About this Guide


This Programmer's Guide provides information on how to customize the public interfaces in iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition.

This preface contains the following sections:

• Who Should Use This Book

• What You Are Expected to Know

• How This Book Is Organized

• The iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition Documentation Set

• Documentation Conventions Used in This Manual

• Related Information

Who Should Use This Book

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This document is intended for service developers or programmers who want to create customized services by using the public interfaces in the iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition(DSAME) 5.0 product. (The term "public interfaces" or "exposed interfaces" throughout this book refers to any APIs, SPIs, XML over HTTP, or HTML over HTTP interfaces that can be used to create custom services or applications.)

What You Are Expected to Know

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This book is intended for use by service developers or programmers who want to create custom services or applications to work with iPlanet™ Directory Server Access Management Edition. It's essential that you understand directory technologies and have some experience with Java and XML programming languages in order to customize the Single Sign-On APIs to create a custom SSO solution, the Pluggable Authentication Service Provider Interfaces (SPIs) to create a custom pluggable authentication service, or to import custom service XMLs or batch update XML files into DSAME.

You will get the most out of this guide if you are familiar with directory servers and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). Particularly, you should be familiar with iPlanet Directory Server and the documentation provided with that product.

Refer to the Directory Server Access Management Edition Installation and Configuration Guide for conceptual information on DSAME and how it can be used in your network, and for information on installing and configuring DSAME in your networked environment. Also refer to the Directory Server Access Management Edition Administration Guide for information on how to manage and customize services in your network.

How This Book Is Organized

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This book contains the following chapters and appendices:

Overview of the Programmatic Interfaces in DSAME provides an introduction to some of the tools available.

Pluggable Authentication SPI describes requirements for writing a supplemental authentication module, and provides information about customizing the authentication pages.

HTML Templates provides information for a service developer or programmer to change the authentication (login, logout, and timeout) pages for different organizations.

Single Sign-On provides information on how to customize the public Single Sign-On APIs to create a custom Single Sign-On solution.

Understanding XMLs and DTDs provides information on DSAME service XMLs, and attributes and elements supported by the Services Management Services DTD (sms.dtd); and information on the batch update XML files and the attributes and elements supported by the batch update XML DTD (amAdmin.dtd).

Using the Command Line Interface describes the command-line interface (amadmin), how to write and import custom service XML files (such as a custom pluggable authentication service or module) into DSAME, and how to write and import batch XML files to update various user objects (such as organizations, users, roles, people containers, groups, etc.) in the Directory Information Tree (DIT).

The iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition Documentation Set

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The DSAME documentation set contains the following titles:

• Installation and Configuration Guide describes DSAME and provides details on how to plan and install DSAME on Solaris systems.

• Administration Guide documents how to manage user and service data in an iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition system once it has been installed.

• Programmer's Guide documents how to customize DSAME interfaces.

• The Release Notes file gathers an assortment of information, including a description of what is new in this release, last minute installation notes, known problems and limitations, and how to report problems.

• Online help for users and online help for system administrators
  • http://yourserver:port/docs/en_US/javadocs

  In the installed version of the product, the Javadocs can be found in:

  • DSAME_root/web-apps/services/docs/en_US/javadocs

  It is recommended that you also refer to the iPlanet Directory Server 5.1 documentation for information on iPlanet Directory Server:

  • http://yourserver:port/docs/en_US/javadocs

    
    

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    Note	Be sure to check the Directory Server Access Management Edition documentation web site for updates to the release notes and for revisions to the guides. http://docs.iplanet.com

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Documentation Conventions Used in This Manual

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In the iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition documentation (such as this guide) there are certain typographic and terminology conventions used to simplify discussion and to help you better understand the material. These conventions are described below.

Typographic Conventions

This book uses the following typographic conventions:

• Italic type is used within text for book titles, new terminology, emphasis, and words used in the literal sense.

• Monospace font is used for sample code and code listings, API and language elements (such as function names and class names), filenames, pathnames, directory names, HTML tags, and any text that must be typed on the screen.

• Italic serif font is used within code and code fragments to indicate variable placeholders. For example, the following command uses filename as a variable placeholder for an argument to the gunzip command:

    gunzip -d filename.tar.gz

Terminology

Below is a list of the general terms that are used in the iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition documentation set:

• DSAME refers to iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition and any installed instances of the iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition software.

• Policy and Management services refers to the collective set of iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition components and software that are installed and running on a dedicated Web Server. The dedicated Web Server is installed for you automatically when you install the Police and Management Services.

• Web Server that runs DSAME refers to the dedicated Web Server where the Policy and Management services are installed.

• Directory Server refers to an installed instance of iPlanet Directory Server or Netscape™ Directory Server.

• DSAME_root is a variable placeholder for the home directory where you have installed iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition.

• Directory_Server_root is a variable placeholder for the home directory where you have installed iPlanet Directory Server.

• Web_Server_root is a variable placeholder for the home directory where you have installed iPlanet Web Server.

Related Information

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In addition to the documentation provided with iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition, you should be familiar with several other sets of documentation. Of particular interest are the iPlanet Directory Server, iPlanet Web Server, iPlanet Proxy Server, and iPlanet Certificate Management System documentation sets.

This sections lists additional sources of information that can be used with iPlanet Directory Server Access Management Edition.

iPlanet Directory Server Documentation
You can find the iPlanet Directory Server documentation at the following site:

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/directory.html

iPlanet Web Server Documentation
You can find the iPlanet Web Server documentation at the following site:

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/enterprise.html

iPlanet Certificate Management System Documentation
You can find the iPlanet Certificate Management System documentation at the following site:

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/cms.html

iPlanet Proxy Server Documentation
You can find the iPlanet Proxy Server documentation at the following site:

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/proxy.html

Directory Server Developer Information
In addition to the Directory Server documentation, you can find information on Directory Server Access Management Edition, LDAP, the iPlanet Directory Server, and associated technologies at the following iPlanet developer sites:

http://developer.iplanet.com/tech/directory/

http://www.iplanet.com/downloads/developer/

Other iPlanet Product Documentation
Documentation for all iPlanet and Netscape servers and technologies can be found at the following web site:

http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/

iPlanet Technical Support
You can contact iPlanet Technical Support through the following location:

http://www.iplanet.com/support/