1.1 Glossary

This document uses the following terms:

Active Directory: The Windows implementation of a general-purpose directory service, which uses LDAP as its primary access protocol. Active Directory stores information about a variety of objects in the network such as user accounts, computer accounts, groups, and all related credential information used by Kerberos [MS-KILE]. Active Directory is either deployed as Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) or Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS), which are both described in [MS-ADOD]: Active Directory Protocols Overview.

binding: The string representation of the protocol sequence, NetworkAddress, and optionally the endpoint. Also referred to as "string binding". For more information, see [C706] section "String Bindings".

client locator: A service that enables lookup of entries exported to the remote procedure call (RPC) name service.

domain: A set of users and computers sharing a common namespace and management infrastructure. At least one computer member of the set must act as a domain controller (DC) and host a member list that identifies all members of the domain, as well as optionally hosting the Active Directory service. The domain controller provides authentication of members, creating a unit of trust for its members. Each domain has an identifier that is shared among its members. For more information, see [MS-AUTHSOD] section 1.1.1.5 and [MS-ADTS].

domain controller (DC): The service, running on a server, that implements Active Directory, or the server hosting this service. The service hosts the data store for objects and interoperates with other DCs to ensure that a local change to an object replicates correctly across all DCs. When Active Directory is operating as Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS), the DC contains full NC replicas of the configuration naming context (config NC), schema naming context (schema NC), and one of the domain NCs in its forest. If the AD DS DC is a global catalog server (GC server), it contains partial NC replicas of the remaining domain NCs in its forest. For more information, see [MS-AUTHSOD] section 1.1.1.5.2 and [MS-ADTS]. When Active Directory is operating as Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS), several AD LDS DCs can run on one server. When Active Directory is operating as AD DS, only one AD DS DC can run on one server. However, several AD LDS DCs can coexist with one AD DS DC on one server. The AD LDS DC contains full NC replicas of the config NC and the schema NC in its forest. The domain controller is the server side of Authentication Protocol Domain Support [MS-APDS].

endpoint: A network-specific address of a remote procedure call (RPC) server process for remote procedure calls. The actual name and type of the endpoint depends on the RPC protocol sequence that is being used. For example, for RPC over TCP (RPC Protocol Sequence ncacn_ip_tcp), an endpoint might be TCP port 1025. For RPC over Server Message Block (RPC Protocol Sequence ncacn_np), an endpoint might be the name of a named pipe. For more information, see [C706].

fully qualified domain name (FQDN): In Active Directory, a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) that identifies a domain.

globally unique identifier (GUID): A term used interchangeably with universally unique identifier (UUID) in Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the value. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] must be used for generating the GUID. See also universally unique identifier (UUID).

Interface Definition Language (IDL): The International Standards Organization (ISO) standard language for specifying the interface for remote procedure calls. For more information, see [C706] section 4.

locator: In remote procedure call (RPC), a component of the remote procedure call name service that runs on a given machine and facilitates the name service operations of exports and lookups.

mailslot: A form of datagram communication using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, as specified in [MS-MAIL].

master locator: A server that enables querying for server entries exported on a different machine.

Microsoft Interface Definition Language (MIDL): The Microsoft implementation and extension of the OSF-DCE Interface Definition Language (IDL). MIDL can also mean the Interface Definition Language (IDL) compiler provided by Microsoft. For more information, see [MS-RPCE].

name service entry: A unit of advertisement that is exported to the RPC Name Service. These entries are of three types: a Server Entry, which contains bindings for a single server and optionally a set of Object UUIDs (for more information, see [C706] section 2.4.3); a Group Entry, which contains names of one or more server entries, other groups, or both (for more information, see [C706] section 2.4.3); and a Profile Entry, which contains a prioritized set of profile elements (for more information, see [C706] section 2.4.3).

object UUID: A UUID that is used to represent a resource available on the remote procedure call (RPC) servers. For more information, see [C706].

profile element: A record that corresponds to a single remote procedure call (RPC) interface and that refers to a server entry, group, or profile. For more information, see [C706] section 2.4.3.

relative distinguished name (RDN): In the Active Directory directory service, the unique name of a child element relative to its parent in Active Directory. The RDN of a child element combined with the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the parent forms the FQDN of the child.

remote procedure call (RPC): A communication protocol used primarily between client and server. The term has three definitions that are often used interchangeably: a runtime environment providing for communication facilities between computers (the RPC runtime); a set of request-and-response message exchanges between computers (the RPC exchange); and the single message from an RPC exchange (the RPC message).  For more information, see [C706].

remote procedure call (RPC) name service: A service that allows servers to export binding information, and clients to find it, in an efficient manner. For more information, see [C706] chapter 2, "Name Service Interface".

RPC protocol sequence: A character string that represents a valid combination of a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol, a network layer protocol, and a transport layer protocol, as described in [C706] and [MS-RPCE].

RPC transfer syntax: A method for encoding messages defined in an Interface Definition Language (IDL) file. Remote procedure call (RPC) can support different encoding methods or transfer syntaxes. For more information, see [C706].

server locator: Enables exporting of entries to the remote procedure call (RPC) name service.

Unicode: A character encoding standard developed by the Unicode Consortium that represents almost all of the written languages of the world. The Unicode standard [UNICODE5.0.0/2007] provides three forms (UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32) and seven schemes (UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-16 BE, UTF-16 LE, UTF-32, UTF-32 LE, and UTF-32 BE).

universally unique identifier (UUID): A 128-bit value. UUIDs can be used for multiple purposes, from tagging objects with an extremely short lifetime, to reliably identifying very persistent objects in cross-process communication such as client and server interfaces, manager entry-point vectors, and RPC objects. UUIDs are highly likely to be unique. UUIDs are also known as globally unique identifiers (GUIDs) and these terms are used interchangeably in the Microsoft protocol technical documents (TDs). Interchanging the usage of these terms does not imply or require a specific algorithm or mechanism to generate the UUID. Specifically, the use of this term does not imply or require that the algorithms described in [RFC4122] or [C706] must be used for generating the UUID.

well-known endpoint: A preassigned, network-specific, stable address for a particular client/server instance. For more information, see [C706].

MAY, SHOULD, MUST, SHOULD NOT, MUST NOT: These terms (in all caps) are used as defined in [RFC2119]. All statements of optional behavior use either MAY, SHOULD, or SHOULD NOT.