OSI/MHS Orientation Guide

Building Your Message Handling System
OSI/MHS Orientation Guide—424829-001
1-34
What You Need to Do
A directory service is defined by CCITT Recommendation X.500. Specifically, X.500
defines the structure of the database, or X.500 directory, and it defines protocols used to
access that directory.
The Compaq X.500 directory service is NonStop Directory Services (NSDS). NSDS is
actually a family of products that implements features of 1988 X.500 Recommendations
and simplified access control, a key feature of 1993 X.500 Recommendations. NSDS
runs on a Compaq NonStop system and can operate independently or in conjunction
with OSI/MHS.
What You Need to Do
Figure 1-10 shows four ways NSDS provides access to the X.500 directory (shown as a
network cloud):
•
The NSDS Viewer graphical user interface provides interactive access. You can
find, examine, and modify individual directory entries. You also can copy entries
from one system to another.
•
The NSDS Scriptor command-file interface provides batch access. You can develop
applications that perform batch operations on the directory; for example, batch
loading of directory entries.
•
The XDS/XOM interface provides programmatic access. You can develop
applications that perform directory operations through standards-based C library
functions.
•
The Messaging-Based Directory Query (MDQ) sample program allows X.400 mail
systems to send messages to query the directory.
The major tasks and considerations for integrating the directory service with OSI/MHS
are the following:
•
You need to determine and implement a means of directory access. For example,
you might want to modify the MDQ program to meet specific needs for directory
query by X.400 users. Or, you might want to modify existing applications.
•
You need to load entries (for example, names and addresses) into the directory.
Note that address information maintained by OSI/MHS is not automatically
available to or through NSDS.
•
You need to define a linkage between NSDS and each directory with which it must
communicate.