securitylablelcomponentelements and securitylabels mapping in db2 - db2

DB2 allows user defined LBAC security policies. For creating the required labels and authorizations, I followed the steps provided here. So far so good. However, retrieving these policies is a big headache. Suppose, someone defined these policies and did not keep a backup of their activities. By looking at the defined components and labels, it seems to be quite hard to figure out what was done.
The main problem I am facing is this: table syscat.securitylabelcomponentelements keeps a record of the elements of the security components which one defined. syscat.securitylabels records the labels created from these component elements. I am unable to find the mapping though. It is possible that one named a component element as X, and named the corresponding label as Y. Where is the mapping stored? That is, hoe do I know that label Y is coming from element X?
I could not find this. Can someone please help me out here?
Regards,
Salil

The db2look utility will extract the DDL for all of the LBAC components, which should make it pretty easy to determine the structure you are looking for.
$ db2look -d sample -e
-- This CLP file was created using DB2LOOK Version "9.7"
-- Timestamp: Sat 30 Mar 2013 11:21:34 AM MST
-- Database Name: SAMPLE
-- Database Manager Version: DB2/LINUXX8664 Version 9.7.5
-- Database Codepage: 1208
-- Database Collating Sequence is: IDENTITY
CONNECT TO SAMPLE;
-----------------------------------------------------------
-- DDL Statements for Security Label Component "ORG_DIVISIONS"
-----------------------------------------------------------
CREATE SECURITY LABEL COMPONENT "ORG_DIVISIONS"
TREE ('ORGANIZATION_ADMIN' ROOT,
'SALES' UNDER 'ORGANIZATION_ADMIN',
'RESEARCH' UNDER 'ORGANIZATION_ADMIN',
'MANUFACTURING' UNDER 'ORGANIZATION_ADMIN',
'MFM1' UNDER 'MANUFACTURING',
'MF_ENGG1' UNDER 'MFM1',
'RSM1' UNDER 'RESEARCH',
'RS_ENGG1' UNDER 'RSM1');
----------------------------------------------------------
-- DDL Statements for Security Policy "ORGANIZATION_POLICY"
----------------------------------------------------------
CREATE SECURITY POLICY "ORGANIZATION_POLICY"
COMPONENTS "ORG_DIVISIONS"
WITH DB2LBACRULES RESTRICT NOT AUTHORIZED WRITE SECURITY LABEL;
...

Related

What could cause Firebird to silently turn calculated fields into "normal" fields?

I'm using Firebird 2.5.8 to store information for a software I designed.
A customer contacted me today to inform me of multiple errors that I couldn't understand, and I used the "IBExpert" tool to inspect its database.
To my surprise, all the calculated fields had been transformed into "standard" fields. This is clearly visible in the "DDL" tab of the database tool, which displays tables definition as SQL code.
For instance, the following table definition:
CREATE TABLE TVERSIONS (
...
PARENTPATH COMPUTED BY (((SELECT TFILES.FILEPATH FROM TFILES WHERE ID = TVERSIONS.FILEID))),
....
ISCOMPLETE COMPUTED BY ((((SELECT TBACKUPVERSIONS.ISCOMPLETE FROM TBACKUPVERSIONS WHERE ID = TVERSIONS.CVERSION)))),
CDATE COMPUTED BY (((SELECT TBACKUPVERSIONS.SERVERSTARTDATE FROM TBACKUPVERSIONS WHERE ID = TVERSIONS.CVERSION))),
DDATE COMPUTED BY (((SELECT TBACKUPVERSIONS.SERVERSTARTDATE FROM TBACKUPVERSIONS WHERE ID = TVERSIONS.DVERSION))),
...
);
has been "changed" in the client database into this:
CREATE TABLE TVERSIONS (
...
PARENTPATH VARCHAR(512) CHARACTER SET UTF8 COLLATE UNICODE,
...
ISCOMPLETE SMALLINT,
CDATE TIMESTAMP,
DDATE TIMESTAMP,
...
);
How can such a thing be possible?
I've been using Firebird for more than 10 years, and I've never seen such a behavior until now. Is it possible that it could be a corruption of RDB$FIELDS.RDB$COMPUTED_SOURCE fields?
What would you advise?
To summarize the discussion on firebird-support (and comments above):
The likely cause of this happening is that the database was backed up and restored using gbak, and the restore did not complete successfully. If this happens, gbak will have ended in an error, and the database is in single shutdown state (which means only SYSDBA or the database owner is allowed to create one connection). If the database is not currently in single shutdown mode, someone used gfix to bring the database online again in normal state.
When a database is restored using gbak, calculated fields are initially created as normal fields (though their values are not part of the backup). After data is restored successfully, those fields are altered to be calculated fields. If there are any errors before or during redefinition of the calculated fields, the restore will fail, and the database will be in single shutdown state, and the calculated fields will still be "normal" fields.
I recommend doing a structural comparison of the database to check if calculated fields are the only problem, or if other things (e.g. constraints) are missing. A simple way to do this is to export the DDL of the database and a "known-good" database, for example using ISQL (command line option -extract), and comparing them with a diff tool.
Then either fix the existing database by executing the necessary DDL to restore calculated fields (and other things), or create a new empty database, and move the data from the old to the new (using a datapump tool).
Also check if any data is missing. By default, gbak restores the data in a single transaction, so in that case either all data is present or all data is missing. However, gbak also has a "transaction-per-table" mode (-ONE_AT_A_TIME or -O), which could mean some tables have data, and others have no data.

How to get the servername\hostname in Firebird 2.5.x

I use Firebird 2.5, and I want to retrieve the following values
Username:
I used SELECT rdb$get_context('SYSTEM', 'CURRENT_USER') FROM ...
Database name:
I used SELECT rdb$get_context('SYSTEM', 'DB_NAME') FROM ...
But for server name, I did not find any client API, do you know how can I retrieve the server name with a SELECT statement.
There is nothing built-in in Firebird to obtain the server host name (or host names, as a server can have multiple host names) through SQL.
The closest you can get is by requesting the isc_info_firebird_version information item through the isc_database_info API function. This returns version information that - if connecting through TCP/IP - includes a host name of the server.
But as your primary reason for this is to discern between environments in SQL, it might be better to look for a different solution. Some ideas:
Use an external table
You can create an external table to contain the environment information you need
In this example I just put in a short, fixed width name for the environment types, but you could include other information, just be aware the external table format is a binary format. When using CHAR it will look like a fixed width format, where values shorter than declared need to be padded with spaces.
You can follow these steps:
Configure ExternalFileAccess in firebird.conf (for this example, you'd need to set ExternalFileAccess = Restrict D:\data\DB\exttables).
You can then create a table as
create table environment
external file 'D:\data\DB\exttables\environment.dat' (
environment_type CHAR(3) CHARACTER SET ASCII NOT NULL
)
Next, create the file D:\data\DB\exttables\environment.dat and populate it with exactly three characters (eg TST for test, PRO for production, etc). You can also insert the value instead, the external table file will be created automatically. Inserting might be simpler if you want more columns, or data with varying length, etc. Just keep in mind it is binary, but using CHAR for all columns will make it look like text.
Do this for each environment, and make sure the file is read-only to avoid accidental inserts.
After this is done, you can obtain the environment information using
select environment_type
from environment
You can share the same file for multiple databases on the same host, and external files are - by default - not included in a gbak backup (they are only included if you apply the -convert backup option), so this would allow moving database between environments without dragging this information along.
Use an UDF or UDR
You can write an UDF (User-Defined Function) or UDR (User Defined Routine) in a suitable programming language to return the information you want and define this function in your database. Firebird can then call this function from SQL.
UDFs are considered deprecated, and you should use UDRs - introduced in Firebird 3 - instead if possible.
I have never written an UDF or UDR myself, so I can't describe it in detail.

Understanding MON$STAT_ID in the Firebird monitoring tables

I posted a few weeks back inquiring about the firebird DB and how to monitor it. Since then I have come up with a nifty script that monitors all of the page reads/writes/fetches/marks. One of the columns I am monitoring is the MON$STAT_ID and the MON$STAT_GROUP fields. This prints out a nice number for me; however, I have no way to correlate and understand what exactly it is. I thought printing out the MON$STAT_GROUP would help but it has yet to assist me in any way...
I have also looked into the RDB$ commands but have found very limited documentation to see if they might assist me in monitoring my database.
So I decided to come here and inquire first off whether I am monitoring my database in a way that others can view the data from page reads/writes/fetches/marks and make an intelligent decision on whether or not the database is performing as expected.
Secondly, would adding RDB$ commands to my script add anything to the value of the data that I will be giving our database folks?
Lastly, and maybe most importantly, is there anyway to correlate the MON$STAT_ID fields to an actual table in the database to understand when something is going on that should not be? I currently am monitoring the database every minute which may be to frequent, but I am getting valid data out. The only question now is how to interpret this data. Can someone give me advice on methods they use/have used in the past that have worked for them?
(NOTE: Running firebird 2.1)
The column MON$STAT_ID in MON$IO_STATS (and MON$RECORD_STATS and MON$MEMORY_USAGE) is the primary key of the record in the monitoring table. Almost all other monitoring tables include a MON$STAT_ID to point to these statistics: MON$ATTACHMENTS, MON$CALL_STACK, MON$DATABASE, MON$STATEMENTS, MON$TRANSACTIONS.
In other words: the statistics apply on the database, attachment, transaction, statement or call level (PSQL executes). The statistics tables contain a column called MON$STAT_GROUP to discern these types. The values of MON$STAT_GROUP are described in RDB$TYPES:
0 : DATABASE
1 : ATTACHMENT
2 : TRANSACTION
3 : STATEMENT
4 : CALL
Typically the statistics of level 0 contain all from level 1, level 1 contains all from level 2 for that attachment, level 2 contains all from level 3 for that transaction, level 3 contains all from level 4 for that statement.
As there might be data processed unrelated to the lower level, or a specific attachment, transaction or statement handle has already been dropped, the numbers of the lower level do not necessarily aggregate to the entire number of the higher level.
There is no way to correlate the statistics to a specific table (as this information isn't table related, but - simplified - from executing statements which might cover multiple tables).
As I also commented, I am unsure what you mean with "RDB$ commands". But I am assuming you are talking about RDB$GET_CONTEXT() and RDB$SET_CONTEXT(). You could use RDB$GET_CONTEXT() to obtain the current connection (SESSION_ID) and transaction id (TRANSACTION_ID). These values values can be used for MON$ATTACHMENT_ID and MON$TRANSACTION_ID in the monitoring tables. I don't think the other variables in the SYSTEM namespace are interesting, and those in USER_SESSION and USER_TRANSACTION are all user-defined (and initially those namespaces are empty).
It is far easier to use the CURRENT_CONNECTION and CURRENT_TRANSACTION context variables within a statement. As documented in doc\README.monitoring_tables.txt in the Firebird installation:
System variables CURRENT_CONNECTION and CURRENT_TRANSACTION could be used to select data about the current (for the caller) connection and transaction respectively. These variables correspond to the ID columns of the appropriate monitoring tables.
Note: my answer is based on Firebird 2.5.
To present statistics by specific tables I use this SQL (FB 3)
select t.mon$table_name,trim(
case when r.mon$record_seq_reads>0 then 'Non index Reads: '||r.mon$record_seq_reads else '' end||
case when r.mon$record_idx_reads>0 then ' Index Reads: '||r.mon$record_idx_reads else '' end||
case when r.mon$record_inserts>0 then ' Inserts: '||r.mon$record_inserts else '' end||
case when r.mon$record_updates>0 then ' Updates: '||r.mon$record_updates else '' end||
case when r.mon$record_deletes>0 then ' Deletes: '||r.mon$record_deletes else '' end)
from MON$TABLE_STATS t
join mon$record_stats r on r.mon$stat_id=t.mon$record_stat_id
where t.mon$table_name not starting 'RDB$' and r.mon$stat_group=2
order by 1

Is it possible to audit the changed values using SQL Server Auditing?

Is it possible to audit the changed values using SQL Server Auditing for stored procedures? Note: I'm not talking about CDC.
I've got basic auditing working, writing to the security log. If I run an INSERT statement, I get a 33205 event contain this [I've removed a lot of the message for clarity]:
Audit event: event_time:2013-01-31 14:06:53.4855165
:
statement:INSERT INTO [DB1].[dbo].[Table1]
([ANumber]
,[AName]
,[ADescription])
VALUES
(21, 'Cheese', 'Cheese making.')
additional_information:
.
And that's great! But if I turn it into a stored procedure with parameters, I get [also edited]:
Audit event: event_time:2013-01-31 14:07:29.3099731
:
statement:INSERT INTO [DB1].[dbo].[Table1]
([ANumber]
,[AName]
,[ADescription])
VALUES
(#aNumber, #aName, #aDescription)
additional_information:
.
which is as useful as a chocolate teapot. What use is knowing who did something and when if you don't know what they did? I feel like there ought to be an 'Include parameter values' flag or something but I can't find one. What am I missing, here?
It's funny how posting a question can trigger the thought processes that lead to the answer, isn't it?
SQL Server Auditing treats the EXEC of the stored procedure as a separate audit from the INSERT (or other) that the SP is carrying out. The parameters are audited as part of the EXEC statement. You need to make sure you're auditing the right objects.

T-SQL 2000: Four part table name

I don't usually work with linked servers, and so I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here.
A query like this will work to a linked foxpro server from sql 2000:
EXEC('Select * from openquery(linkedServer, ''select * from linkedTable'')')
However, from researching on the internet, something like this should also work:
Select * from linkedserver...linkedtable
but I receive this error:
Server: Msg 7313, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Invalid schema or catalog specified for provider 'MSDASQL'.
OLE DB error trace [Non-interface error: Invalid schema or catalog specified for the provider.].
I realize it's supposed to be ServerAlias.Category.Schema.TableName, but if I run sp_ tables _ex on the linked server, for the category for all tables I just get the network path to where the data files are, and the schema is null.
Is this server setup incorrectly? Or is what I'm trying to do not possible?
From MSDN:
Always use fully qualified names when
working with objects on linked
servers. There is no support for
implicit resolution to the dbo owner
name for tables in linked servers
You cannot rely on the implicit schema name resolution of the '..' notation for linked servers. For a FoxPro 'server' you're going to have to use the database and schema as they map to their FoxPro counterparts in the driver you use (I think they map to folder and file name, but I have't use a ISAM file driver in more than 10 years now).
I think you need to be explicit about resources in the linked server part of the query, for example:
EXEC SomeLinkedServer.Database.dbo.SomeStoredProc
In other words just dotting them out doesn't work in this case, you have to be more specific.
It's actually:
ServerAlias.Catalog.Schema.LinkedTable
Catalog is the database that you're querying on the linked server, and catalog is the catalog of the remote table. So a valid four-part name would look lik this
ServerAlias.AdventureWorks.HumanResources.Employee
or
ServerAlias.MyDB.dbo.MyTable