Secure BE

[Guest]

I apoligize ahead of time becasue this relates to something very simple that
I'm over looking but; I'm having traouble figuring out how to secure the
back-end of an application.

I load the FE which is secured (access 2003) onto all the clients and
accessed via a shortcut which references the server based workgroup. The
FE's tables are all linked to the BE which is stored on the server. But any
of the clients can just open up the BE if they figure out the location and
read the tables.

I'm trying to avoid clients getting into the back-end at all. I've tried
adding a password but the then the FE can't access the tables.

 

[Joan Wild]

I apoligize ahead of time becasue this relates to something very simple
that
I'm over looking but; I'm having traouble figuring out how to secure the
back-end of an application.

I load the FE which is secured (access 2003) onto all the clients and
accessed via a shortcut which references the server based workgroup. The
FE's tables are all linked to the BE which is stored on the server. But
any
of the clients can just open up the BE if they figure out the location and
read the tables.

I'm trying to avoid clients getting into the back-end at all. I've tried
adding a password but the then the FE can't access the tables.

If you set a database password on the BE you then need to delete the linked
tables in the FE and recreate the links. You'll be prompted for the
database password on the BE and it will work. However, you should know that
it is quite easy to break the database password.

There are some things you can do to keep the idle curious out, however again
you cannot stop the determined.

You can hide the BE (put it in \\server\share$ rather than \\server\share )
That will hide it in Windows Explorer, but if users know the path they can
get to it.

You can create an autoexec macro in the BE that issues the Quit action -
that will close the BE as soon as it's opened directly. If you do this,
you'd want to disable the shiftkey bypass, in case your users know about
that.

As I said, these things won't keep the determined out, but may be sufficient
for your purposes.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Joan. Fortunetly the people I'm distributing to are not terrible
savy. A couple of questions though. How exactly would I implement the
autoexec macro you suggested; how do you disable the shift key; and, after
doing so, how could I get into the BE myself?

 

[Joan Wild]

Thanks Joan. Fortunetly the people I'm distributing to are not terrible
savy. A couple of questions though. How exactly would I implement the
autoexec macro you suggested; how do you disable the shift key; and, after
doing so, how could I get into the BE myself?

Create a macro in the BE with a name of autoexec.
First Action: MsgBox
In the lower pane fill in a message
Second Action: Quit

I suppose you don't have to have a message displayed; it's up to you.

To disable the shift key bypass, see
http://www.mvps.org/access/modules/mdl0011.htm
and
http://www.mvps.org/access/general/gen0040.htm

To get into the BE, you would have to re-enable the shiftkey from another
mdb.

Or you can just use Albert Kallal's tool to toggle it on and off. It's on
this page:
See
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/msaccess/msaccess.html