eDirectory is an X.500-compatible

directory service In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network ...

software product from

NetIQ NetIQ is a security software company. In 2023 it was acquired by OpenText. NetIQ was previously based in San Jose, California, with products that provide identity and access management, security and data center management. Its flagship offerin ...

. Previously owned by

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was initially released by Novell in 1993 for Netware 4, replacing the Netware bindery mechanism used in previous versions, for centrally managing access to resources on multiple servers and

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

s within a given

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

. eDirectory is a hierarchical, object oriented database used to represent certain assets in an organization in a logical tree, including organizations, organizational units, people, positions, servers, volumes, workstations, applications, printers, services, and groups to name just a few.

Features

eDirectory uses dynamic rights inheritance, which allows both global and specific access controls. Access rights to objects in the tree are determined at the time of the request and are determined by the rights assigned to the objects by virtue of their location in the tree, any security equivalences, and individual assignments. The software supports partitioning at any point in the tree, as well as replication of any partition to any number of servers. Replication between servers occurs periodically using deltas of the objects. Each server can act as a master of the information it holds (provided the replica is not read only). Additionally, replicas may be filtered to only include defined attributes to increase speed (for example, a replica may be configured to only include a name and phone number for use in a corporate address book, as opposed to the entire directory user profile). The software supports

referential integrity Referential integrity is a property of data stating that all its references are valid. In the context of relational databases, it requires that if a value of one attribute (column) of a relation (table) references a value of another attribute (e ...

multi-master replication Multi-master replication is a method of database replication which allows data to be stored by a group of computers, and updated by any member of the group. All members are responsive to client data queries. The multi-master replication system i ...

, and has a modular authentication architecture. It can be accessed via

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed Directory service, directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) networ ...

, DSML,

SOAP Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...

ODBC In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems. An ...

JDBC Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is an application programming interface (API) for the Java (programming language), Java programming language which defines how a client may access a database. It is a Java-based data access technology used for Java ...

, JNDI, and ADSI.

Supported platforms

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003, codenamed "Whistler Server", is the sixth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft and the first server version to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It is part of the Windows NT ...

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008, codenamed "Longhorn Server" (alternatives: "Windows Vista Server" or "Windows Server Vista"), is the seventh major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server b ...

Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2012, codenamed "Windows Server 8", is the ninth major version of the Windows NT operating system produced by Microsoft to be released under the Windows Server brand name. It is the server version of Windows based on Windows ...

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE) is a Linux-based operating system developed by SUSE. It is available in two editions, suffixed with Server (SLES) for servers and mainframes, and Desktop (SLED) for workstations and desktop computers. Its major ve ...

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial Linux distribution developed by Red Hat. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop version for x86-64. Fedora Linux and ...

Novell NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the Internetwork Packet Exchange, IPX network protocol. The f ...

Sun Solaris Oracle Solaris is a proprietary Unix operating system offered by Oracle for SPARC and x86-64 based workstations and servers. Originally developed by Sun Microsystems as Solaris, it superseded the company's earlier SunOS in 1993 and became kno ...

IBM AIX AIX (pronounced ) is a series of Proprietary software, proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM since 1986. The name stands for "Advanced Interactive eXecutive". Current versions are designed to work with Power ISA based ...

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is a proprietary software, proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise; current versions support HPE Integrity Servers, based on Intel's Itanium architect ...

Network configuration stored in the directory

When Novell first designed their directory, they decided to store large amounts of their operational server data within the directory in addition to just user account information. As a result, a typical Novell directory contains a large pool of additional objects representing the servers themselves and any software services running on those servers, such as LDAP or email software.

Storage

Versions of eDirectory prior to version 8 (then called Novell Directory Services) used a record-based database management engine called Recman, which relied on the Transaction Tracking System built into the

NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The final update release was ver ...

operating system. Since version 8, eDirectory (along with the

GroupWise GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from OpenText that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, which is ...

collaboration suite, starting with version 5) uses the FLAIM (FLexible Adaptable Information Management)

database engine A database engine (or storage engine) is the underlying software component that a database management system (DBMS) uses to create, read, update and delete (CRUD) data from a database. Most database management systems include their own application ...

. FLAIM is an open source embeddable database engine developed by Novell and released under the

GPL The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first c ...

license in 2006. This change allowed for it to be ported to other platforms such as Windows, Linux, and Unix.

References

External links

NetIQ eDirectory product page
{{Novell OpenText

eDirectory eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was ...

EDirectory eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was ...

Directory services Proprietary software