SAP systems: Control user authorizations with a concept
Use AGS Security Services
Many companies are currently converting their current SAP systems from an ERP state to an SAP S/4HANA system. Through this conversion, many technical and also organizational components come upon the respective companies. The time factor for determining, organizing and implementing the necessary components should not be underestimated. The area of security is often neglected in thought, but can lead to major problems and possibly image-related damage - and resulting financial losses - in retrospect. For this reason, the implementation of a comprehensive authorization concept should be considered as early as possible in the project phase, as several components are intertwined here.
The case that the user buffer is not up to date is very rare. The auth/new_buffering profile parameter sets the value 4 to immediately update the permissions, i.e. changes to the user root or roles or profiles, and write them to the USRBF2 database table without requiring a new login. This value is set by default. The fact that the buffer is not up-to-date is recognised by the fact that existing permissions that are not in the buffer are marked in the transaction SU56 with the note "In the root data but not in the user buffer".
Statistical data of other users
The test for the assignment of the SAP_ALL profile is carried out in the SOS differently than in the EWA: If a user is found, assigned to SAP_ALL, and you have not entered it in the corresponding whitelist, it will still be hidden in the subsequent permission checks. Identified users will be output either through a complete list or through examples of specific users. In both cases, you can download the full list in the SAP Solution Manager's ST14 transaction. You can use the Check ID to map user lists to the permission checks. However, you should note that these lists do not contain the evaluations of the whitelists.
You are using the SAP_ALL profile for interface users, and after upgrading to a new Support Package, do you get permission errors? While we cannot recommend using the SAP_ALL profile, we describe how you can resolve this problem in the short term. In newer SAP NetWeaver releases, the SAP_ALL profile no longer contains permissions for the S_RFCACL authorization object. This can lead to permission errors, such as for interface users who have the SAP_ALL profile assigned to them. Please note that we can only recommend using the SAP_ALL profile for absolute emergency users. Therefore, instead of applying this tip, you should preferably clear the permissions of your interface users. To learn how to do this, see Tip 27, "Define S_RFC permissions using usage data." However, such a cleanup of the privileges of your interface users cannot happen overnight. Therefore, we will explain how to resolve the issue in the short term.
However, if your Identity Management system is currently not available or the approval path is interrupted, you can still assign urgently needed authorizations with "Shortcut for SAP systems".
The authorisation concept in SAP ERP does not normally allow to limit permissions to individual financial years.
The website www.sap-corner.de offers a lot of useful information about SAP authorizations.
Both the creation of a concept and the harmonization of existing structures often seem like a mammoth task.