2.3 Selecting an Appropriate Configuration

Self Service Password Reset has a flexible configuration. You must choose what works best for you in your environment to properly configure it. Self Service Password Reset requires a location to install the application, a back-end user store, and a location to store the users’ information such as the challenge-response information. Self Service Password Reset provides many different options for these main component. You must decide which components you want to use before installing Self Service Password Reset.

Answer the following questions to select the appropriate configuration for your environment.

What version of Self Service Password Reset are you installing? (Version)

There are two different versions of Self Service Password Reset: a full version and a trial versions. For more information, see Obtaining Self Service Password Reset.

Where do you want to install Self Service Password Reset? (Platform)

Select the platform where you want to install Self Service Password Reset. The supported platforms are:

  • An appliance of Self Service Password Reset for Hyper-V or VMware

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or Red Hat Enterprise Linux

  • Microsoft Windows Server

  • Oracle Directory Server with an attached Oracle database

For more information, see Installing Self Service Password Reset.

Where are your users? (User Store)

Select the LDAP directory that contains the users account that Self Service Password Reset manages. The supported LDAP directories are:

  • Active Directory

  • eDirectory

  • Oracle Directory Server.

For more information, see Installing Self Service Password Reset.

Where do you want to store the users’ information? (Databases or LDAP Directories)

Select where you want to save the users’ information, such as the challenge-response information. You can save the users’ information to the following locations:

  • Local Database: Self Service Password Reset contains a local database you can use to store the users challenge-responses information.

    WARNING:Do not use the local database in a production environment as there are no methods to make the local database storage redundant, nor are there optimal backup methods available for the local database.

  • External Database: Best practice is to use an external database to store the users challenge-response information. The external database provides the ability to cluster to the database and easily backup the database. The supported databases are Microsoft SQL Server and the Oracle database. For more information, see Installing Self Service Password Reset.

    IMPORTANT:You must have an empty database created to install Self Service Password Reset with the external database. The installers create the appropriate tables and schema for the database that you choose to use.

  • LDAP: You can securely store the users challenge-responses in any of the supported LDAP directories. For more information, see Installing Self Service Password Reset.

  • eDirectory with NMAS You can securely store the users challenge-responses in eDirectory using NMAS. Self Service Password Reset can read password and challenge policies from eDirectory. After saving a user’s challenge-response answers, Self Service Password Reset can optionally write the challenge-response answers to the NMAS challenge-response format in addition to the configured methods. This enables interoperability of Self Service Password Reset with other products.