Using Administrator Logins

The initial implementation of the TrueNAS SCALE administrator login permitted users to continue using the root user but encouraged users to create a local administrator account when first installing SCALE.

SCALE has implemented administrator roles and privileges that allow greater control over access to functions in SCALE and to further comply with FIPS security hardening standards. SCALE includes three predefined admin user account levels:

• Full Admin - This is the local administrator account created by the system when doing a clean install using an iso file or by manually creating when logged in as the root user account after upgrading or migrating from CORE or a pre-22.12.3 release of SCALE.

• Sharing Admin - This is assigned to users responsible for only managing shares (SMB, NFS, iSCSI). This user can create shares and the datasets for shares, start/restart the share service, and modify the ACL for the share dataset.

• Read-only Admin - This is assigned to users that can monitor the system but not make changes to settings.

At present, SCALE has both the root and local administrator user logins and passwords.

All systems should create the local administrator account and use this account for web interface access. When properly set up, the local administrator (full admin) account performs the same functions and has the same access as the root user.

Some UI screens and settings still refer to the root account, but these references are updating to the administrator account in future releases of SCALE.

To improve system security after the local administrator account is created, disable the root account password to restrict root access to the system.

For more information on the different administrator scenarios users can encounter, read Logging Into SCALE the First Time.

As a security measure, the root user is no longer the default account and the password is disabled when you create the admin user during installation.

Do not disable the admin account and root passwords at the same time. If both root and admin account passwords become disabled at the same time and the web interface session times out, a one-time sign-in screen allows access to the system.

Enter and confirm a password to gain access to the UI. After logging in, immediately go to Credentials > Local Users to enable the root or admin password before the session times out again. This temporary password is not saved as a new password and it does not enable the admin or root passwords, it only provides one-time access to the UI.

When disabling a password for UI login, it is also disabled for SSH access.

To enable SSH to access the system as the admin user (or for root):

1. Configure the SSH service.

   a. Go to System Settings > Services, then select Configure for the SSH service.

   b. Select Log in as Root with Password to enable the root user to sign in as root.

   Select Log in as Admin with Password and Allow Password Authentication to enable the admin user to sign in as admin. Select both options.

   c. Click Save and restart the SSH service.

2. Configure or verify the user configuration options to allow SSH access.

   If you want to SSH into the system as the root, you must enable a password for the root user. If the root password password is disabled in the UI you cannot use it to gain SSH access to the system.

   To allow the admin user to issue commands in an ssh session, edit the admin user and select which sudo options are allowed. Select SSH password login enabled to allow authenticating and logging into an SSH session. Disable this after completing the SSH session to return to a security hardened system.

   Select Allow all sudo commands with no password. You to see a prompt in the ssh session to enter a password the first time you enter a sudo command but to not see this password prompt again in the same session.

To use two-factor authentication with the administrator account (root or admin user), first configure and enable SSH service to allow SSH access, then configure two-factor authentication. If you have the root user configured with a password and enable it, you can SSH into the system with the root user. Security best practice is to disable the root user password and only use the local administrator account.

At present, administrator logins work with TrueCommand but you need to set up the TrueNAS connection using an API key.