Directory services system and methods with mapping in database tables

A method of implementing directory services for a relational data base management system using a relational language comprising:

• establishing a database using a plurality of tables, each table having a plurality of rows and columns, said database comprising at least one each of a HIERARCHY table comprising a DIT, NAME, ALIAS and TREE table, an OBJECT table comprising a SEARCH and an ENTRY table, and an ATTRIBUTE table;
• defining a plurality of relational language commands, each corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of directory services, each service having a corresponding service executing procedure;
• selecting one of said plurality of directory services;
• applying a process of name resolution to the selected directory service,
• executing the procedure corresponding to the selected service, and
• building a response comprising an error or search result in response to said executing step.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, further comprising:

• converting a DN into an entry ID (EID) and storing said EID;
• and
• wherein said process of navigating for a particular entry comprises, given a DN for the entry, locate the entry in the HIERARCHY table which has an RDN equal to the first RDN in the DN;
• and
• store the EID and recursively locate the entry which has an RDN equal to the next RDN in the DN and a parent equal to the stored EID.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly a read service to extract information from an explicitly identified entry, further comprising:

• perform a tree walk using the DIT table, resolving aliases if necessary and obtain the base EID;
• using a path from the TREE table and raw RDN's from the NAME table, build a DN;
• if no attributes or values are specified, just return the DN;
• if attributes or values are specified as ALL types and values, return the RAW values from the ENTRY table for the matching EID;
• and
• if attributes or values of selected types and values are specified, obtain attribute IDs (AID's) from the ATTRIBUTE able and then return selected types and/or values for the matching EID.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly a compare service for comparing a value with values of a particular attribute type in a particular object entry, further comprising:

• perform a tree walk using the DIT table, resolving aliases if necessary, and obtain the EID of the base object;
• from the ATTRIBUTE table, obtain the AID of the attribute to be compared;
• from the ENTRY table, select the one or more rows matching the EID and AID;
• compare the value and return TRUE or FALSE as the compare result;
• and
• if an alias is dereferenced, return the DN of the selected object, using the path from the TREE Table and the RAW RDN's from the NAME table.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly a list service to obtain a list of immediate subordinates of an explicitly identified entry, further comprising:

• performing a tree walk using the DIT table, resolving aliases if necessary;
• obtaining the EID of the base object;
• and
• using the DIT and NAME tables, return an ALIAS flag and RAW RDN rows where PARENT equal to the EID of the base object.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly a base object search service, further comprising:

• perform a tree walk using the DIT table, resolving aliases if necessary, and obtain the EID of the base object;
• apply the filter to attributes and values in the SEARCH table with the EID of the selected object;
• if the filter condition is matched, return the entry Information from the ENTRY table;
• and
• if an alias is dereferenced, return the DN using the TREE table to extract the data defining a PATH and the NAME table to build the DN.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly a one level search service, further comprising:

• perform a tree walk using the DIT table, resolving aliases if necessary, and obtain the EID of the base object;
• check to see if any aliases exist with PARENT=EID and if so resolve them to obtain an aliases dereferenced list;
• using the SEARCH and DIT tables, apply the filter (attribute/value conditions) and the scope (PARENT=EID of selected object and any aliases dereferenced) so that a list of matching EID's will be returned;
• if an alias is dereferenced, return the DN using the TREE table to extract the information related to the PATH and the NAME table to build the DN;
• and
• for each matching EID, and return the entry information obtained from the SEARCH table using the ENTRY table.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly a whole subtree search service, further comprising:

• perform a tree walk using the DIT table, resolving aliases if necessary, and obtain the EID of the base object;
• check to see if any aliases exist with a PATH prefix matching the PATH of the selected object;
• for each alias discovered, check to see if the alias points outside the current subtree and, if it does repeat the previous step until all aliases have been resolved, whereby a set of unique base objects will have been found;
• using the SEARCH and TREE tables, apply a filter and a scope to each unique base object so that a list of matching EID's will be returned;
• if an alias is dereferenced during navigation and not during searching, return the DN using the TREE table to extract the PATH and the NAME table to build the DN;
• and
• for each matching EID, return the Entry Information obtained from the SEARCH Table using the ENTRY table.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly an add service to add a leaf entry, either an object entry or an alias entry, to the Directory Information Tree (DIT), further comprising:

• using the DIT table, tree walk to the parent of the entry to be added;
• using the DIT table, check if the entry exists;
• and
• if the entry does not exist, allocate a new EID and add the entry, insert into the DIT Table, the NAME Table, the TREE Table, the SEARCH Table, the ENTRY Table and, if it is an alias entry, the ALIAS Table.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly a modify entry service, further comprising:

• perform a tree walk using the DIT table, and obtain the EID of the selected object;
• for the selected object, perform one or more of the following actions:
• Add Value, Delete Value, Add Attribute, Delete Attribute, whose operations required for each action are as follows:
• Add Value:
• if the attribute exists, add the value to the ENTRY Table and the SEARCH Table;
• Delete Value:
• for the ENTRY Table and the SEARCH Table, if the attribute value exists, delete it;
• Add Attribute:
• if the attribute does not exist, add the Attribute Values to the ENTRY Table and the SEARCH Table;
• and
• Delete Attribute:
• for the ENTRY Table and the SEARCH Table, if the attribute exists, delete it.

A method of implementing directory services as claimed in claim 34, particularly a modify RDN service, further comprising:

• perform a tree walk using the DIT table, and obtain the EID and Parent EID of the base object;
• using the DIT table, check for equivalent entries and return error if one is found;
• using the NAME table, replace the old RDN with the new RDN;
• using the DIT Table, replace the old RDN with a normalised form of the new RDN;
• using the ENTRY table, insert the new value;
• using the SEARCH table, locate value=old RDN and set DISTING to 0 and insert the new value;
• if deleteOldRDN is set to TRUE the procedures following the Tree Walk are as follows:
• using the DIT table, check for a sibling with the same name and an EID not equal to the base EID;
• using the NAME Table, replace the old RDN with the new RDN;
• using the DIT Table, replace the old RDN with a normalised form of the new RDN;
• using the ENTRY Table, delete the old value(s) and insert the new value(s);
• and
• using the Perform SEARCH Table, delete the old value(s) and insert the new

A system for implementing directory services for a relational data base management system using a relational language comprising:

• means for establishing a database using a plurality of tables, each table having a plurality of rows and columns, said database comprising at least one each of a HIERARCHY Table, an OBJECT Table and an ATTRIBUTE Table;
• means for defining a plurality of relational language commands, each corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of directory services, each service having a corresponding service executing procedure;
• means for selecting one of said plurality of directory services;
• means for applying a process of name resolution to the selected directory service,
• means for executing the procedure corresponding to the selected service, and
• means for building a response comprising an error or search result in response to said executing means.

A system for implementing directory services for a relational data base management system using a relational language comprising:

• means for establishing a database using a plurality of tables, each table having a plurality of rows and columns, said database comprising at least one each of a HIERARCHY Table comprising a DIT Table, NAME Table, ALIAS Table and TREE Table, an OBJECT Table comprising a SEARCH Table and an ENTRY Table, and an ATTRIBUTE Table;
• means for defining a plurality of relational language commands, each corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of directory services, each service having a corresponding service executing procedure;
• means for selecting one of said plurality of directory services;
• means for applying a process of name resolution to the selected directory service,
• means for executing the procedure corresponding to the selected service, and
• means for building a response comprising an error or search result in response to said executing step.

A method of creating one or more SQL commands corresponding to a directory service, the method including the steps of:

• i. determining the directory service,
• ii. applying a process of name resolution to the service,
• iii. executing a procedure corresponding to the service, and
• iv. building an error or result in response to step iii.

A method of creating one or more SQL commands corresponding to a directory service, the method including the steps of:

• i. determining the directory service,
• ii. applying a process of name resolution to the service,
• iii. executing a procedure corresponding to the service, and
• iv. building an error or result in response to step iii,
• the method further comprising, applying at least one service control, wherein the step of executing comprises using a DIT Table for a one level search function.

A method of creating one or more SQL commands corresponding to a directory service, the method including the steps of:

• i. determining the directory service,
• ii. applying a process of name resolution to the service,
• iii. executing a procedure corresponding to the service, and
• v. building an error or result in response to step iii,
• the method further comprising, applying at least one service control, wherein the step of executing comprises using a SEARCH Table for a find function.

A method of creating one or more SQL commands corresponding to a directory service, the method including the steps of:

• i. determining the directory service,
• ii. applying a process of name resolution to the service,
• iii. executing a procedure corresponding to the service, and
• vi. building an error or result in response to step iii,
• the method further comprising, applying at least one service control, wherein the step of executing comprises using a NAME Table for returning a DN function.

A method of creating one or more SQL commands corresponding to a directory service, the method including the steps of:

• i. determining the directory service,
• ii. applying a process of name resolution to the service,
• iii. executing a procedure corresponding to the service, and
• vi. building an error or result in response to step iii,
• the method further comprising, applying at least one service control, wherein the step of executing comprises using an ENTRY Table for returning an object function.

A method of creating one or more SQL commands corresponding to a directory service, the method including the steps of:

• i. determining the directory service,
• ii. applying a process of name resolution to the service,
• iii. executing a procedure corresponding to the service, and
• viii. building an error or result in response to step iii,
• the method further comprising, applying at least one service control, wherein the step of executing comprises using a TREE Table for returning a DN function.

A method of creating one or more SQL commands corresponding to a directory service, the method including the steps of:

• i. determining the directory service,
• ii. applying a process of name resolution to the service,
• iii. executing a procedure corresponding to the service, and
• ix. building an error or result in response to step iii,
• the method further comprising, applying at least one service control, wherein the step of executing comprises using a TREE Table for a subtree search function.

A method of creating one or more SQL commands corresponding to a directory service, the method including the steps of:

• i. determining the directory service,
• ii. applying a process of name resolution to the service,
• iii. executing a procedure corresponding to the service, and
• x. building an error or result in response to step iii,
• the method further comprising, applying at least one service control, wherein the step of executing comprises using an ALIAS Table for an alias function.

A method of implementing X.500 services in a RDBMS which supports a relational language, using service modeling, comprising:

• modeling each of a plurality of X.500 services;
• defining the relationships among each of said plurality of X.500 services;
• defining a fixed set of queries/services using said modelled X.500 services and relationships;
• and
• processing arbitrary data using said fixed set of queries/services;
• wherein said service modeling uses relational queries to satisfy X.500 services compatibly with RDBMS.

An implementation of X.500 services in a RDBMS which supports a relational language, using service modeling, the implementation comprising:

• an ATTRIBUTE Table, where extensibility is addressed by allowing the definition of a new attribute type by adding a row to the table;
• an OBJECT Table, which defines the attributes within each object;
• and/or
• a HIERARCHY Table which defines the relationship between the objects.