All CDS control program commands must include a verb, an entity name, and all required arguments. Depending on the command, you can also specify optional arguments and attributes. A space must separate more than one attribute or argument. A space must precede and follow an equal sign (=).
1 – Verbs
The following is a list of the definitions of verbs used in
control program commands:
add Adds a value to a modifiable, set-valued attribute
clear Removes knowledge of a cached clearinghouse or cached
server from memory
create Creates an entity
define Creates knowledge of a locally cached server
delete Deletes an entity
disable Stops operation of a clerk or server
dump Displays the contents of a clerk cache
list Displays a list of specified entity names
remove Removes a value from a set-valued or single-valued
attribute
set Changes the value of a modifiable, single-valued
attribute
show Displays attribute information
2 – Entity Names
Any individually manageable piece of CDS is called an entity. A
set of commands exists for each entity. The following is a list of
the entities and a description of what each entity represents:
Cached Clearinghouse
A cached clearinghouse is a clearinghouse that a clerk
has discovered and cached. A clerk can learn about
clearinghouses as a result of configuration information,
advertisements received on a LAN, or during the process
of finding a name.
Cached Server
A cached server is a server that a clerk has cached as
a result of manual configuration through the control
program.
Child A child pointer connects a parent and child directory in
a hierarchical namespace. The child pointer is stored in
the parent directory and has the same name as the child
directory.
Clearinghouse
A clearinghouse is a database containing a collection of
directory replicas at a particular server.
Clerk The clerk is the interface between client applications
and servers.
Directory
A directory contains child,object and link entries that
are logically stored under one name
(the directory name).
Link A soft link is a pointer providing an alternate name for
an object entry, directory, or other soft link.
Object An object entry represents a resource (for example, an
application) that is named in the namespace.
Replica A replica is a copy of a directory. Each copy, including
the original or master, is referred to as a replica.
Server A server handles lookup requests from clerks and
maintains the contents of the clearinghouse or
clearinghouses at its node.
3 – Attributes
Every CDS entity has attributes, which are pieces or sets of data associated with that entity. Attributes can reflect or affect the operational behavior of an entity, record the number of times a particular event or problem occurred since the entity was last enabled, and uniquely distinguish an entity from any other entity. Some attributes have a single value; others contain a set of values. CDS attributes are identified by ISO object identifiers (OIDs). Every CDS attribute name maps to an OID and a corresponding data type. Usually, client applications define the name of an attribute and its data type. Application programmers should never need to modify (except for the purpose of foreign language trans- lation) the existing CDS labels associated with the unique OIDs in the cds_attributes file. However, programmers can obtain new OIDs from the appropriate allocation authority, create new attributes for their own object entries, and then append them to the existing list. The OID and data type of each attribute are stored in the file DCE$COMMON:[ETC]CDS_ATTRIBUTES.DAT. Descriptions of the CDS data types that applications can use are in the cdsclerk.h file. All entities have show commands that you can use to display the names and values of specific attributes or all attributes. When you display an attribute that has more than one value, the show command lists each value for the attribute separately. When there are multiple values for an attribute, the command first lists the attribute name on a line ending with a colon, then the parts of the value. For more information about CDS attributes, see the DCE Directory Service module in the DCE Administration Guide.