We should set up a user name for each person who will be using Zenoss, and all the users should log in using their user account, not as the admin user. Individual users can be granted the same privileges as the admin account. The security of the user accounts is important. Various roles and groups can be assigned to a user. In this article by Michael Badger, the following is discussed:

• How to add new users and edit the properties of their user accounts
• The various available roles and their privileges
• Administered objects such as devices and systems
• Creating and editing custom event views
• Attaching alerts to users or groups of users
• Creating alert escalations
• Customizing alert messages
• Setting a schedule for each alerting rule
• Adding and editing groups and assigning users to groups

User Accounts and their Properties

Working as the non-admin user has several benefits:

• Changes to settings are tracked via user name
• Custom alerting rules can be defined per user
• Access can be restricted per user

Let's add a new user:

1. Select Settings from the navigation panel.
2. Select the Users tab.
3. From the Users table menu, select Add New User.
4. Enter the User Name and Email address in the Add User dialog box.
5. Click OK to create the user account.

The new user name is added to the list of users (see following screenshot) along with columns for Email address, Pager, address, and Roles.

Before a new user can log in, we must specify a password. To create a password and configure the account, edit the user account by clicking on the user name from the Users table. The following table includes the fields we can set via the Edit Screen.