Create SystemLink Users Stored Within the NI Web Server

This article demonstrates how to create a new SystemLink Server user account that is stored and managed within the NI Web Server itself.

Using this approach, you can quickly create user accounts for testing without the need to modify your organization's user directory (i.e. for Windows Active Directory, LDAP and SSO).

Caveats

Before proceeding, it is important to note the following caveats:

• Users created and stored within the NI Web Server are not easily maintained. The SystemLink administrator must be exposed to the user account's password.
• It is not recommended to use multiple authentication methods for SystemLink simultaneously (e.g. using NI Web Server users in addition to Windows Active Directory). NI Web Server users are designed for small pools of temporary users or test users during initial setup.

Follow the steps below to create and manage SystemLink users within the NI Web Server.

1. On your SystemLink Server machine, open the NI Web Server Configuration application from the Start Menu.
2. Select the Authentication tab and place a checkmark in the Log in as users controlled by the NI Web Server option.
   • NOTE: As explained in the Caveats section above, it is recommended that only one authentication option is in use at a given time.
3. Click Apply and Restart.

4. From the Start Menu, launch Command Prompt as an administrator.
5. Enter cd “C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\Web Server” to navigate to the directory where the NI Web Server user management application is stored.

6. Create an initial admin user and store it in a file by entering the following command: htpasswd.exe -c -b <path to store file>\users.htpasswd admin <password> 
   • Replace <path to store file> with a valid path. The file created here will be moved later, so the path is not too important.
   • Replace <password> with the new user's password. NOTE: The password will be visible from the Command Prompt window.
   • The example below shows the creation of an admin user with password password123.

7. Navigate to the file's location on disk and verify that a users.htpasswd file is present.
   • If it is not present, the above command was executed incorrectly.

8. In the Command Prompt window, enter the following command to add another user to the same file: htpasswd.exe -b <same path as before>\users.htpasswd <user_name> <password>
   • Replace <same path as before> with the path to the users.htpasswd file.
   • Replace <user_name> with the new user's username.
   • Replace <password> with the new user's password. Note: The password will be visible in the Command Prompt window.
   • The below example shows a user called JohnDoe with password password123 being created.

9. Once complete, navigate to where the users.htpasswd file is stored and move it to C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\Web Server\conf.
10. Navigate to C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Shared\Web Server\conf\conf.d and open the 50_ni_authn.conf file with administrator permissions.
11. In the .conf file, identify the line starting with AuthUserFile (this is usually around line 146).
12. Modify the end of this line to point to your users.htpasswd file, as shown below.

13. Save and close the file.
14. From the NI Web Server Configuration application, select the Control tab and click Restart to restart the NI Web Server.

15. Once restarted, access your SystemLink URL in a browser and log in with one of the new accounts to verify that it works.
    • When a new user logs in for the first time, they will not have access to any of the SystemLink pages since they do not yet have any permissions assigned.
16. Apply Roles and Workspace permissions to the user as you would normally.