About users in Security Center - Security Center 5.9

Security Center Administrator Guide 5.9

Applies to
Security Center 5.9
Last updated
2022-10-25
Content type
Guides > Administrator guides
Language
English
Product
Security Center
Version
5.9

A user is a type of entity that identifies a person who uses Security Center applications and defines the rights and privileges that person has on the system. Users can be created manually or imported from an Active Directory.

Each user is assigned a username and a password, which are the credentials required to log on to the system.

What a person can do on the system is restricted by their user attributes:
Privileges
Limits the types of activities the user can perform on the system.
Access rights for partitions
Limits the entities the user can exercise their privileges on.

A user can be a member of one or more user groups. Users can inherit the privileges and the access rights from their parent user groups.

Admin user

The Admin user is a user created by default and cannot be deleted or renamed. It has full administrative rights to configure Security Center. A person logged on as Admin can add, modify, and delete any entity in Security Center.
Best Practice: The Admin user is created with a blank password at software installation. For security reasons, you should immediately change the Admin user's password after software installation.

User levels

A user level is a numeric value assigned to users to restrict their ability to perform certain operations, such as controlling a camera PTZ, viewing the video feed from a camera, or staying logged on when a threat level is set. Level 1 is the highest user level, with the most privileges. User levels range from 1-254. The user level can be inherited from a parent user group. If the user has multiple parents, the highest user level is inherited. If the user has no parent group, the lowest user level (254) is inherited.

User levels affects four things in Security Center:
  • They determine which users are logged out of the system when a threat level is set. For example, if you configure a threat level to trigger the Set minimum user level action, when the threat level is set, users with a lower user level than the one you specified are logged off.
  • They determine which users can continue viewing a video stream when a camera is blocked in Security Desk. When you block a camera, users that have a lower user level than the one you specified can no longer view the video stream.
  • They determine which users lose their video stream connections if a maximum bandwidth limit is configured for video streams that are redirected from a remote site, and the bandwidth limit is exceeded. When the bandwidth limit is reached and a user with a high user level requests a stream, the user with the lowest user level who is currently viewing video that is being redirected through that redirector loses their stream connection. If multiple users with the same user level are viewing video streams from that redirector, the user who requested the video stream last loses the stream connection.
  • They determine which user has priority over the PTZ controls of a camera when two or more users are trying to take control of a camera at the same time.

    Users can be given different user levels for PTZ controls that override their general user level. Priority is always given to the user with the highest level (1=highest). If two competing users have the same user level, the user who requested the stream first is given priority.

    Once a user gains control over a PTZ camera, it is locked by that user. This means that no other users can take control of that camera unless they have a higher user level. The control over the PTZ camera is automatically released after a period of inactivity (configured from the camera’s Hardware tab).