The registry is a repository for principal, group, organization, and account data. It stores the network privilege attributes used by DCE and account data used by local operating systems. This local account data, however, is appropriate only for UNIX operating systems. The ERA facility provides a mechanism for extending the registry schema to include data (attributes) required by or useful to operating systems other than UNIX operating systems.
The ERA API provides the ability to define attribute types and to attach attribute instances to registry objects. registry objects are nodes in the registry database, to which access is controlled by an ACL manager type. The registry objects are
· principal
· group
· organization
· policy
· directory
· replist
· attr_schema
All registry objects and their accompanying ACL manager type are described in the OSF DCE Administration Guide - Core Components.
The ERA API also provides a trigger interface that application servers use to integrate their attribute services with ERA services.
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