User profiles

Every system user must have a user identity before they can sign on to and use a system. This user identity is called a user profile.

A user identity is a string of characters that uniquely identifies a user to a system. Only an administrator with appropriate system authority can create a user profile for a user.

A user profile controls what the user can do and customizes the way the system appears to the user. A user profile contains the information that i5/OS™ requires to allow users to sign on to a system, to access their own customized session, including their own message and output queue, and to access functions and objects to which they have been granted authority. Designing user profiles well can help you protect your system and customize it for your users. Every system user must have a user profile and a system administrator must create the user profile for the user.

There are a number of parameters that an administrator can define for a user profile, including a number of security related attributes. Following are descriptions of a few important security attributes of the user profile:

Special authority: Special authorities determine whether the user is allowed to perform system functions, such as creating user profiles or changing the jobs of other users.
Initial menu and initial program: The initial menu and program determine what the user sees after signing on the system. You can limit a user to a specific set of tasks by restricting the user to an initial menu.
Limit capabilities: The limit capabilities field in the user profile determines whether the user can enter commands and change the initial menu or initial program when signing on.

You can include a user profile in group profiles. In this way, all group members share access to specific objects and share ownership of objects. Group profiles can simplify many user administration tasks by allowing you to apply a single change to many users.

For more information on user profiles, see "Chapter 4. User Profiles" in the iSeries™ Security Reference.