SAS 9.4 – Page 6 – platformadmin.com

Metacoda Plug-ins Batch Interface Setup Utility

This is a short post to let those readers who run or schedule Metacoda Plug-ins in batch know that, with the recent Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1 R1 release, we have published a GitHub repository to help with setup of the Metacoda Plug-ins Batch Interface. You can find this new repository, together with setup instructions, at https://github.com/Metacoda/metacoda-plugins-batch-setup

Metacoda Plug-in 6.1 HTML Export

The main benefit of this Metacoda Plug-ins Batch Interface Setup Utility is the automation of much of the previous manual work involved in setting up and site-specific tailoring of the batch interface samples. It also includes additional batch exports for Authentication Domains and External Identities (from the new Auth Domain Reviewer and External Identity Manager plug-ins). The Metacoda recommended practice starter tests for SAS metadata security have also been updated.

If you have any questions or comments please let me know by posting below. You can also contact us via the Metacoda contact form or send us an email at Metacoda support.

Configuring Metacoda Identity Sync Utils for AutoCall

I needed to extract some SAS identity related metadata today using the Metacoda Identity Sync Utils on GitHub. That repository contains some macros we publish to help our customers and partners when they need to get hold of some identity related metadata in SAS tables for custom Identity Sync processing or other reporting requirements (if the standard SAS %MDUEXTR macro doesn’t meet their needs).

Since I use these macros on a semi-regular basis, I decided to make them available to the SAS platform as autocall macros so I could just use them in my SAS code without having to remember where they were stored and %include them. I thought I’d post some brief notes on how to set it up in case you want to do the same (and for when I need it on another SAS platform installation). Continue reading “Configuring Metacoda Identity Sync Utils for AutoCall”

Keyword Bookmark Search with SAS Support

I had noticed recently that when I searched for SAS documentation on Google I wasn’t finding the SAS 9.4 documentation pages I wanted. I tweeted about it, found others had the same issue, and that SAS are working to address it. In the interim, the answer was simple of course … search using support.sas.com instead. However, I’m impatient and am used to just typing my query in the web browser address bar (e.g. sas 9.4 iomserverappender) and then clicking on the first or second link in the search results (when the search query is unique enough). It’s very fast. Finding and clicking a bookmark, waiting for the page to load, locating the search field on the page, typing in the query, clicking the submit button, waiting for the search results page to load, and clicking on the right link …. well that’s quite a bit more work! ;) [#FirstWorldProblems]

So, I’ve switched to using another method where I can keep typing my SAS 9.4 documentation search in the browser address bar AND use support.sas.com at the same time. It might even work out better than before.

In Chrome/Chromium you can add search engines with keywords (right click over the address bar and select Edit search engines… from the context menu):

In Firefox you have keyword searches via bookmarks: Continue reading “Keyword Bookmark Search with SAS Support”

Metacoda Auth Domain Reviewer

Update 05Mar2019: The Metadata Auth Domain Reviewer discussed in this blog post is now available with the Metacoda Plug-ins 6.1 R1 release, and also includes a new Libraries tab based on feedback from customers during early-access testing.

One of the new Metacoda Security Plug-ins features arriving in version 6.1 is the Auth Domain Reviewer. Like the other reviewers, this plug-in is used for investigating, documenting and testing how a SAS metadata security feature has been used within a particular SAS platform deployment. When I’m reviewing metadata security for a SAS platform I like to look at it from several different perspectives and authentication domains is one of them. I like to see:

What authentication domains have been added beyond the initial DefaultAuth?
How have they been used with respect to inbound logins?
How have they been used with respect to outbound logins and providing shared credentials for database access?
How have they been used with respect to 3rd party database system connections?
Are there any unused ones, possibly added by accident, that can be cleaned up?
Are there any seemingly duplicate ones that might be consolidated?

In the past it has been time-consuming to gather this information together, so this new plug-in Continue reading “Metacoda Auth Domain Reviewer”

Checking a SAS Setinit/License in Metadata

When I apply a new SAS license (setinit) each year, sometime I forget to also update it in metadata. I might not even remember until I get an email from the SAS platform itself:

From: SAS Platform
Subject: SAS Product Expiration Notification
To: Me
Your license for SAS product name on sas.example.com has expired. Please contact your on-site SAS support personnel to obtain your updated setinit information.

“on-site SAS support personnel” … hey that’s me! I feel embarrassed that I forgot … again!

So, what if you want to be a bit more proactive and double-check whether you have an up to date SAS setinit in metadata? Continue reading “Checking a SAS Setinit/License in Metadata”