JS7 JobScheduler

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  • JS7 products are easy to install out-of-the-box. However, a number of configuration items have to should be considered when operating JS7 for a secure environment.
  • Secure operation is applied to the following areas:
    • Connection Management
      • Network Connections
      • Database Connections
    • Access Management
      • Authentication
      • Authorization
    • Credentials Management
      • Database Credentials
      • Job Credentials
  • Secure operation includes users configuring JS7 products in a compliance-conformant way.

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  • Configure network connections to use HTTPS:
    • Use of HTTPS includes providing valid certificates for the hosts that JS7 products are operated for. Use of self-signed certificates is acceptable if they can be verified to a trusted sourcePrivate CA-signed Certificates and Public CA-signed Certificates are both acceptable. For details see JS7 - How to create X.509 SSL TLS Certificates.
    • As HTTPS is limited to secure connections, additional authentication is required. In this case, a JS7 Controller instance is configured to authenticate with an Agent in order to guarantee that the Controller instance is in fact, what it claims to be and is entitled to access the Agent.
    • The JS7 - Secure Connections article explains the use of the built-in Certificate Authority and the use with external Certificate Authorities.
    • For detailed instructions for configuration see:
  • Restrict use of network interfaces:

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  • Do not use passwords.
    • Users frequently ask if JS7 can encrypt credentials. The answer is "no" as it makes no sense to handle a symmetric key that is in reach of the product that makes use of it. Encrypted passwords correspond to the "key under the mat". They do not provide additional security. However, they perfectly contribute to obfuscation.
    • There is one way only how to securely handle passwords: not to use them.
  • Use Integrated Security
  • Encrypt passwords

Job Credentials

Default Configuration

  • The Windows Service for the JS7 Controller and Agent runs in the system account. 
    • The installer allows specification of a different account and the addition of credentials for that account. The installer does not store passwords entered during installation.
  • By default jobs are executed in the context of the account that the JS7 Agent is operated with.

Secure Configuration

  • Use of Accounts
    • It is considered a bad idea to run a JS7 Controller or Agent using a Unix root account or Windows Administrator account.
      • Certainly this makes life easy when it comes to switching to other user accounts or for accessing directories and files.
      • However, users should not grant more permissions to a process than required.
    • Use specific user accounts to run JS7 Controllers and Agents:
      • Do not use the system account (Windows) or root account (Unix).
      • Create specific service accounts that are limited to the privileges that are required to execute jobs.
    Do not specify credentials for Windows Service accounts during installation:
      The graphical installer stores such credentials in binary format and forwards them to the Windows Service interface.
    • There is no guarantee that such credentials will be logged by some Windows mechanism.
    • Instead, use the Windows Service Panel to manually specify credentials for the service account.
    There
    • are a number of options when it comes to running jobs for different user accounts:
      • In Unix environments:
        • Job scripts can switch to a different user context by use of sudo or su commands. sudo is the preferred option as this is the standard Unix tool which allows secure configuration of the accounts that are allowed to execute certain commands (sudoers file). In addition sudo provides reporting capabilities about the (ab)use of commands.
        • Find details from the JS7 - Running Jobs as a different User on Unix article.
      • In Windows environments:
        • You can use the Windows Credential Manager to safely store the credentials of the user account that a job should be executed for. The Agent will then read the credentials and will create a new process to run a job in the target user account's context. This is the preferred solution as it does not store credentials in the Agent or workflow configuration.
        • Find detailed information from the JS7 - Running Jobs as a different User on Windows article.
      • For all environments:
        • You can run a number of Agents in parallel using different user accounts.
  • Use of Credentials
    • Do not specify credentials for Windows Service accounts during installation:
      • The graphical installer stores such credentials in binary format and forwards them to the Windows Service interface. There is no guarantee that such credentials will be logged by some Windows mechanism.
      • Instead, use the Windows Service Panel to manually specify credentials for the service account.
    • A credential store can be used for jobs that require credentials, for example to access a database: see the JS7 - Credential Store article for more information.
      • Credentials are not provided from parameters (that could be logged in clear text), instead an interface is provided that allows on demand access to the credential store. 
      • This feature is available for Shell jobs and for JVM jobs, for example JS7 - JITL Database Jobs, JS7 - JITL SSH Jobs etc.
    • Use the the feature of JS7 - Encryption and Decryption, for encryption of order variables and job arguments see JS7 - Encryption - Integration with Workflows - Jobs - Orders

File Transfer Credentials

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