Development Platform

You can use the Windows API to develop programs that manage UNIX user, group, and computer profiles; zones and zone properties; and NIS maps and NIS map entries. The methods and properties that make up the API enable you to access, create, modify, and remove information stored in Active Directory. Although you can use the Windows API to manage all of the UNIX information stored in Active Directory, including UNIX profile attributes and computer accounts, the API does not run on UNIX computers.

If you want to develop programs that run on UNIX computers to access data that’s stored in Active Directory, you can use the ADEdit program (adedit) or the command line programs included with the IBM Security Agent for *NIX to perform queries and updates. For example, you can use ADEdit commands in custom scripts to create zones and add, update, or remove users and groups. For detailed information about using ADEdit, see the ADEdit Command Reference and Scripting Guide.

You can also use OpenLDAP commands to manipulate data in Active Directory directly. The key to writing programs that use OpenLDAP or other commands is understanding how the data is stored in Active Directory and the command line options supported for each of the commands you want to use. For information about using command line programs, see the man page for the corresponding program.

Depending on the task you want to perform and the development platform you want to use, you can write scripts that manage IBM Security data using either the Windows API or UNIX command line programs. For example, you can perform most provisioning-related tasks using calls to the objects, methods, and properties in the Windows API, or using common LDAP commands on UNIX.