Authenticate the Command-Line User

You can use the Application Center command-line tool AC.exe, to partially administer an Application Center cluster without using the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. This is particularly useful for scripting.

Command-line options might require user authentication. To use specific credentials for example, when connecting to a remote computer, use the parameters shown in the following procedure.

To authenticate a command-line user

• From the command line, type

  AC LOADBALANCE /offline /member: server /username: user_name /password: password

  Where server is the remote computer to connect to.

  Where user_name is the user name to use for authentication. This can be of the form user_name or domain \ user_name.

  Where password is the password to use for authentication and is of the form {* | password}. For further security, entering an asterisk (*) causes the user to be prompted for the password. Each character entered is displayed as an asterisk (*).

  If either the user name or the password is not valid, the error message "Username or password not valid" is displayed. For scripting purposes, the return value is 1000 (AC_ERROR).

 Note   Explicit authentication is required whenever the command-line is used to connect to a remote computer. Explicit authentication by using command-line options on a local computer will not work.

 Caution   Be careful when storing passwords as part of script files. They are not encrypted and can be read easily.

 Caution   Take care when using the command line with the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Schedule Services' command AT. If you supply user credentials via the AT /username and /password parameters, they will be stored, unencrypted, in the schedule's associated .job file.

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