Netscape Certificate Management System 6.0, Manual

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PortalEnroll Plug-in Module
42 Netscape Certificate Management System Plug-Ins Guide • March 2002
PortalEnroll Plug-in Module
The
PortalEnroll
module implements portal enrollment. This module enables
you to issue certificates and create directory entries for users who do not yet have
an entry in the directory. For example, if your company runs a portal service, such
as Netscape Netcenter
TM
, you can use the
PortalEnroll
module to issue
certificates to new users when they register for the online service. You can also use
the module to authenticate and issue certificates to your extranet users. For
example, if you have deployed extranets for partners and vendors, you can use the
module to authenticate and issue certificates to these users when they register for
the service.
The
PortalEnroll
module does following:
• Performs dual operations, registration and authentication, eliminating the
need for users to use separate forms to register for an online service and to
request a certificate; the module enables deployment of certificates along with
registration in an LDAP-compliant directory.
• Verifies the uniqueness of the new user’s chosen user name against an
LDAP-compliant user directory and uses the user name as the only
authentication token required to obtain a certificate.
• Uses the information from the enrollment form to create new user entries and
update directory entry attributes for unique usernames.
• Leverages an existing LDAP-compliant user directory, typically used for
storing user information.
There are many advantages in issuing certificates to your user community:
• Certificates enable you to uniquely identify users and establish a relationship
with users in that you can use their identities to track services and features
utilized by these users and use this information to offer customized services to
them—certificates become equivalent to the way online services utilize cookies
for personalization.
• Certificates also enable you to make your online service subscription
based—because a certificate’s life is tied to its validity period, by issuing
certificates with specific validity period you can enforce users to subscribe to
your online service by renewing their certificate before its expiry.
• Certificates also enable you to remove people from your user base and add
them back after giving them a credential—by making a certificate issued to a
new user expire after a specific validity period you can restrict that user from
using your service, and put the user back on service by forcing the user to
renew the expired certificate after giving them a credential. For example,