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Agent

This section identifies the requirements for an Identity Manager agent.

Software​

The agent is a .NET application.

Running an agent requires installing the Windows hosting bundle for ASP.Net Runtime.

Hosting​

When used separated from the server, the agent can be run as:

Integrated agent​

Some installations require multiple separate agents, but most of them use a single integrated agent that runs within the Identity Manager server process. In that case, the server executable contains the agents and no agent executable needs to be executed. It means that if a Identity Manager server is already installed, no further installation is required.

In this case, the agent working directory is the same as the server working directory, and both the agent's and server's appsettings share the same configuration. The appsettings.agent configuration set is still configured through environment variables or via a separate appsettings.agent.json file stored next to the Usercube-Server.exe executable, in the common working directory. See the Application Settings and appsettings.agent topics for additional information.

Service Accounts​

The agent should be assigned a Windows Server service account.

The installation of the server as part of an Active Directory domain requires the use of an account with sufficient privileges to create a service account on the domain.

It can be either the IIS built-in application pool identity, or a custom Windows Server service account.

Working directory permissions​

The agent's service account needs specific permissions on the Create a Working Directory :

  • Read, Modify, and List folder contents on the working directory;
  • Read & Execute and List folder contents on the Runtime directory, usually C:/identitymanager<Organization>/Runtime, in order to run the agent executable;
  • Read, Modify, and List folder contents on the directory for provisioning orders, whose path depends on the Work folder's path;
  • Read, Modify, List folder contents, and Write on the directory for data collection, whose path depends on the Work folder's path.

See the Create a Working Directory and Application Settings topics for additional information.

Other permissions should be denied.

FAQ: How to set up directory permissions in Windows Server? See the Install the Server topic for additional information.

Managed systems' permissions​

Every Identity Manager agent needs one or several service accounts on the target managed systems, able to read and write to said managed systems.

For example, using Identity Manager with an Active Directory instance requires the agent to be assigned an Active Directory service account that can read, write, change users' passwords, update group memberships, and synchronize the whole Active Directory.

Before going further, make sure the integration team has provided:

  • The list of all managed systems
  • Service accounts with the necessary permissions for the agent to perform Read and/or Write operations on the systems associated with a connector allowing respectively synchronization and/or provisioning; See the Connectors topic for additional information.
  • service accounts' credentials

Managed systems credentials are stored in the appsettings.agent configuration set and can be protected. See the appsettings.agent and Modules topics for additional information.

Database permissions​

The agent needs a service account that can authenticate to SQL Server.

Hostname and DNS​

The agent needs to be assigned a hostname within the organization's domain. End-user browsers must be able to resolve the agent's hostname.

The associated DNS zone needs to be updated accordingly.

The DNS alias should be written in lowercase in order to comply with as many security rules as possible.

SSL Certificate​

The agent requires the use of HTTPS ports and an SSL certificate in order to perform HTTPS communication with the server.

Emails​

The agent needs access to an SMTP server to Send Notifications .

Encryption Key Pair​

An RSA-2048 encryption key pair is required for the agent in order to perform various encryption operations, such as source, configuration, or log file encryptions;

Such a certificate does not need to be integrated into the target organization's Public Key Infrastructure and does not require an expiration date. They are only relevant to internal and temporary Identity Manager data and can be changed at any time.

An RSA key pair, as in an X.509 public key certificate and a private key, can be stored either:

  • As a PKCS #12 archive (also called Personal Information Exchange file or .pfx file) stored in the server's host file system. The archive contains both the public key certificate and the private key.
  • As a certificate from a Windows' certificate store identified by SubjectDistinguishedName or by Thumbprint. The Windows certificate also contains both the public key certificate and the private key. This is the recommended method.

The key pair can be generated with tools such as OpenSSL or Microsoft's New-SelfSignedCertificate and pvk2pfx tool.

What's Next?​

To start the installation, follow either the Quick Start Guide or the Production-Ready Installation.

Database

This section identifies hardware and software requirements for Identity Manager's database.

Hardware​

The database disk storage requirements depend on multiple factors as the database lifespan and the number of entries, for example 100,000 users can take up appropriately 10 GB of storage

NOTE: The maximum SQL Express database is 10 GB.

Software​

Identity Manager uses a SQL Server database and supports SQL Server 2016 or later.

The database requirements may depend on the chosen SQL Server edition and version.

The following features are also highly recommended:

Additional tools​

The installation and setup of the database require using either SQL server Management Studio or the sqlcmd command line tool.

SQL Server Authentication​

Identity Manager can authenticate to SQL Server using either a SQL Server authentication login or a Windows authentication login.

Netwrix recommends using the Windows authentication login to avoid storing a plain text password in the technical configuration files.

SQL Server Roles​

The database administrator must be able to assign the following roles to the service account used by Identity Manager to access the SQL Server database:

  • db_owner which is a database-level role. This role grants its owner the authorization to perform all configuration and maintenance activities on the database, and to drop the database in SQL Server.

  • bulkadmin which is a server-level role. This role grants its owner the authorization to perform bulk operations on the database.

    Although bulkadmin is a server-level role, it still requires Identity Manager to have database-level permissions granted by the db_owner role. It means that bulk operations can be performed on the database only if Identity Manager has been granted the db_owner role.

    Granting bulkadmin role to the server's service account requires access to an account member of the sysadmin or securityadmin server-level role on the target SQL Server. See the Install the Server topic for additional information.

For more information about identity and permission management in SQL Server, see Microsoft's documentation.

Shared SQL Server and Dedicated Database​

Identity Manager's SQL Server installation can be used to host other database applications.

Identity Manager's database itself must be used exclusively for Identity Manager.

Connection to the Server​

SQL feed must be open from Identity Manager's server to SQL Server.

Optimization​

The max degree of parallelism (MAXDOP) must be set to 1 in the SQL database.

What's Next?​

Let's move on to the requirements for Identity Manager's server. See the Server topic for additional information.

Integration Device

This section identifies the requirements for the Saas installation of Identity Manager. For the requirements of on premise installation see the Integration Device topic in the Identity Manager 6.0 or 6.1 Netwrix Identity Manager (formerly Usercube) Help Center for additional information.

Hardware​

No matter whether the machine is virtual or physical, running a Identity Manager server or agent requires at least 8 GB of RAM, 20 GB of disk storage, and a dual-core CPU.

NOTE: Netwrix Identity Manager (formerly Usercube) recommends a 4-core CPU if SQL server is installed on this device.

Software​

.NET version 8.0 or higher must be installed.

Microsoft Excel must be installed.

A web browser must be accessible to test the future installation. Identity Manager's UI supports all popular browsers:

  • Google Chrome (latest 2 versions)
  • Mozilla Firefox (latest 2 versions)
  • Apple Safari (latest 2 versions)
  • Microsoft Edge Chromium

Administrator Account​

A Windows local administrator account is required to install the server and agent on the target Windows Server workstation.

Additional Recommendations​

A not-so-minimalist text editor such as Notepad++ can be useful to comfortably edit network configuration files. See the Network Configurationtopic for additional information.

What's Next?​

Let's move on to the requirements for Identity Manager's database. See theDatabasetopic for additional information.

Requirements

This section identifies hardware and software requirements for each Identity Manager component:

Server

This section identifies software requirements for Identity Manager's server.

License Key​

The server requires a license key provided by Netwrix Identity Manager (formerly Usercube). See the Application Settings topic for additional information.

Software​

The server is a .NET application.

Running the server requires installing the Windows hosting bundle for ASP.Net Runtime.

Hosting​

The server can be run as:

It is recommended to enable the following Internet Information Services (IIS) features to host Identity Manager:

Service Accounts​

The installation of the server as part of an Active Directory domain requires the use of an account with sufficient privileges to create a service account on the domain.

The server should be assigned a custom Windows service account.

The IIS built-in application pool identity should not be used, because it will prevent the custom account from connecting to a distant SQL Server. Hence Netwrix Identity Manager (formerly Usercube) recommends using a domain account.

Working directory permissions​

The agent's service account needs specific permissions presented in the Create a Working Directory topic as:

  • Read and List folder contents on the working directory;
  • Read & Execute and List folder contents on the Runtime directory, usually C:/identitymanager<Organization>/Runtime, in order to run the agent executable;
  • Read and List folder contents on the directory for provisioning orders, whose path depends on the Work folder's path;
  • Read, List folder contents, and Write on the directory for data collection, whose path depends on the Work folder's path.

See the Create a Working Directory and Application Settings topics for additional information.

Other permissions should be denied.

FAQ: How to set up directory permissions in Windows Server? See the Install the Server topic for additional information.

Database permissions​

If Windows' authentication is used for SQL Server, then the server should be able to authenticate to SQL Server with its assigned service account. It means that the server's service account needs to be assigned an SQL Server login with the relevant roles, including necessarily either sysadmin or securityadmin.

See the Database and Install the Server topics for additional information.

Hostname and DNS​

In the case of an on-premises installation, the server needs to be assigned a hostname within the organization's domain. Agents must be able to resolve the server's hostname.

The associated DNS zone needs to be updated accordingly.

The DNS alias should be written in lowercase in order to comply with as many security rules as possible.

SSL Certificate​

The server requires the use of an SSL certificate in order to perform HTTPS communication with end-users' browsers.

Identity Manager SaaS offering comes with an SSL certificate signed by a trusted certificate authority for the *.usercube.com domains. This certificate allows end-users to access the server through the Internet without any further configuration. Using another domain name for the SaaS installation requires providing Netwrix Identity Manager (formerly Usercube) with the corresponding SSL certificate signed by a trusted certificate Authority.

Identity Manager on-premises offering requires the use of an SSL certificate trusted by all the target end-users' browsers. Standard practices use a certificate signed by the target organization's Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) root certificate authority. The on-premise SSL certificate must be set up in IIS.

Emails​

The server needs access to an SMTP server to Send Notifications .

Encryption and Identity Server Key Pairs​

An RSA-2048 encryption key pair is required for:

  • Identity Manager's server in order to perform various encryption operations, such as source, configuration, or log file encryptions;
  • Identity Manager's Identity Server for end-user authentication purposes.

Such a certificate does not need to be integrated into the target organization's Public Key Infrastructure and does not require an expiration date. They are only relevant to internal and temporary Identity Manager data and can be changed at any time.

An RSA key pair, as in an X.509 public key certificate and a private key, can be stored either:

  • As a PKCS #12 archive (also called Personal Information Exchange file or .pfx file) stored in the server's host file system. The archive contains both the public key certificate and the private key.
  • As a certificate from a Windows' certificate store identified by SubjectDistinguishedName or by Thumbprint. The Windows certificate also contains both the public key certificate and the private key. This is the recommended method.

The key pair can be generated with tools such as OpenSSL or Microsoft's New-SelfSignedCertificate and pvk2pfx tool.

What's Next?​

Let's move on to Identity Manager's agent requirements. See the Agent topic for additional information.