Method and apparatus for a system wide logan in a distributed computing environment

摘要

A system wide sign-on capability in a distributed computing environment (DCE) is provided. Acquired distributed computing environment credentials are usable by any process/window on a desktop. DCE logon application programming interfaces create and recognize the presence of a credentials cache capable of being used by DCE processes in the system. System wide logon occurs whenever the logon API is invoked with the environment variable set. This API is called as a result of the system logon option having been selected. The API updates a global variable with the name of the credentials cache. A process variable is set to the global value by initialization logic for all subsequently invoked applications. As a result, any calls made by these application will acquire the credentials identified by the variable.