DACS.SERVICES(8)

DACS Web Services Manual

DACS.SERVICES(8)

NAME¶

dacs.services - DACS web services

SYNOPSIS¶

dacswebservice [ dacsoptions[1]]

DESCRIPTION¶

These web services are part of the DACS suite.

The following is a list of DACS web services with a brief description of each. General aspects of DACS and its web services are discussed in dacs(1)[2]. Individual web services are discussed in more detail elsewhere. By default, these CGI programs are installed in the dacs subdirectory of the Apache cgi-bin directory.

By convention, DACS web service names use underscores as word separators. Some web services have command counterparts; their names omit the underscores.

•

dacs_admin
A low-level administration tool for  DACS.
[ dacs_admin(8)[3]]

•

dacs_auth_agent
Authenticate by delegating responsibility to a trusted identity.
[ dacs_auth_agent(8)[4]]

•

dacs_auth_transfer
Transfer credentials between federations.
[ dacs_auth_transfer(8)[5]]

•

dacs_authenticate
The  DACS authentication service.
[ dacs_authenticate(8)[6]]

•

dacs_conf
Process and display  DACS configuration files.
[ dacs_conf(8)[7]]

•

dacs_current_credentials
Display elements of each set of credentials sent with the request.
[ dacs_current_credentials(8)[8]]

•

dacs_group
A  DACS group administration tool.
[ dacs.groups(5)[9]]

•

dacs_list_jurisdictions
Display information about all jurisdictions in a federation.
[ dacs_list_jurisdictions(8)[10]]

•

dacs_notices
Notice presentation and acknowledgement handler.
[ dacs_notices(8)[11]]

•

dacs_passwd
Administration tool for passwords used by  local_passwd_authenticate.
[ dacs_passwd(8)[12]]

•

dacs_signout
Typically called from a browser, this web services causes one or more
cookies (each representing a  DACS identity) to be deleted.
Cookies are automatically deleted when a browser terminates, but it
is sometimes useful to explicitly logoff.
[ dacs_signout(8)[13]]

•

dacs_version
Display version information.
[ dacsversion(8)[14]]

•

dacs_vfs
Manage items in the  DACS virtual filestore.
[ dacs_vfs(8)[15]]

•

local_*_authenticate
Authentication modules used by  dacs_authenticate(8)[6].
Each one implements a particular authentication method and optionally
returns role information.

•

local_*_roles
Roles modules used by  dacs_authenticate(8)[6].

Standard CGI Arguments for DACS Web Services¶

The following set of CGI arguments are recognized by most DACS web services. When the document for a DACS web service says that it accepts "the standard CGI arguments", it is referring to the following arguments; not all of these arguments are necessarily meaningful to all web services, however.

In general, duplicate CGI argument names are not allowed; i.e., you cannot pass an argument named DACS_JURISDICTION more than once when calling a DACS web service, even if each occurrence of the argument has the same value.

DACS_JURISDICTION

This argument is required by most web services. It specifies the name of the jurisdiction to which the request is being sent. Web services will verify that the jurisdiction that receives the request is the same as the intended recipient.

DACS_VERSION

If this argument is present, it specifies the major DACS version number (e.g., 1.4) expected by the client. The service request will fail if the DACS software does not support this version number. If not provided, no compatibility checks are performed.

FILE

Reserved for future use for file uploading. Requests content type application/x-dacs-credentials.

FORMAT

This optional argument requests a particular output format. The default value varies, but it is usually HTML. Not all formats are supported by every web service; refer to the manual page for details. The following values are recognized:

HTML

Requests content type text/html;

JSON

Requests content type application/json ( JavaScript Object Notation, see www.json.org[16] and RFC 4627[17]);

PHP

Used by the dacs_list_jurisdictions(8)[10] web service when its output is to processed by PHP;

PLAIN

Requests content type text/plain;

TEXT

Like PLAIN except that no content type is specified;

XML

Requests content type text/xml. If the DTD_BASE_URL directive is configured, a DOCTYPE element with the keyword SYSTEM followed by a value derived from DTD_BASE_URL is emitted; e.g.,

<!DOCTYPE foo SYSTEM "http://fedroot.com/dacs/dtd-xsd/foo.dtd">

If DTD_BASE_URL is not configured, an internal DTD is emitted. A default xmlns attribute is emitted in both cases;

XMLDTD

Requests content type text/xml This emits an internal DTD and default xmlns attribute;

XMLSCHEMA

Requests content type text/xml. If the XSD_BASE_URL directive is configured, xmlns:xsi and xsi:schemaLocation attributes are emitted, the former having a compile-time value (e.g., "http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance") and the latter being a pair, the first having the same value as the value of the xmlns attribute and the second having a value derived from XSD_BASE_URL; e.g.,

<foo xmlns="http://fedroot.com/dacs/v1.4"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://fedroot.com/dacs/v1.4
    http://amd.dss.bc.ca/dacs/dtd-xsd/foo.xsd">

The default xmlns attribute is also emitted. If XSD_BASE_URL is not configured, only the default xmlns attribute is emitted; and

XMLSIMPLE

Requests content type text/xml Neither a DTD (no DOCTYPE) nor a default xmlns attribute is emitted.

Also see the -format[18] command line flag (one of the dacsoptions[1]).