SAP Authorizations Emergency user concept

Direkt zum Seiteninhalt
Emergency user concept
Search for user and password locks
For a long time, SAP authorization consultants and ABAP developers have disagreed on how to implement authorization object characteristics in the coding. There are two positions: On the one hand, consultants advise never to test for the signal word DUMMY, the constant space or the literal ' '. These tests only superficially check for the existence of an authorization object and do not react to settings in the field specification in the profile of the roles. Moreover, the literal ' ' is then authorized because it is displayed in the transaction STAUTHTRACE. On the other hand, there are situations where development uses these superficial tests to save the user time and the machine resources. If the program determines early on that the user does not have the necessary objects in the user buffer, it may abort before the first SELECT and issue an appropriate error message. Both positions contain a kernel of truth. Let's look at the effects of different programming on a simplified example. The role(s) have only the authorization object S_DEVELOP with the field value DEVCLASS "Z*".

The general authorizations are quite normal authorization objects in SAP HCM, which regulates the access to PA/PD infotypes (tables PAnnnn / HRPnnnn), clusters for the own person or for other persons. Typical authorization objects are "P_PERNR", "P_ORGIN", "P_ORGXX", "PLOG" and "P_PLCX".
Detect critical base permissions that should not be in application roles
In the foreground, important SAP reports on the subject of role and authorization administration were presented. Since these and the entire SAP system are known to be based on ABAP coding, the analysis of the source code is just as important, especially when using in-house developments. These in-house developments often present serious security vulnerabilities because they have insufficient authorization checks in the coding. To search for explicit strings and to categorize the in-house developments accordingly, the report RS_ABAP_SOURCE_SCAN can be used. This allows existing programs in the backend to be explicitly checked for specific check patterns by the authorization administrator and any errors to be corrected by the relevant developers. Authorization-relevant check patterns for such a scan are, for example, "AUTHORITY-CHECK" or SQL statements such as SELECT, UPDATE or DELETE. The former checks whether authorization checks are present in the source code at all. The check for Open SQL patterns analyzes the code structure for direct SELECT, MODIFY or INSERT statements that must be avoided or protected on the authorization side. The best practice measure in this case is to use SAP BAPIs. The preventive best practice would be to involve developers and authorization administrators equally during the conceptual design of the custom development.

The P_ABAP (HR-Reporting) authorization object is not required to execute reports, but is intended to improve performance during execution. In addition, it can be used when reports require permissions for info types that the user should not receive in other cases, which is more common. For example, the right to display information type 0008 (basic salary) is also required for the execution of the travel statement reports. The Invoice Payer Programmes also require P_ABAP permissions to process personal data.

If you get into the situation that authorizations are required that were not considered in the role concept, "Shortcut for SAP systems" allows you to assign the complete authorization for the respective authorization object.

Understanding the structure and functioning of the system is especially important for IT administration. It is not for nothing that "SAP Basis Administrator" is a separate professional field. On the page www.sap-corner.de you will find useful information on this topic.


Most client programmes are additions to the standard functionalities or variations of the same.

The freeware Scribble Papers is a "note box" in which all kinds of data can be stored. It takes in typed texts as well as graphics and entire documents. The data is then organised in folders and pages.


The complete document can always be validated, if only the information from document header (time 1) or document position (time 2) is available to you, this can also be sufficient depending on the scenario.
Zurück zum Seiteninhalt