Users

Logging In

When you start QWin, if your Windows user name is not defined as a QVCS user and if the environment variable QVCS_ID is not defined, the login dialog will appear. In order to login in to QWin, you must select a name from the user list. If no users are defined, the Maintain Users dialog will appear before the login dialog, allowing you to first define users before requiring you to login.

The password for each user is initially empty. In this version of QWin, passwords are mangled as they are stored in qwin.ini. The "encryption" of the password is not strong and can be easily cracked.

Passwords are not required unless they are defined. If a user forgets their password, just edit qwin.ini to delete the characters to the right of the equal sign next to the user's name in the [Users] section.

Maintain Users Dialog

You create and maintain the list of known QVCS users with the Maintain Users Dialog. You can access this dialog by selecting the Admin→Maintain Users... menu option. With this dialog, you can create new QVCS users, or delete existing QVCS users.

To create a new user, click on the "New" button. An "Add User" dialog will appear where you can enter the new user's name.

Enter a single QVCS user name in the edit box and click OK.

You can add as many new users as you like. Whatever names you define in this dialog become the names that QVCS will associate with those particular users when they make changes to files under QVCS control. When you're finished defining or deleting QVCS users, click on the "Close" button.

If the QVCS_ID environment variable is not defined, the list of QVCS users that you define with this dialog determines the list of users that populate the login dialog selection list.

QVCS_ID Environment Variable

QVCS_ID is the only environment variable used by QVCS. If your Windows user name matches a defined QVCS user name, then QVCS_ID does not need to be defined.

If your Windows user name does not match a defined QVCS user name, then you must define the QVCS_ID environment variable in order to use the QVCS command line utilities. If defined, it is used when creating QVCS archives to establish the archive's owner. It is used for all other operations that modify the QVCS archive to verify that you have access to the archive: if your QVCS_ID is not on the access list for a module, you are not allowed to modify the archive.

When creating a QVCS archive, if QVCS cannot deduce your identity via your Windows user name, or the value of the QVCS_ID environment variable, then you won't be able to do much. QWin requires you to select a user name to login (if QVCS_ID is not defined), and the QVCS command line utilities need to know who you are before they can perform any useful activities. For the command line utilities, use the set command:

set QVCS_ID=YourQVCS_ID

Since QVCS runs on PC's which are notoriously insecure, QVCS doesn't provide a way to prevent unauthorized users from accessing a QVCS archive. This means that in an environment where more than one person accesses a single QVCS archive, members of the project team are "on their honor" to use their own QVCS_ID and not someone else's. With QVCS, your project is secure only to the extent that you can trust the members of your staff.