Chapter 1 Sun^TM Desktop Manager 1.0 Overview

This chapter provides an overview of the Sun^TM Desktop Manager 1.0 and an introduction to the concepts needed to create templates for the Desktop Manager.

To introduce a new application to the Desktop Manager, you need to develop templates. You also need to register those templates with the Desktop Manager. Templates are files that contain information about where to store and how to display new configuration settings. The Desktop Manager uses these templates to obtain all necessary information about configuration profiles.

Overview

The Desktop Manager provides the necessary infrastructure for a centralized configuration of the Sun Desktop Manager. Currently, the Desktop Manager consists of the following client- and server-side components:

Figure 1–1 Client- and server-side components

Configuration Propagation

All policies are stored in a central configuration repository, such as an LDAP server. A profile is the term for a group of semantically coherent configuration settings. A Configuration Agent, running on each client machine, is responsible for retrieving the profile data from the LDAP server, and for caching the data locally. The Configuration Agent periodically checks for any changes on the LDAP server, and updates the cache accordingly. Furthermore, the Configuration Agent sends notifications to all interested applications. Desktop applications, such as StarOffice, Mozilla, Evolution or GNOME, read the policies by means of corresponding adapters. These adapters encapsulate the necessary communication with the cache and the Configuration Agent.

Configuration Management

The Desktop Manager is a web-based administration tool that allows you to view, define, and enforce configuration settings on different levels of an organization's hierarchy, such as an organization, group or user level with a web browser. The Desktop Manager is a part of the Java Web Console, which provides the necessary infrastructure for all of Sun's administration tools, such as a common web-based graphical user interface (GUI) and single sign-on authentication. The Desktop Manager uses templates to view, define, and enforce configuration settings in the configuration repository and to render the GUI for displaying these configuration settings.