Namespaces and Delegation
For background on the issues, see the information from U Washington here and here
These rules were adopted in a team meeting on December 20, 2011. Any changes from here on out will need to follow formal change control process.
Namespace rules:
- Valid names: any reasonably short string consisting of a sequence of characters chosen from the following classes:
- lower- and upper-case letters a-z, A-Z
- numerals 0-9,
- "-" (hyphen)
- "."
- Name component separator character: Underscore, "_"
- Recommended because it makes for more easily readable stem and group names and it is less likely than colon ":" to cause problems in scripts and modules.
- Root stems: one of uw_* or u_* per specific rules below
- Institutional (data-derived) groups: uw_ref_*
- Note: Institutional groups are never used directly for authorization purposes, but always by inclusion in an appropriate authorization-related group
- eduPersonAffiliations: uw_{faculty, staff, student, employee, member, alum, affiliate}
- Note: Recommend use of eduPersonEntitlement: common-lib-terms in preference to eduPersonAffiliation: library-walk-in
- GAMS affiliations: uw_affiliation_*
- Courses (strictly speaking, course offerings): uw_course_*
- Each *.wisc.edu subdomain has a reserved subdomain-tagged stem name: e.g. uw_doit_*, uw_math_*
- Departments, Institutes, Centers and Divisions not covered by or overlapping with reserved subdomain assignments: uw_*
- NetID-based / personal groups u_netid_*
- Miscellaneous or "stemless" groups: x_*
- Mandated exceptions: Any valid name value not equal to any other predefined or pre-existing name
- Group names are made globally unique by adding the following URN prefix: urn:mace:wisc.edu:group:
Other naming-related issues:
- GAMS Affiliation/Group distinction? If a group should be redefined as a GAMS Affiliation, create the Affiliation and make the pre-existing group a member of the Affiliation. Membership continues to be managed through the original group.
- Delegation who/how/what: A thorny set of process & policy issues