OSF DCE Administration Guide--Core Components

OSF DCE Administration Guide—Core Components
(See the for more information on local file system abbreviations.)
11.5 An In-Depth Analysis of DCE Names
The rest of this chapter describes in depth the different kinds of names that make up the
DCE namespace. Appendix A and the contain further details about valid characters and
naming conventions in CDS, GDS, and DNS names.
11.5.1 CDSNames
Every cell contains at least one server that is running a CDS server. A CDS server stores
and maintains names and handles requests to create, modify, and look up data. The total
collection of names shared by CDS servers in a cell is called a cell namespace. The cell
namespace administrator can organize CDS names into a hierarchical structure of
directories. CDS directories, which are conceptually similar to the directories in your
operating system’s file system, are a logical way to group names for ease of management
and use.
In a cell namespace, any directory that has a directory beneath it is considered the parent
of the directory beneath it. Any directory that has a directory above it is considered a
child of the directory above it. The top level of the cell namespace is called the cell root.
You can refer to the cell root either by the global name of the cell or by the short-form /.:
prefix.
Figure 11-3 shows a simple cell namespace hierarchy, starting at the cell root. The cell
root (/.: ) is the parent of the directories named /.:/hosts and /.:/subsys. The /.:/subsys
directory is a child of the cell root directory and the parent of the /.:/subsys/dce
directory.
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