Chapter 11 -- User Context

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Chapter 11

In the previous chapter, we focused on the Microsoft Windows implementation of access control. Access control in Windows is user-based, allowing system administrators and security programmers to control who can access objects in the system to a very fine granularity. For this control to work, the system must maintain an identity for any code executing in the system. This identity is referred to as user context. Sometimes user context is referred to as security context or user security context.

In addition to the system's need to maintain a sense of identity, a secure service must also be able to maintain a sense of its clients' identities. Two goals for your service software are as follows:

1. Identify the client connecting to your service.
2. Ensure that the service executes code appropriate for the client connecting to your service, regardless of the requests the client makes.

This chapter describes the features you can use to develop your service so that Windows security meets these goals.