[WEB4LIB] Using NT for security

[Jay Frantz]

Well, here's one suggestion that I can make for you. We are in the exact
same situation as you have outlined. I would recommend that you purchase
at least one NT Server license in order that you can administer your
workstations effectively. Policy editing can be done on the NT Server, and
you only need to edit it once because you can administer a work group
through NT Server. This certainly saves having to go to each machine
(depending on how many you may have--we have 60).

We came up with our own menu on the desktop (restricts them to the only
the applications that allow).


Hope this helps.


Regards,


Jay H. Frantz,
CCPL Webmaster


On Tue, 23 Nov 1999, Karen G. Schneider wrote:

> Yes, I know Windows 2000 is just around the corner, but we're on THIS side
> of the corner for now, so let me ask...
> 
> We are considering using NT Workstation to secure our public computers,
> which are currently Windows 95 machines secured with an amalgam of Fortres
> and similar products.  We would need to purchase something anyway, as we
> would need additional copies of Fortres as we expand our lab and reference
> room early next year, upgrading dumb terminals to Pentium-class machines.
> 
> Half of our public workstations are really web workstations, used either for
> public Internet access or for value-added Web databases.  The other half
> provide a mix of services--word processing and spreadsheets, for example, in
> addition to Internet access.  After researching the topic, and reading up on
> NT registry settings, I am pretty confident that we would be able to secure
> our Internet-only workstations to our satisfaction.  I am unclear about just
> how complicated it would be to configure NT Workstation to provide access to
> a variety of applications (though a set variety--primarily Microsoft Office
> and a couple of genealogy packages).  It is one thing to read it in the
> books--or even configure one machine in the back and tinker with it for a
> while...it is another thing to actually support it.
> 
> We have Bob Sullivan's excellent guidelines for using NT for security--q.v.
> http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Web4Lib/faq.html  (heck... we practically have
> Bob Sullivan... he's right down the road :-> ) but while we are in the
> testing and assessing phase, we thought it worthwhile to ask around.
> 
> Karen G. Schneider
> Shenendehowa Public Library, Clifton Park NY
> http://www.shenpublib.org
> kgs at bluehighways.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
>