Authentication for Virtual ViewX with multiple databases

[AaronJust]

Authentication for Virtual ViewX with multiple databases

I'm working with a Virtual ViewX installation where I have two databases, and some (but not all) users exist on both databases.  What I'm experiencing at the moment (running GeoSCADA 2021) is that if I try to log into Virtual ViewX using a user who only exists on one of the databases, then my login only works 50% of the time.

Typical login flow:

Access web page

Type in Username and Password and press Login button

Text appears in logon window: "Invalid username / password combination."

Press login button again without retyping anything, and it logs in OK.

It's as if the external authentication is doing round robin on which database it actually authenticates against.

I know the external authentication is against this DLL (from my install path):

C:\Program Files\Schneider Electric\VirtualViewX\bin64\ThinfinityVirtualUIExternalAuthenticationProvider.dll

How does this DLL determine which database(s) to try credentials against?  Is there any way of passing arguments to the external authentication provider to modify its behaviour in this sense?

The ideal return from that provider would be to know for which databases the credentials worked, but in the first instance, so long as the response always returned true so long as at least one database had matching credentials, that would give me something to work with.

Any assistance most appreciated.

[BevanWeiss]

Hey Aaron,

Have you tried uninstalling Virtual ViewX, and installing Microsoft RDS Web instead? 😉  It's the way of the future...

It definitely sounds like an issue that you should raise directly with Schneider Tech Support.

I suspect that it is somewhat as you say, and it just picks a server to use for the authentication.  I'd almost expect it to just try the fastest server to respond to the 'connect' request (before the logon attempt).

There might be a way to game the system, have you tried changing the System priority settings?  This wouldn't really work where different users might have different systems that they have permissions for (i.e. Some users can log into System A but not System B, other users can log into System B but not System A..).

I'm unsure why VirtualViewX really needs to do any such checks, since ViewX itself already handles logins to multiple databases.  So Virtual ViewX should just work and display, with the underlying ViewX being responsible for saying which systems authentication worked/didn't work for.

[AaronJust]

This from Tech Support - more testing required but gives part of an answer:

Can you kindly tell us a little more around the users who are experiencing this issue - more specifically, around the user name you are using in order to access system 2 for a user who exists in system 1. 

For example:

System 1 has Barbara and John.
System 2 has Barbara and Kyle.

So if Barbara wants to login to VVX, the following details are expected from her:

• username: Barbara's usersname
• password: Barbara's password

However, when John wants to login to System 1 or Kyle to System 2, they also need to specify the system they are logging into. This is done by adding the name of the system followed by "@" to the user name as shown below:

• username: System 1@Kyle's username
• password: Kyle's password

Basically the format for the username becomes: systemname@username