If you use long names, ESF has to provide a mapping between long and short names. This is done by a "name mapper", or possibly by multiple name mappers. For simplicity, Micro Focus recommends using only one. A name mapper is a Security Manager that performs the name-mapping function. It can also provide other Security Manager functions such as Verify and Auth.
The MLDAP ESM Module now supports name-mapping, using a configurable LDAP attribute:
[LDAP] map attribute=<LDAP attribute name>
The LDAP attribute name can be, for example, "name" or "displayName" or a custom attribute, depending on the user's objectClass definition in the LDAP schema.
Upon request, Micro Focus can provide a sample name-mapping ESM that uses a COBOL indexed file to store the mapping, and the SDK components needed to create custom name mappers.
There is a default name mapper built into ESF which is used if no other name mapper is configured. The default mapper truncates long names to eight characters, converts spaces to underscores, and converts other disallowed characters to periods.
As part of Verify processing, the long name is mapped to a short name. The long name and short name can be identical, if the long name meets the criteria for a short name.
The mapping can map any name to something else, which might be useful in some cases. For example, you might want to sign into CICS with the username you use in Windows or Linux which is different from your user ID in CICS. The name mapper enables you to do this.