Chapter 5.

Managing Entries with Roles, Class of Service, and Views

Entries contained within the directory can be grouped in different ways to simplify the management of user accounts. Red Hat Directory Server supports a variety of methods for grouping entries and sharing attributes between entries. To take full advantage of the features offered by roles and class of service, determine the directory topology when planning the directory deployment.

1. Using Roles

Roles are a new entry grouping mechanism that unify the static and dynamic groups described in the previous sections. Roles are designed to be more efficient and easier to use for applications. For example, an application can get the list of roles of which an entry is a member by querying the entry itself, rather than selecting a group and browsing the members list of several groups.

This section contains the following topics:

Section 1.1, “About Roles”

Section 1.2, “Managing Roles Using the Console”

Section 1.3, “Managing Roles Using the Command-Line”

Section 1.4, “Using Roles Securely”

1.1. About Roles

Roles unify the static and dynamic group concept supported by previous versions of Directory Server.

Roles can be used to organize users in number of different ways:

To enumerate the members of a role.

Having an enumerated list of role members can be useful for resolving queries for role members quickly.

To determine whether a given entry possesses a particular role.

Knowing the roles possessed by an entry can help determine whether the entry possesses the target role.

To enumerate all the roles possessed by a given entry.

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HP UX Red Hat Direry Server Software manual Using Roles, About Roles