Glossary

       TERM

Privileges that determine what a Subject can do with a Group. They are:

• ADMIN - can assign access privileges and manage all group information,
• UPDATE - can manage membership of the group (implies READ),
• READ - can see the membership of the group (implies VIEW), and
• VIEW - can see the group.
  In addition, a group may have options for its members to:
• OPTIN - can add self to the membership, and
• OPTOUT - can remove self from membership.
  

Subject is a UI "entity"

A single-valued string associated with a Group or a Naming Stem. By default, Grouper supports six attributes (one of two kinds of Field):

• id - a Grouper-assigned, globally unique identifier.
• extension- the relative name of the group or naming stem within its parent naming stem; the contribution of a single element, such as a group or a naming stem, to the cumulative name.
• name - used to facilitate searching for groups by name, it is a read-only string representation of the logical ordered pair of (parent stem, extension). This attribute is system-maintained. The string representation of the name attribute is: <parent stem>:<extension>.
  
• displayExtension - a displayed form of the extension.
• displayName- used to facilitate searching for groups by the displayed name, it is a read-only string representation of the logical ordered pair of (displayName of parent stem, displayExtension). This attribute is system-maintained. The string representation of the displayName attribute is: <displayName of parent stem>:<displayExtension>.
  
• description - a description of the group or naming stem.
  
  
• Note: The Attribute Framework allows additional use of attributes, to assign metadata to Grouper objects.

• id is the UI "UUID"
• extension is the UI "ID"
• name is the UI "ID path"
• displayExtension is the UI "name"
• displayName is the UI "path"

A Group whose Membership is determined by combining the membership lists of two other groups, without listing its members explicitly. These two groups are called its Factor Groups. Three methods of combining the factor groups' memberships are supported:

• union - all subjects must be a member of one OR the other factor group,
  e.g., Group Z = members of either Group X OR Group Y, or Z = X U Y.
• intersection - all subjects that are members of the first factor group AND the second factor group,
  e.g., Group Z = members of both Group X AND Group Y, or Z = X ∩ Y.
• relative complement - all members of the first factor group that are NOT members of the second factor group.
  e.g., Group Z = members of Group X AND NOT Group Y, or Z = X - Y.

A Subject that is listed in the Membership list of a Group has a direct membership in the group. Also see Indirect Membership.

Subject is a UI "entity"

A Group in combination (union, intersection, or relative complement) with that of another factor group, which defines the membership of a resulting Composite Group.

Either an Attribute or a List. Grouper groups are a collection of attributes and lists, i.e., a collection of fields. The set of fields attached to a given group is a function of the set of Group Types it has been assigned.

A list of Subjects having Membership in the group, together with other attributes about the group. A list can have zero or more entries. In Grouper, a list contains only subject references, and an attribute is a single-valued string. A group must be created in an existing Naming Stem. If a group is made a member, i.e., a Subgroup, of another group, the members of the group will also be made members. By default, a Grouper group has:

• six naming Attributes,
• a description attribute, and
• a members list.
  This information model can be extended to include additional site-defined attributes and lists.

naming stem is a UI "folder"

Any combination of groups for the purpose of creating another group based on the memberships of those groups. See Composite Group.

A Subject that is a member of a Subgroup of a Group, or a member of a Factor Group that contributes positively to a group's membership, has an indirect membership in the group. Also see Direct Membership.

A multi-valued list of Subject references, (one of two kinds of Field). The direct members of a group are the values of the group's members list. Lists are also used to identify which subjects have which Naming or Access Privileges. Sites can extend a group type to include custom lists; however, their semantics are external to Grouper. See Group.

Any Subject in the membership list of at least one group. Also, a Member of a Group is any Subject with a Direct or Indirect Membership in the Group.

The direct-only, indirect-only, or direct plus indirect members of a Group. A specific variety of membership is determined by context or configuration, i.e., the default User Interface allows the user to select among these three types of membership where appropriate.

These privileges determine what a Subject can do with a Naming Stem. They are:

• CREATE - can create a group(s) named with a naming stem, and
• STEM - can assign who has CREATE for the naming stem, and can create naming stems subordinate to this one.

Naming privileges are now referred to as Creation privileges and the two types are Create Group (replaces CREATE) and Create Folder (replaces STEM)

A string that forms the leading part of a Group's name. By linking the ability to create groups to a specified naming stem (via the CREATE privilege), the possibility that different groups can be given the same name is substantially reduced, and the name of each group can be made to reflect something about the authority under which it was created.
...see Examples below.

Stem is a UI "folder"

A synonym for a Naming Stem.

Stem is a UI "folder"

A Group that is a Direct Member of another group.

An abstraction of any object whose Memberships are to be managed by Grouper. Most Grouper deployments will manage subjects that represent people and groups, but computers, accounts, services, or any other type of object maintained in a back-end identity store may be presented as subjects to Grouper by use of the Subject API.

Subject is a UI "Entity"

There are two distinct uses for this term in Grouper.

• Group Type - each Group has one or more group types associated with it. The Grouper distribution contains support for a single group type called "base", but sites may register additional types, together with the attributes and lists associated with them, within their Grouper installation. Doing so enables management of groups with a richer information model or a more diverse set of information models.  Note, the addition of "Role" to Grouper adds a field on Groups called typeOfGroup which can be "group", "role" (group which can have permissions assigned), and "entity" (group object which cannot have members and is used for example as an application principal
• Subject Type - the Subject API v0.2.1 that Grouper 1.0 relies on uses the notion of a subject type, such as "person", "group", or "computer", etc.

naming stem

empty

extension

uofc

displayExtension

The University Of Chicago

name

uofc

displayName

The University Of Chicago

naming stem

uofc

extension

exec_council

displayExtension

Executive Council

name

uofc:exec_council

displayName

The University of Chicago:Executive Council

naming stem

uofc

extension

bsd

displayExtension

Biological Sciences Division

name

uofc:bsd

displayName

The University Of Chicago:Biological Sciences Division

naming stem

uofc:bsd

extension

eis_staff

displayExtension

Enterprise Information Systems staff

name

uofc:bsd:eis_staff

displayName

The University Of Chicago:Biological Sciences Division:Enterprise Information Systems staff