Can Developers Work in a 'Locked-Down' Environment?

brad-d queries: "My company is seriously considering enforcing a SOE on all employee computers, including developers. The level of lock-down would likely include baring the Windows registry from changes (and in effect stopping the installation of new software). The goals of this SOE are to prevent users from installing unlicensed software, plus some support issues. What are others experiences with situations like this? Can a developer really work in a lock-down environment? What compromises could be made between developers and IT services? And no, Linux would be likely banned." It depends on how "locked-down" said environment is, and what the developer would be will be working on, however if the Registry is locked with no mechanism provided for the Developer to add in whatever keys are necessary, how much real developing can one do?

Comments

No, you can't.

[dmorin]

Easy question : no. My group has our own Unix boxes and our own support group for most things except DNS changes and stuff like that and we still run into inefficiencies in getting routine things done on time. We do not have administration rights for our NT desktops in the sense that we can bring in our own OS upgrades, but we do have the freedom to install new applications. I can't see it working any other way.

If whoever is thinking about making such a decision is in charge of development, then get your resume in order because if I were you I wouldn't want to work under him much longer.

Re:No, you can't.

[ladykadyj]

I would wholeheartedly agree with dmorin. I think it's perfectly valid to have a development department in charge of their own "space". I've worked in that environment very successfully and at the satisfaction of both the development and IT groups. They stayed out of our way and we actually helped them with some of their problems.

I've also worked in an environment where the implementation group controlled everything (this was just when SMS came out, I still have the shakes), your computer was set up for you, they periodically came around and uninstalled screen savers and whatnot... but imagine monday morning when you come in to work and your computer gets the BSOD because some nitwit from tech support messed up your registry when ensuring your computer was "compliant" with corporate policies, or they screwed up your file links and now gcc can't find your mysql header files because you had a "non-standard" installation... Occasionally they would allow us to make the necessary changes ourselves if we were buddies with the technician -- let's face it, I feel more comfortable in my abilities to maintain my computer, I use the thing every day for crying out loud!

I can understand the IT department's headaches from users who screw up their machines, but developers are typically smarter than the average Outlook user (hopefully??) and can manage their own computers just fine. Computers as company property and subject to coroporate/IT policies is one thing... coding with my wrist chained to the chair is another.

Freedom is not for the ignorant.

They can't

[well_jung]

We faced this issue when standardizing/locking desktops during our upgrade to Win2000. The only workaround that was agreeable to both sides (developers and IT) was to allow developers to have free reign, but not to expect anything more than "We can re-image the machine" from IT when said developer screws up his machine.

If you get out a bible and swear to IT that you are willing to not ask for support when you screw shit up, they may be open to letting you be blessed.

Re:Registry lockdown?

[Chuck Milam]

I don't even think a lot of *existing* application would run...

Yes, I've seen this before. In a university environment I used to work in, we tried to lock down the registry...we had to make so many exceptions for various application that required full registry access to run (scary), that by the end of the semester we gave up on locking down and went back to rebuilding the systems nightly (which introduced a whole group of other messes...)

Yes, but at a much slower rate...

[Gid1]

I'm just at the end of a six-month contract to put together a PHP/MySQL/Apache based website, in a locked-down Windows 95 (!) environment with a few thousand users.

They're migrating to W2K shortly, but I put my foot down and they allowed me to wipe my box and install RedHat on it -- the only way I managed that was the fact that it was in a nice shrinkwrap box.

Well, all fine, but I get no support and I'm not allowed to put it on the network, so it's sneakernet for me. Access to the internet is done with floppies. =(

The point is that you may be able to persuade them to let you have a purely standalone machine, as long as you keep an SOE machine next to it for running Outlook =)

Re: What is SOE??

[antidigerati]

SOE = Standard Operating Environment

Just so ya know... I had to look it up ;)

antidigerati

Re:Trust?

[scoove]

It is rather amusing, not trusting developers. By definition (apologies for being redundant), but developers do not work in a static environment.

Having been in both ends of the pool, it never fails to amaze me at all the rules the corporate "golds" make up, then act surprised when development objectives get missed.

I'd suggest a copy of Yourden's "Death March Projects" be left on the culprit gold's desk for their inspection. It won't work, but it'll be worth a few good stories.

*scoove*

Not Enough Information

[pmc]

As the sort of person who designs these policies I have to say that there is not enough information to give you an answer, so if you don't mind I'll illustrate with a few principles that I work to.

Surprisingly enough, nobody implements such a policy because they are evil incarnate - you may not believe this, but it is true. The reason that policies are setup like this is purely to save money. And the money is saved because a huge proportion of support time is spent fixing PCs that users have wreaked because they've installed that cute new application.

This leads directly to the BOFH approach to policy - nail it down, and nail it down hard. Don't even let them log on without a letter from the Pope. This is a stage one policy. Support calls drop dramatically, user productivity is zero.

Now, a bit of reality is introduced. People have to use their machines, so against our better judgement we let them log on. And print. And even save things to the hard disk. This is stage two: most people can do what they have to do, support calls rise a little.

Then you deal with the exceptions. Depending on the type of user the general restrictions are lifted. There may be strings attached (such as the screw up and we'll only reimage) or maybe IT will arrange proper support for the application etc.

The point to remember (and so many people forget, especially people in IT) is IT support is not the business. If you are in the business of making widgets, or writing code, then IT support do not do this - they exist to help you do this. They exist solely to allow the business to function more effectively. They are "facilitators" (to use a horrible word). They provide a service.

If that service prevents the business doing things that are required for the business the the service is substandard and needs to be replaced. In this case that service is a policy, and it need to be replaced. I have designed a policy for devolopers, and the policy is

1. You get a standard PC with the standard loadset, and admin rights on the local box.

2. If you screwup we will only reimage.

3. If you repeated screwup we will still reimage, but we will start charging you.

4. All software to be purchased (if costware) and registered (registerware) via {specific person}.

Lockdown policies are loved bu IT departments, but if it stops you (or anyone) doing legitimate work then it is broken and needs fixing.

Re:Registry lockdown?

[olsonde]

I'm assuming we are talking Windows NT/2000/XP?

I'm also assuming by "Lock-Down" you are saying they have no rights to use Registry editing tools (regedit, regedt32, reg, regdmp, etc.) Also, no file permissions have been changed from their default.

By default, only "Administrators" have the ability to add or change keys in "Classes_Root". All users have full control to their own user hive (ntuser.dat).

For "Local_Machine, only "Administrators" have change ability to "Hardware";and "Administrators" and Power Users" have the ability to change keys within "Software".

As a developer, all developed programs should be able to be used by a person with only local "User privileges", but the person installing the application will need to have administrative privileges, because they will need access to CLASSES_ROOT or LOCAL_MACHINE.

So, if I was a developer writing an installation program, I would need to be able to test my installation code on a machine where I had local "Administrator" rights, but I would not need to have those rights on a machine I was compiling my source code on, since that only needs file permissions.

Where I work, the developers are normal users on their development machines (Visual Studio, Team Fusion, etc.), but they test their applications on machines set aside specifically for their testing purposes (their development and test machine sit side-by-side, sharing a monitor, keyboard, and mouse through a KVM switch). The test machines get wiped out and re-imaged as much as a dozen times a day (with a bootable CD image), but their development machine is rarely touched by IT.

In the rare instances where an app or development tool must run as local admin, we use the SU tool of the Windows NT/2000 resource kit. SU (we call it the Super User tool) will allow a specific application to run with elevated privileges.

We also use a freeware tool called RegDACLS to change registry key security to allow evelated access to specific keys in the registry.