About the LocalSystem account

The LocalSystem account is the default Windows account assigned to the ipMonitor Service (ipmonitorsrv) when you install the application.

You can use the LocalSystem account to host the ipmonitorsrv service. However, the privilege level of this account on the local machine is greater than the privilege level required by the ipmonitorsrv service. To harden your security model, SolarWinds recommends that you create a Local User account to specifically host the ipmonitorsrv service.

If you assign the LocalSystem account or a low-privileged Local User account to the service, use the Credentials Manager for features that need to access Windows file system objects or services through the network.

Disable the LocalSystem account

ipMonitor can function without Credentials Manager. For improved security, SolarWinds does not recommend disabling this feature.

If you choose not to use Credentials Manager, assign a Domain Administrator class account to the ipmonitorsrv service. If a security breach occurs, this configuration can expose all resources that can access the high privileged account.

You can use the Credentials Manager to impersonate non-Windows accounts. For example, an HTML/ASP monitor may need to authenticate to a web server challenging with the Digest Authentication scheme. In this example, it is difficult to leverage the full capabilities of ipMonitor without using the Credentials Manager.