Overview to Cognos security

The IBM® Cognos® TM1® server can authenticate users using IBM Cognos security.

When you use Cognos security, a Cognos passport is required to connect to Cognos TM1. A user is presented with a logon screen requiring a namespace, a user name, and a password when first logging in to Cognos TM1 or any other Cognos security-enabled components. A passport is issued to the user when they are authenticated by Cognos security. This passport automatically provides the user's credentials when accessing any other Cognos security-enabled application (including Cognos TM1). When a user connects to the Cognos TM1 server using a specific Cognos server that is configured for common logon, no direct user input is required to access additional Cognos TM1 servers (or other Cognos applications) that are configured to reference the same Cognos server.

When a user attempts to access the Cognos TM1 server, the server validates the passport to authenticate the user. This is done by querying a Cognos server for the identity of the passport. If the passport is valid, the query returns a collection of security and authentication information for the user. This information contains the roles and groups that the user has membership to, and the account (user name) associated with the passport. If the user name exists in Cognos TM1, their existing membership is validated against the existing Cognos TM1 groups. If the user does not exist, they are added and assigned to the appropriate user groups on the Cognos TM1 server.

If a user runs the client program as an administrator (by right-clicking on the program file name and selecting Run as administrator), two new folders are created after the client connects to CAM:

  • installation_location\configuration

    This folder contains the C8ITK.ini file.

  • installation_location\logs

    This folder contains the file C8ITK.log, if applicable.

By default, the C8ITK.ini file specifies that no log files are created in the logs folder, unless an error occurs. You can edit the C8ITK.ini file if you want to have log files. You can also change the name of the log file by editing the LogFilePath section. Before your changes can take effect, you must restart your Cognos services.