Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Deployment:
Managing 4GL Applications

Database table- and field-level security

OpenEdge allows you to set up table- and field-level security, which authorizes access to database tables and fields. This authorization can be specified to apply at compile time and, optionally, also at run time:

Compile time — Checks to verify that the user has authorization to compile procedures that access database tables and fields as coded. Database authorization is always applied at compile time.
Run time — Checks an authenticated user’s authorization to access protected databases tables and fields as defined by the database’s security settings. You can choose to apply database authorization at run-time, but it is not applied by default.

To set up this table- and field-level security, you and any other trusted users are set up as security administrators. After you have designated yourself and others as security administrators, be sure that the user ID of each security administrator is included in all the permissions lists for the tables and fields for the database. For example, if you assign user ID sjones as a security administrator, but sjones is not included in the permissions for the customer table, sjones will not be able to modify permissions for the customer table. Any attempt to do so results in an error message “Invalid access to change security for customer table.” Thus, to modify table and field permissions, a user ID must be designated as a security administrator and be included in each of the individual table and field permissions.

For information about designating a security administrator, see the "Designating a security administrator" section.