Technical Issue(s) - specific

Q: How do I manage my AltaVista Directory server?

A: AltaVista Directory provides a variety of applications to manage the data in the directory, allowing entries to be created, modified, and deleted. These are:

• AltaVista Directory Manager
  AltaVista Directory Manager allows for the creation, modification and deletion of any entry within the directory. Entry attributes are managed via property sheets. These property sheets provide a very simple user interface. This is the interface typically used by administrators to set up and maintain the directory.
  
  
• Any Web Browser
  The AltaVista Directory Web Server permits any Web browser to submit modifications to existing entries, protected by the entry password. This interface can be accessed by end-users, allowing them to maintain their own entries.
  
  
• AltaVista Directory Tcl Extensions
  The AltaVista Directory Tcl Extensions allow scripts to be written to import and export large numbers of entries in single operations. These scripts can be used to bulk load the directory from other data sources such as personnel lists. They can also be used to synchronize the directory with other directories or databases. This is the interface typically used by directory managers to perform bulk directory changes.

Q: What database standards does the AltaVista Directory server support?

A: AltaVista Directory provides a database based on the LDAP/X.500 1993 standard. This indexed database supports high-performance searching and sophisticated matching based on the Soundex algorithm. The database is held in main memory to ensure optimal response times. When the database becomes larger than the RAM on the server, it is paged to the server's hard disk.

Q: What other standards are supported by AltaVista Directory?

A: AltaVista Directory is implemented according to the LDAP/X.500 1993 standards. AltaVista Directory is designed to support the following Internet standards, where applicable :

• RFC 1960: A String Representation of LDAP Search Filters
• RFC 1823: The LDAP Application Program Interface
• RFC 1779: A String Representation of Distinguished Names
• RFC 1778: The String Representation of Standard Attribute Syntaxes
• RFC 1777: Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
• RFC 1274: The COSINE and Internet X.500 Schema

Q: What object classes are supported by the AltaVista Directory?

A: AltaVista Directory supports several object classes including :

• Organization
• Organizational Unit
• Location
• Person
• List

Q: What protocols are supported by AltaVista Directory?

A: AltaVista Directory supports the following protocols :

• Lightweight Directory Access Protocol - The Directory Service is based on the client-server model. Communications between server and client are supported by the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Protocol. LDAP is the standard directory protocol in use on the Internet, which enables clients from other LDAP directory implementations to access the AltaVista Directory.
  
  
• ph - ph is the name of the client-server protocol used by the CSO Nameserver, developed by the Computing and Communications Services Office at the University of Illinois. By implementing the ph protocol in the AltaVista Directory Gateway, existing ph clients can be used with the AltaVista Directory without requiring any additional software on the client systems.
  
  
• finger -- The finger specification provides a User Information Protocol. It is commonly in use today on the Internet, especially on various UNIX(r) platforms. Finger allows the interrogation of other systems in the network for information about their users. By supporting the finger protocol in AltaVista Directory, existing finger clients can be used to interrogate the directory and extract information from it without requiring any additional software on the client systems. Finger is defined in the Internet RFC 1288.
  
  
• Web protocols -- The AltaVista Directory Web Server supports the standard Hypertext Transfer Protocols (http). This allows any standard Web browser to access the directory.
  
  
• Other Network Layers -- AltaVista Directory Workgroup Edition is a set of Internet applications. All of the protocols supported run over the standard Windows sockets implementation available on Windows NT and Windows 95(tm).

Q: What are the memory and disk space requirements?

A: AltaVista Directory Server systems require a minimum of 32 Mbytes of system memory. Since the directory database is stored in memory, additional memory will be required to support large databases. Exact memory usage is dependent on the amount and characteristics of the data stored in the directory entries. A starting guideline is to assume a requirement of 1-2 Kbyte memory per entry, for each entry that includes a picture.

The AltaVista Directory Server requires 15 Mbytes of disk space for the various binary and program files, in addition to the space required for the on-disk copies of the directory database. The total additional disk space required for these directory database files and for sufficient system swap space equals 4 times the database memory size.

Q: What additional software is required on the server?

A: AltaVista Directory only requires the platform operating system (Windows NT or Windows 95) software to be installed.

A standard Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape(r) Navigator, is required to use the AltaVista Directory Web Server, and to read the product documentation.

Use of the AltaVista Directory Tcl Extensions requires the installation of the standard Tcl/Tk distribution, which is provided with AltaVista Directory. Tcl is freely available from Sun Microsystems Laboratories via the Tcl home page at: http://www.sunlabs.com/research/tcl/

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