# Creating user accounts in development

This page describes how to create user accounts for Caplin FX Corporate when it is installed on a development machine and not integrated into an enterprise authentication system.

## Overview

User authentication in FX Corporate is managed by [Caplin KeyMaster](../caplin-platform/keymaster/index.md), a Java Servlet hosted securely on the Java application server that serves FX Corporate. The KeyMaster servlet issues authentication tokens recognised by Caplin Liberator.

On a production Java application server, access to the KeyMaster servlet is authenticated by your bank’s authentication systems, which connects to a production user directory and, possibly, a two-factor authentication server.

On a development Java application server, hosted locally on a developer’s machine, access to a development version of your bank’s authentication infrastructure may not be available. To provide flexibility for developers, Caplin KeyMaster allows user credentials to be configured manually.

## Configuring user credentials manually

Follow the steps below:

1. If you have not already done so, deploy the FX Corporate WAR to your local Java application server.
2. Edit the KeyMaster `user.properties` file. This file contains a list of user credentials and access roles.

   The path to the file in an Apache Tomcat deployment is `<tomcat_root>/webapps/corporatetrader/WEB-INF/cfg/keymaster/user.properties`
3. Add new users to the file, one per line, using the following format: `<username>: <password>,<role>`. For example, `bob: letmein,user`

   **📌 NOTE**\
   Each user must be recognised by the backend trading system that serves your development machine or they will not be able to log in to FX Corporate.
4. Save the `user.properties` file
5. Restart Apache Tomcat

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**See also**:

* [Caplin KeyMaster](../caplin-platform/keymaster/index.md)
