Access denied running iwlockinfo from custom menu

Bowker

W2K
TS 5.5.2

I'm trying to create a custom menu item to unlock locked files for authors.

My authors on occasion edit a file and don't make changes but it locks the file (and the DCR too). I have a custom menu script that unlocks the file but my authors can't run it. The return from the system command "$IWHOME\bin\iwlockinfo $file" results in "access denied". I thought custom commands ran as SYSTEM.

james1

Custom menu item CGI programs impersonate the end user on initial invocation. If your CGI produces an HTML form, and if your form action goes back through iw_cgi_wrapper.cgi, then subsequent invocations will also impersonate the end user.

Sounds like your script is impersonating the user. If you really want the user SYSTEM to perform actions on your user's behalf, then all you have to do is get your CGI to execute outside the CGI wrapper. For example, your CGI, on its first invocation, could produce an HTML form that POST's all of its available CGI parameters to /iw-bin/your_cgi.cgi, and the HTML BODY onLoad could submit the form, so that your user is instantly zapped to the non-impersonating CGI. Note, though, that if you do this, you lose some of your audit trail, as the user SYSTEM will end up doing everything in TeamSite. Also, the user SYSTEM has master privileges, so be careful that you don't end up giving your end users more power than you intend.

-- James

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James H Koh
Interwoven Engineering