EA v16 64bit : very slow database connection & security model ?

[ppeeters]

Hi,

We are testing EA v16 64bits (1605). We are connecting to DB repositories (SQLServer) and the models are configured with Windows user security and authentication. A specific AD group is also linked to the "Authors" group and populated with authorized users.
With EA v15.2, the connection to the model takes a couple of second while using EA v16 64bits it takes several tens of seconds. When connecting remotely through the enterprise VPN it might even takes a couple of minutes to connect !

I note in the System output that EA15 only displays
Login: Logged in as Windows user 'userid (DOMAIN\userid)'.

while EA16 display:

Attempting to log in Windows SSO user: 'userid, DOMAINN\userid'
Checking for user's Windows linked groups
User is a member of group: 'XXXX'
...

then a list of 69 AD groups I'm member of is slowy dumped on the console
then

User is a member of 69 groups

then, for each AD group :
User's Windows group 'DOMAIN\GROUPNAME' is not linked to any Enterprise Architect group

69 times

and eventually:

Login: Windows user 'Firstname Lastname (mail address)' is not a member of the model.
Login: Logged in as Windows user 'Firstname Lastname (mail address))'.

This behaviour is quite new to me. Is this an expected behaviour and, if yes, can it be disable ? Is it a bug ? Users won't definitely be happy...

Note :
the SQLServer schema is pre-1558
"Automatically create or modify Windows or OpenID users" is checked.

[Geert Bellekens]

You can delete your current users, and allow them to be created automatically using their UPN (looks like email address) rather then their SAM account (Domain\userID)

Just make sure you have updated your SQL server schema with the latest updates as the userID field used to be too small to handle UPN users (IIRC it was only 32 characters long)

I think that wil speed up the login process.

Geert

[ppeeters]

Thanks Geert, I'll try that but what will happen to the author of existing objects in the model ?

[Geert Bellekens]

The author is identified only be Name in a different table, not by userID.

So your existing object will still have the name Author Name.

The only thing to to thing about is locks. If a user has locks they will loose them when you delete and recreate the user.

Another alternative is to update the userID's yourself.

Geert

[ppeeters]

Ok, here is what I tried:

I update the schema to 1558 using the 'EASchema_Alter1220to1558_SQLServer.sql' script
I deleted my user

I reconnect using EA16 : same result : 20 seconds to connect (same system output) and my user is recreated using the email. The locks are indeed lost.
I reconnect using EA15 : 3 seconds to connect BUT a new user is created using 'DOMAIN\uid' as UserLogin !

System output EA15
Login: Logged in as Windows user 'Philippe Peeters (STIB-MIVB\peetersp)'.
Login: Added Windows user 'Philippe Peeters (STIB-MIVB\peetersp)' to model.
Login: Added Windows user 'Philippe Peeters (STIB-MIVB\peetersp)' to group 'Authors'.
Login: Logged in as Windows user 'Philippe Peeters (STIB-MIVB\peetersp)'.


Now have 2 different users in t_secuser depending on the version used to connect !

[Geert Bellekens]

Philippe, did you try to open the model again in EA16 once your user had been created?

I think that might be faster.

Also, be aware there is a very annoying bug in EA v16 (1605) for which I recommend not to upgrade yet.

The order of the diagrams in the project browser is messed up. Diagrams are now shown underneatch the packages.
That doesn't seem too bad at the first glance, but when those subpackages ha been opened, it becomes really hard to link the diagram to the correct package.

Geert

[ppeeters]

Yes, I closed the model and reopened it : it is still slow to connect displaying the same very verbose  AD related system output.
The duplicate UserLogin is really annoying too. Should I submit a bug report ?

I was not aware of the browser bug you mentionned.
Apparently EA16 is still not ready for deployment here...

[Geert Bellekens]

Yes, I closed the model and reopened it : it is still slow to connect displaying the same very verbose  AD related system output.
The duplicate UserLogin is really annoying too. Should I submit a bug report ?

I was not aware of the browser bug you mentionned.
Apparently EA16 is still not ready for deployment here...

The duplicate userlogin is not really a bug. EA 15 only knows about regular SAM userID's. EA 16 has switched to UPN, but is still backwards compatible with SAM id's.
You can't really expect EA 15 to be forwards compatible with EA 16 right?

But the slowness of the login is a bug that you can report in my eyes. I'm starting the process of testing EA 16 in a corporate environment, but I hadn't really noticed the slow startup yet.
Maybe my user is not part of that many AD groups.

Geert

[ppeeters]

I submitted a bug report for the slow connection, wait and see...
Concerning the UPN switch, I have checked with the latest v15.2 release (1560) and it is already implemented there. We still have the release 1554 deployed here and it was not yet implemented.
We still want to keep both v15.2 and v16 64bits available to ease the transition to the new QEA local repo format.
In any case, it looks like we should wait for the next v16 release.

Thanks for your feedback, Geert