Application of the X.500 Directory by Office Systems. Support for Representation, Authentication, Authorization, and MHS

摘要

Recently, Directory Systems have become a new subject in the field of open communication systems. Applications of the Directory as stated in the X.500 Directory Standard include user-friendly naming, name-to-address mapping, and yellow page service. The purpose of the book is to describe more sophisticated applications for the X.500 Directory System in the office environment. After a brief introduction in the X.500 Directory model, the book considers how organizational structures, relationships, OSI services, and office applications can be represented by the Directory. The representation of responsibilities and rights of employees and of roles of an organization is a basic requirement for authentication and authorization support of office services. Therefore, various access control models and their appropriate Directory representation is considered. It is shown how services make use of the Directory for authentication and authorization in third-party-requests, among others. In addition the concept of a security facility and possible implementation methods are proposed. Message Handling Systems (MHS) are one of the first applications that will use the Directory. The book describes how the administration of an MHS and its components, can be supported by the Directory. (Copyright (c) 1990 GMD.)