Chapter 9 -- Managing Trustees

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Chapter 9

The developers at Microsoft have done a truly excellent job in designing the security features of Microsoft Windows 2000. These security features are far more sophisticated and flexible than the environments to which most people are accustomed. In fact, with proper administration and software development, Windows 2000 is one of the most secure and advanced operating environments today. With this sophistication, however, come myriad details and intricacies that will daunt most developers new to security under Windows. Although the topic of security represents a challenge for the readers of this book and me, the rewards of rising to the challenge will be secure server software and a real sense of accomplishment.

Windows 2000 has a wealth of features that fall comfortably under the heading of "security," most of which will be covered in this part of the book. In this book, I am dividing the security-related features of Windows into one or more of the following topics:

  • Identity and user context Much of Windows security is user-based and relies heavily on its ability to identify and maintain a "context" for a user. This ability allows the system to decide whether or not software running on behalf of a user is allowed to perform certain activities.
  • Access control Access control refers to the securing of private data as well as system objects such as files and registry keys. The access-control features of Windows 2000 rely heavily on identity and user context. The extent of this reliance will become clearer as our discussion unfolds over the next couple of chapters.
  • Secure connectivity Communication security is an important facet of Windows 2000. It includes data encryption as well as authentication, both of which assure that you are communicating with a trusted entity.

Because security relies so heavily on establishing and managing user identity, we'll begin our discussion with the use of trustees in Windows 2000.



Programming Server-Side Applications for Microsoft Windows 2000
Programming Server-Side Applications for Microsoft Windows 2000 (Microsoft Programming)
ISBN: 0735607532
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2000
Pages: 126

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