account in ConsoleOne. See Section 36.3.5, Enabling Intruder Detection.
Intruder detection for the GroupWise WebAccess is built in and is not configurable. After five failed login attempts, the user is locked out for 10 minutes. If a user is locked out, the user must wait for the lockout period to end.
In ConsoleOne, you can remove a user’s password from his or her mailbox if the password has been forgotten and needs to be reset (User object > ). If necessary, you can remove the passwords from all mailboxes in a post office (Post Office object > ) This resets all or users’ client options settings, not just the passwords.
It is easy for GroupWise users to reset their own passwords (Windows client > > > > ). However, if this method is used when users are in Caching or Remote mode, this changes the password on the local Caching or Remote mailboxes, but does not change the password on the Online mailboxes. To change the Online mailbox password while in Caching or Remote mode, users must use a method they might not be familiar with (Windows client > ).
It is also easy for GroupWise WebAccess users to reset their own passwords (WebAccess > ). However, you might not want users to be able to reset their GroupWise passwords from Web browsers. See Section 62.2.3, Preventing Users from Changing Their GroupWise Passwords in WebAccess. Windows client users cannot be prevented from changing their GroupWise passwords.
There is no automatic procedure for synchronizing GroupWise passwords and eDirectory passwords. However, if you use LDAP authentication, synchronization becomes a moot point because GroupWise users are authenticated through an LDAP directory (such as eDirectory) rather than by using GroupWise passwords. See Section 82.1.4, Using LDAP Passwords Instead of GroupWise Passwords.
The WebAccess Login page includes a link, which provides the following information to WebAccess users by default:
If you have forgotten your GroupWise password, contact your local GroupWise administrator.
For your convenience and for the convenience of your WebAccess users, you can customize the information that is provided by the link. For set instructions, see Helping Users Who Forget Their GroupWise Passwords
in WebAccess
in the GroupWise 2012 Administration Guide.
Instead of using GroupWise passwords, users’ password information can be validated using an LDAP directory. In order for users to use their LDAP passwords to access their GroupWise mailboxes, you must define one or more LDAP servers in your GroupWise system and configure the POA for each post office to perform LDAP authentication, as described in Section 36.3.4, Providing LDAP Authentication for GroupWise Users.
When LDAP authentication is enabled, you can control whether users can use the GroupWise client to change their LDAP passwords (ConsoleOne > Post Office object > ). If you allow them to, GroupWise users can change their passwords through the Security Options dialog box (Windows client > ) or on the Passwords page (GroupWise WebAccess > ). If you do not allow them to change their LDAP passwords in the GroupWise client, users must use a different application in order to change their LDAP passwords.
You and users can use some of the same methods to bypass LDAP passwords as you can use for bypassing GroupWise passwords. See Accepting eDirectory Authentication Instead of GroupWise Passwords and Allowing Windows to Cache GroupWise Passwords.
For more information about LDAP passwords, see Section 84.3, Authenticating to GroupWise with Passwords Stored in an LDAP Directory.
Sometimes it is necessary to access user mailboxes to meet corporate mandates such as virus scanning, content filtering, or email auditing that might be required during litigation. These types of mailbox access are obtain using trusted applications, which are third-party programs that can log into Post Office Agents (POAs) in order to access GroupWise mailboxes. For more information about a using trusted application to bypass mailbox passwords, see Section 4.12, Trusted Applications