Netscape Certificate Management System 6.1, Administrator'S Manual

Page: 812 / 840

812 Netscape Certificate Management System Administrator’s Guide • February 2003
attribute value assertion (AVA) An assertion of the form attribute
=
value, where
attribute consists of a tag, such as
o
(organization) or
uid
(user ID), and value
consists of a value, such as “Netscape Communications Corp.” or a login name.
AVAs are used to form the distinguished name (DN) that identifies the subject of a
certificate (called the subject name of the certificate).
audit log A log that records various system events. This log can be signed,
providing proof that it was not tampered with, and can be read by an auditor user.
auditor A privileged user who can view the signed audit logs.
authentication Confident identification; that is, assurance that a party to some
computerized transaction is not an impostor. Authentication typically involves the
use of a password, certificate, PIN, or other information that can be used to validate
identity over a computer network. See also password-based authentication,
certificate-based authentication, client authentication, server authentication.
authentication module A set of rules (implemented as a Java class) for
authenticating an end entity, agent, administrator, or any other entity that needs to
interact with a CMS manager. In the case of typical end-user enrollment, after the
user has supplied the information requested by the enrollment form, the
enrollment servlet uses an authentication module associated with that form to
validate the information and authenticate the user’s identity. See servlet.
authorization Permission to access a resource controlled by a server.
Authorization typically takes place after the ACLs associated with a resource have
been evaluated by a server. See access control list (ACL).
automated enrollment A way of configuring a CMS manager that allows
automatic authentication for the purposes of end-entity enrollment, without
human intervention. With this form of authentication, a certificate request that
completes authentication module processing successfully is automatically
approved for policy processing and certificate issuance.
bind DN A user ID, in the form of a distinguished name (DN), used with a
password to authenticate to Netscape Directory Server.
CA certificate A certificate that identifies a certificate authority. See also
certificate authority (CA), subordinate CA, root CA.