Operation

• Introduction
• Installation and setup
• Publishing security news
  
• Monitoring and reporting
• Changing the admin password
  
• Updating the runtime key
  
• PasswordVault client setup
• PasswordVault client recovery
  

• License Agreement (Full)
  
• License Agreement (Lite)
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Revision history

• very easy software installation and configuration, enabling the PasswordVault (PV) Server to be set up in minutes
• automatically integrates existing data from installations of other editions of PasswordVault (ie. Lite, Standard or Pro)
  
• user data is encrypted on the client and stored in encrypted form in the central database, maximizing security
• use of a central database system provides easy data management, backup and disaster recovery
• provides excellent monitoring and reporting functions: user count, user list, last access timestamps, etc.
• leverages the user's network login name for identification, and their master password for authentication
• company-specific security news and security policy updates are shown to users when they log in
• easy user setup - on first launch, user enters the IP address of the PV Server, connects and registers
• standard HTTPS protocol is used for client-server communications, with additional layers of encryption
• the PV Server is installed inside the organization's intranet, keeping all network traffic within the intranet
• an IP address filter on the server rejects any connections from addresses outside the set IP address mask
• a selectable IP port for incoming connection requests, which can be set by the administrator
• logging of various user activities in separate daily activity log files, for auditing purposes
• selectable user data sync interval from 2 to 8 hours, with automated server load balancing
• user data is stored both locally and in the database, ensuring maximum data availability
• data recovery to a fresh computer is simple, requiring only PV Server validation, registration, and login
  
• each users' data is protected by their unique master password, protecting data from cascade breaches
• custom builds can be made to customer's requirements eg. extra reports, hardware authenticators, etc.
• in very large organizations (eg. universities), PV Server nodes can be distributed eg. organized by department
  

If you have an existing installation of PasswordVault Lite, Std or Pro on your computer, running the PasswordVault client bundled with the Enterprise Edition will load up your existing data and then sync it with the PV Server. Everything will work in the same way as the older edition you were using, so upgrading to the Enterprise Edition is incredibly easy and seamless. When all of your organization's users have moved across to the PasswordVault client of the Enterprise Edition, their data will all be stored (in encrypted form) on the PV Server as a single database file, greatly simplifying data back up. This will make disaster recovery much more straight forward, an important issue for many organizations trying to maximise business continuity.

Access to your password data is also very robust. Once the data has synced to the PV Server, if you ever need to recover your password data (eg. if your computer hard disk dies), it's easy to restore from the PV Server and be up and running again in minutes. Conversely, if the network connection to the PV Server is ever cut (eg. the PV Server is running on your office admin computer, and it's switched off), you will still have full access to your local data and can work as usual (eg. log in to websites, use textclips in emails, etc). This type of reliability is exactly what organizations need.

There are excellent monitoring features built into the PV Server, enabling the admin to know how many users are connecting in, as well as their most up-to-date information (name, department and contact email address). In addition, the admin can publish security news and update policy information easily via the PV Server, and know that as users connect in to the PV Server, they will have immediate access to that critical information. Not only is the communication link between the admin and users made more direct, all dependencies on email security or reliance on the email system working are eliminated. This could be very important in a situation where a service failure or security breach occurs.

Installation and setup
In a small office, the PV Server can be installed on the computer of a user chosen to manage the server. This user's computer should generally be left switched on (ie. when they leave for the day, they just lock their screen rather than power down), so that the services offered by the PV Server are always available to other users on the network. However, if the PV Server does go down, all users on the network will automatically use their local PasswordVault data (so won't be affected), and when the PV Server is back up again, all changes made by users in the interim will be uploaded to the server during the next sync. Also, since all data stored inside the PV Server database is encrypted on each client's computer before transmission, the data always remains secure even though it is stored on a particular user's computer.

In larger organizations, the PV Server may be installed on dedicated server hardware which is managed by a system administrator. The administrator will then manage the server, monitor usage, perform auditing and reporting, etc.

To install and setup PV Server, you'll need the following information:

• your 'PasswordVault Server' runtime key (emailed to you by Lava Software when you ordered). This is not needed for the free 'Enterprise Edition Lite'.
• a new admin password (a password of more than 6 characters in length which you have chosen)
  

Note: The runtime key includes information about the number of users licensed, and you should always ensure you have enough headroom for new users (see updating the runtime key below for information about expanding your user count). If you're using the free 'Enterprise Edition Lite', the included PV Server supports up to 15 users, and each user can use up to 25 services.

Figure 1. The 'Enter Runtime Key' dialog

The 'Set Admin Password' dialog will now be displayed, which is shown below in Figure 2. Enter a new admin password, which will be used to protect the software from unauthorized use. Your admin password needs to be longer than 6 characters, and it is recommended that you use a combination of lowercase and uppercase characters, and one or more special characters (eg. !@#$%^&*). You can always change the admin password later by selecting the 'Change password...' menu item in the 'Admin' menu (see Changing the admin password below).

Figure 2. The 'Set Admin Password' dialog

Figure 3. The main 'PV Server Settings' window

Figure 4. An example 'Security News / Policy' dialog, shown to users when they login

Figure 5. An example 'PV User List' dialog, showing two users

Figure 6. An example PV Server log

Table 1. Text log file prefixes, and their meanings