Guardian Procedure Calls Reference Manual

Considerations
NOTE: An application should conduct a dialog with the security mechanism and determine the
content of inputtext by the returned value of status when error is 70. The content of
inputtext can change from RVU to RVU, so authentication in a single call to
USER_AUTHENTICATE_ cannot be guaranteed.
• Conducting a dialog
A dialog allows the application to interact with the security mechanism. To initiate a dialog,
set dialog-id to 0F and set inputtext to user name. USER_AUTHENTICATE_ returns a
new dialog-id to identify the next interaction with the procedure, returns error 70 to
indicate a dialog, and a status value indicating the type of information that inputtext
should have in the next call.
• Setting inputtext to authenticate a user and optionally log on
To authenticate a user and to optionally log on, the call to USER_AUTHENTICATE_ must
provide a user and usually a password. In this RVU, the user and password can be specified
in inputtext as follows:
"user, password"
user is specified in inputtext by user name, user ID, or alias. A user ID cannot be specified
when options.<12> is set to 1. An alias cannot be specified when Safeguard software is
not running.
During a dialog, for example, inputtext can specify the user in the first call and the
password in the second call.
• Setting inputtext to authenticate a user, log on, and change the password
In this RVU, to log on a user and change a password, the call to USER_AUTHENTICATE_ must
provide a user, a password, and two matching new passwords. A password can be changed
only if Safeguard software is running. This information is specified in inputtext as follows:
"user, password, newpassword, newpassword"
During a dialog, inputtext can specify the information in multiple calls. This example shows
how inputtext could be set in three successive calls:
= “user”inputtext1.
= “password,”inputtext2.
“newpassword, newpassword”inputtext3.
• Spaces in passwords
Blank spaces are not allowed in password. For example,
“ This is NOT a valid password”
“This password has too many embedded spaces”
“This password is not valid “
1448 Guardian Procedure Calls (T-V)