> So, my first guess is that if I doesn't give him any user credentials
> presents on SapDB (neither dbm nor database users), he cannot 
> perform any
> access to the RDBMS with conventional tools. Is this right?

True. But there are some plans to allow root to act as a dbm user without any 
additional authentification. This would make it possible to stop all databases during 
system shutdown and to start selected databases during boot without having to store 
the dbm user and password in a script.

> Moreover, I've opened a DISKD000X file with a text editor and I was
> "shocked" by the fact that all the data are simply gettable 
> with a few of
> sed or awk code (they are in clear-text). One way to solve this is,
> obviously, to crypt the content with the business logic of my 
> application,
> but maybe there are other mechanisms to accomplish the same 
> results with a
> proper configuration of SapDB... any suggestion here?

The are some changes being made to the permissions in MaxDB 7.5 to give more fine 
grained access to the database files. But this won't help you with your problem if 
being administrator means being root.

Crypting the content in the application does affect the SQL you are able to use. 
Sorting probably won't work, implicit conversions between ASCII and UNICODE won't work 
as expected etc. 

One idea would be building a custom SAP DB / MaxDB where whole pages are crypted 
during I/O. It is probably even possible to change the crypt key for the whole 
database occasionally by converting all the pages.

Daniel Dittmar

-- 
Daniel Dittmar
SAP Labs Berlin
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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