Avamar: GSAN accounts vs Linux Operating System OS) accounts

A GSAN user account in Avamar can administer a domain or client.

The GSAN user account defines the authentication system that is used to grant users access to the Avamar server. It also defines the role for the user, which controls the operations that a user can perform. 

GSAN Users can be added to domains or individual clients.

When a GSAN user account is added to a domain, the account can administer that domain and any subdomains beneath it. When a user account is added to an individual client, the account can perform backups and restores of that client, and access backups belonging to that client. 

• Administrator roles
• Operator roles
• User roles

A GSAN user account can be added to a client domain when the user account is authenticated by using Avamar internal authentication. It can also be added in the case that a user uses an existing directory service for authentication such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or Active Directory. However, the action that these kinds of clients can perform is limited actions within the Avamar Administrator UI.

The accounts cannot be used to manage the objects through the Linux OS command Line Interface (CLI). They are not Linux OS user accounts and are managed and have completely different capabilities and functions.

In other words, custom users can be added to domains and clients using the Avamar Administrator UI or mccli commands with specific roles. However, the action that these users can perform is limited to the functionalities and features on the Avamar Administrator UI. They cannot be used to manage the system through Command-Line Interface (CLI) or SSH. 

This feature is by design for security reasons, and Engineering do not support any other configuration.

If a user is created with a specific role in the Avamar Administrator UI, the damage that can be done on the grid by mistake can be limited.