OSF DCE Administration Guide--Core Components

Chapter 3. Writing Scripts and dcecp Objects
The DCE control program supplies a number of objects that offer administrative access
to each manageable component in a DCE cell. For instance, the principal object lets
administrators manage principal information in the DCE Security Service registry
database. Similarly, the rpcgroup object lets administrators manage group information
in CDS.
Some DCE operations affect multiple components as when several operations must be
performed to add a new user to a DCE cell. To meet this need, the DCE control program
provides task objects which let administrators operate on multiple components with a
single operation. For instance, the user task object performs several operations that
include creating principal information in the registry, adding the principal to an
organization and to relevant groups, creating a CDS directory for the user, and so on.
Task objects look and behave just like other dcecp objects, implementing the same help
system used by other dcecp objects. However, task objects are written using the dcecp
language instead of the C programming language. This makes it easy for administrators
to extend or customize existing scripts.
While the DCE control program provides task objects to handle some multicomponent
operations, variations in cell configurations and differences in the ways administrators
manage their cells make it impractical for the supplied DCE task objects to satisfy all the
needs of every DCE cell. For instance, some cells may use DFS or GDS components, or
a cell may implement a cell directory naming scheme that differs from the standard OSF
DCE implementation. Alternatively, some DCE implementations could have specialized
administrative components, such as services or repositories, that need distinct dcecp
objects for managing them.
To accommodate a cell’s specific needs, the DCE control program language lets
administrators create their own scripts. Administrators can also extend or modify
existing task objects or they can create new task objects to manage specialized
components in a DCE cell. This chapter provides information for extending, modifying,
or creating the following kinds of dcecp scripts:
• Informal administration scripts
• Formal task objects
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