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CSIdentityAuthority

Framework:	/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/OSServices.framework
See Also:	Identity Services Programming Guide
Includes:	<CoreFoundation.i>

Overview

A CSIdentityAuthority object represents an identity authority. An identity authority is a logical repository of user and group information, such the users and groups database on a local system or on a directory server.

The local authority contains all users and groups defined on the local system. The managed authority contains all users and groups defined in directory servers to which the system is bound (LDAP, ActiveDirectory, etc.). The Default authority is a union of the local and managed authorities and is used to locate user/group info from both sources in one query.

Use one of the class factory methods to return an CSIdentityAuthority object, which can be used to search for an identity with an CSIdentityQuery object

Functions

CSGetDefaultIdentityAuthority: Returns the system's default identity authority
CSGetLocalIdentityAuthority: Returns the identity authority for identities defined on the local host
CSGetManagedIdentityAuthority: Returns the identity authority for identities defined in the system's managed directory server(s)
CSIdentityAuthorityCopyLocalizedName: Returns the localized name of an identity authority
CSIdentityAuthorityGetTypeID: Returns the CSIdentityAuthority type identifier

CSGetDefaultIdentityAuthority

Returns the system's default identity authority

extern CSIdentityAuthorityRef CSGetDefaultIdentityAuthority(
    void );

Return Value

The CSIdentityAuthorityRef of the default authority

Discussion

The default identity authority is a pseudo-authority representing the union of the local identity authority and the managed identity authority. The function CSIdentityGetAuthority will never return the default authority instance.

CSGetLocalIdentityAuthority

Returns the identity authority for identities defined on the local host

extern CSIdentityAuthorityRef CSGetLocalIdentityAuthority(
    void );

Return Value

The CSIdentityAuthorityRef of the local authority

CSGetManagedIdentityAuthority

Returns the identity authority for identities defined in the system's managed directory server(s)

extern CSIdentityAuthorityRef CSGetManagedIdentityAuthority(
    void );

Return Value

The CSIdentityAuthorityRef of the managed authority

Discussion

There is always a valid managed identity authority instance, but if the system is not bound to any managed directory servers, the managed identity authority will contain no identities.