1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

Active Directory: The Windows implementation of a general-purpose directory service, which uses LDAP as its primary access protocol. Active Directory stores information about a variety of objects in the network such as user accounts, computer accounts, groups, and all related credential information used by Kerberos [MS-KILE]. Active Directory is either deployed as Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) or Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS), which are both described in [MS-ADOD]: Active Directory Protocols Overview.

Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS): A directory service (DS) implemented by a domain controller (DC). The DS provides a data store for objects that is distributed across multiple DCs. The DCs interoperate as peers to ensure that a local change to an object replicates correctly across DCs.  AD DS is a deployment of Active Directory [MS-ADTS].

Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS): A directory service (DS) implemented by a domain controller (DC). AD LDS is a deployment of Active Directory [MS-ADTS]. The most significant difference between AD LDS and Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) is that AD LDS does not host domain naming contexts (domain NCs). A server can host multiple AD LDS DCs. Each DC is an independent AD LDS instance, with its own independent state. AD LDS can be run as an operating system DS or as a directory service provided by a standalone application (Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM)).

attribute syntax: Specifies the format and range of permissible values of an attribute. The syntax of an attribute is defined by several attributes on the attributeSchema object, as specified in [MS-ADTS] section 3.1.1.2. Attribute syntaxes supported by Active Directory include Boolean, Enumeration, Integer, LargeInteger, String(UTC-Time), Object(DS-DN), and String(Unicode).

directory object: A Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) object, as specified in [RFC2251], that is a specialization of an object.

directory service (DS): A service that stores and organizes information about a computer network's users and network shares, and that allows network administrators to manage users' access to the shares. See also Active Directory.

directory tree: An LDAP directory service is organized into a hierarchical tree structure in which each directory object has exactly one parent directory object (except for one object that serves as the root of the tree) and zero or more child directory objects.

distinguished name (DN): A name that uniquely identifies an object by using the relative distinguished name (RDN) for the object, and the names of container objects and domains that contain the object. The distinguished name (DN) identifies the object and its location in a tree.

endpoint: In the context of a web service, a network target to which a SOAP message can be addressed. See [WSADDR].

global catalog (GC): A unified partial view of multiple naming contexts (NCs) in a distributed partitioned directory. The Active Directory directory service GC is implemented by GC servers. The definition of global catalog is specified in [MS-ADTS] section 3.1.1.1.8.

globally unique identifier (GUID): A term used interchangeably with universally unique identifier (UUID) in Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the value. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] have to be used for generating the GUID. See also universally unique identifier (UUID).

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP): The primary access protocol for Active Directory. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is an industry-standard protocol, established by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which allows users to query and update information in a directory service (DS), as described in [MS-ADTS]. The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol can be either version 2 [RFC1777] or version 3 [RFC3377].

naming context (NC): An NC is a set of objects organized as a tree. It is referenced by a DSName. The DN of the DSName is the distinguishedName attribute of the tree root. The GUID of the DSName is the objectGUID attribute of the tree root. The security identifier (SID) of the DSName, if present, is the objectSid attribute of the tree root; for Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), the SID is present if and only if the NC is a domain naming context (domain NC). Active Directory supports organizing several NCs into a tree structure.

object reference property: In Active Directory Web Services, this is the property that uniquely identifies a directory object. It can be expressed as either a GUID or as a distinguished name.

object reference syntax: An attribute syntax that supports object references. The five object reference syntaxes are specified in [MS-ADTS] section 3.1.1.1.6, and the referential integrity constraints around attributes with these syntaxes are specified in [MS-ADTS] section 3.1.1.2.2.3.

relative distinguished name (RDN): In the Active Directory directory service, the unique name of a child element relative to its parent in Active Directory. The RDN of a child element combined with the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the parent forms the FQDN of the child.

SOAP: A lightweight protocol for exchanging structured information in a decentralized, distributed environment. SOAP uses XML technologies to define an extensible messaging framework, which provides a message construct that can be exchanged over a variety of underlying protocols. The framework has been designed to be independent of any particular programming model and other implementation-specific semantics. SOAP 1.2 supersedes SOAP 1.1. See [SOAP1.2-1/2003].

SOAP fault: A container for error and status information within a SOAP message. See [SOAP1.2-1/2007] section 5.4 for more information.

SOAP header: A mechanism for implementing extensions to a SOAP message in a decentralized manner without prior agreement between the communicating parties. See [SOAP1.2-1/2007] section 5.2 for more information.

SOAP message: An XML document consisting of a mandatory SOAP envelope, an optional SOAP header, and a mandatory SOAP body. See [SOAP1.2-1/2007] section 5 for more information.

synthetic attribute: In Active Directory Web Services, an attribute that is part of the XML view of a directory object but which is not part of the directory object as stored in the directory service.

Transport Layer Security (TLS): A security protocol that supports confidentiality and integrity of messages in client and server applications communicating over open networks. TLS supports server and, optionally, client authentication by using X.509 certificates (as specified in [X509]). TLS is standardized in the IETF TLS working group.

Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): A string that identifies a resource. The URI is an addressing mechanism defined in Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax [RFC3986].

universally unique identifier (UUID): A 128-bit value. UUIDs can be used for multiple purposes, from tagging objects with an extremely short lifetime, to reliably identifying very persistent objects in cross-process communication such as client and server interfaces, manager entry-point vectors, and RPC objects. UUIDs are highly likely to be unique. UUIDs are also known as globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) and these terms are used interchangeably in the Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the UUID. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] has to be used for generating the UUID.

MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.