Master domain concepts and practical uses

During installation, a default domain is created, i.e. the master domain. By default, all new user accounts and authenticators are created in or imported to the master domain, and may then be moved to other domains and organizational units.

The master domain serves three important purposes:

• It is used for initial access and configuration of OneSpan Authentication Server Appliance. Two default system administrators exist in the master domain: one for system operation, which should never be removed, and one for the OneSpan Authentication Server Appliance system administrator (see Default administrative users).
• All authenticator instances are imported by default to the master domain, although different domains or organizational units can be selected during import. For an overview of deployment models, see Typical authenticator location models.

• It is used as the default domain, whenever a domain cannot be found for an authentication request.

  If a separate domain field is provided for logon, this is used with the user ID. If no separate domain field is provided, but the user@domain format is used for the user name, OneSpan Authentication Server Appliance looks for a domain record with the name given after the '@'. If the domain is found, that domain is used and the @domain part is stripped from the user ID before the authentication process continues.

  If no domain is found, the user ID will be left as user@domain, and no domain will be identified. In that case, the default domain set in the effective policy is used for this logon attempt.

  If no default domain is set, the master domain is used.

  

  Figure: User ID and domain resolution

You can change the name of the master domain and set the company/organization domain as the master domain. This will enable authentication via user ID alone without configuring a default domain.

Configuring the master domain is done via the OneSpan Authentication Server setup wizard. For more information, refer to the OneSpan Authentication Server Appliance Installation and Maintenance Guide.