Terminology
- Cluster Plugin: A COmanage Plugin that implements the interfaces to a specific cluster type (such as Unix accounts).
- Cluster: An instantiation of a given Cluster Plugin.
- Cluster Account: A Plugin-managed set of attributes that represent a specific account attached to a CO Person. A Cluster Account is associated with a specific Cluster.
How Clusters Work
Because Clusters are collaboration managed, they are attached to the CO Person. In general, the Cluster information managed in Registry is descriptive, Registry itself is not the Cluster. Rather, the Cluster information is passed to the provisioning infrastructure, so that Provisioning Plugins may use the Cluster information to populate downstream services.
A CO Person can have more than one Cluster Account associated with a given Cluster. Cluster Accounts can be created manually (CO Person > Clusters), via the REST API, or via Enrollment Flows.
Generating Cluster Accounts
In general, there are several supported mechanisms for creating Cluster Accounts. However, specific plugins may impose constraints or not support a given mechanism.
- Manual: Account creation is exactly as it sounds: no rules are applied (except, where relevant, availability checks), and the administrator may create the Account using whatever parameters are desired.
- Automatic: Account creation involves the application of a Cluster-specific configuration to the generation of Accounts. For example, the username for the Account might be tied to a specific Identifier type on the CO Person record. Rules are plugin specific. Once an Account is created, all further changes must be performed manually (unless otherwise supported by the plugin). Any additional Accounts on the same Cluster for the same CO Person must also be created manually.
Manually
From the canvas page for the CO Person to create the Account for, select Clusters from the right hand menu. Then, click Manage for the appropriate Cluster, and finally (+) Add X Cluster Account.
Automatically, On-Demand
From the canvas page for the CO Person to create the Account for, select Clusters from the right hand menu, then click (+) Autogenerate Cluster Accounts. Note this will autogenerate Accounts on all available Clusters for the CO Person.
Automatically, During Enrollment
Edit the configuration for the desired Enrollment Flow. See Establishing Cluster Accounts for more information.
Extending With Plugins
The type and nature of clusters used with the Registry can be extended through Plugins.
Authenticator Plugin Library
There are several plugins that are already available for your use:
-
Unix Cluster Plugin — The Unix Cluster plugin manages Unix Accounts for CO People.
Creating your own plugins
You can build your own authenticator plugin to extend Registry functionality. Please see the following documentation to get started:
- Writing Registry Plugins - general documentation for building plugins.
- Cluster Plugins - additional documentation for building cluster-type plugins.
See Also
Clusters data model
The following database tables are associated with clusters: