About the External Security Facility (ESF)

The ESF operates for both Enterprise Server and Directory Server access.

The ESF relays application and resource access authorization request queries to the security manager or Managers. It is responsible for:

• Loading and invoking security managers
• Sending security queries to the security managers
• Managing a cache of the modules and security access query results
• maintaining configuration information for itself and the security managers

The ESF performs security checks by making API calls to the ESMs, and processing the result that is returned. You can use this API to develop your own security managers. You can then use these security managers to process authentication requests, and allow or deny access as appropriate. A security manager can be anything that can process ESF API calls.

The External Security Facility API documentation is available, in doxygen format, on the Micro Focus SupportLine website's Examples and Utilities page.

• Follow this link to the Examples and Utilities page:

  Micro Focus Customer Support Examples and Utilities page

• Follow this link to the External Security Facility API documentation, which contains information on how to configure your ESF to work with any ESMs that are deployed. The API also contains error message and return code explanations:

  External Security Facility Manager API

If no security manager recognizes a user, that is each security manager returns unknown, you can configure a default response.