Grouper Glossary
Terms with Grouper-specific meaning are defined below, along with other Grouper concepts. An understanding of these terms will enable you to take full advantage of all that Grouper has to offer.
As of v1.3.0, terminology used in the Grouper UI differs from some of the terms defined below to help the UI to present group management tasks in a manner more readily understandable by non-technical users. The terminology used in developer and system administrator oriented documentation remains unchanged.
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TERM |
DEFINITION |
UI Translation (where applicable) |
---|---|---|
Access Privileges |
Privileges that determine what a Subject can do with a Group. They are:
|
Subject is a UI "entity" |
Attribute |
A single-valued string associated with a Group or a Naming Stem. By default, Grouper supports six attributes (one of two kinds of Field):
|
|
Composite Group |
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:
|
|
Direct Membership |
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" |
Factor Group |
A Group in combination (union, intersection, or relative complement) with that of another factor group, which defines the membership of a resulting Composite Group. |
|
Field |
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. |
|
Group |
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:
|
naming stem is a UI "folder" |
Group Math |
Any combination of groups for the purpose of creating another group based on the memberships of those groups. See Composite Group. |
|
Indirect Membership |
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. |
|
List |
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. |
|
Member |
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. |
|
Membership |
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. |
|
Naming Privileges |
These privileges determine what a Subject can do with a Naming Stem. They are:
|
Naming privileges are now referred to as Creation privileges and the two types are Create Group (replaces CREATE) and Create Folder (replaces STEM) |
Naming 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. |
Stem is a UI "folder" |
Stem |
A synonym for a Naming Stem. |
Stem is a UI "folder" |
Subgroup |
A Group that is a Direct Member of another group. |
|
Subject |
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" |
Type |
There are two distinct uses for this term in Grouper.
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|
Examples
Step 1: Create a Root Naming Stem
In the example below, a root naming stem is first created. Note: creating a naming stem is required prior to the creation of any groups.
Naming Stem uofc
attribute |
value |
---|---|
naming stem |
empty |
extension |
uofc |
displayExtension |
The University Of Chicago |
name |
uofc |
displayName |
The University Of Chicago |
Step 2: Create a Group
Next, a group may be created using the "uofc" naming stem.
Group uofc:exec_council
attribute |
value |
---|---|
naming stem |
uofc |
extension |
exec_council |
displayExtension |
Executive Council |
name |
uofc:exec_council |
displayName |
The University of Chicago:Executive Council |
Step 3: Create a Subordinate Naming Stem and Group
Name and displayName values propagate down through subordinate naming stems, e.g the Biological Sciences Division within U of C:
Naming Stem uofc:bsd
attribute |
value |
---|---|
naming stem |
uofc |
extension |
bsd |
displayExtension |
Biological Sciences Division |
name |
uofc:bsd |
displayName |
The University Of Chicago:Biological Sciences Division |
Again, a group is created, e.g., the Enterprise Information Systems staff, with the above naming stem, and is displayed as follows:
Group uofc:bsd:eis_staff
attribute |
value |
---|---|
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 |