Documentum Perl 5 Extension Version 1.3
----------------------------------------
This is the Documentum client library extention to Perl5. I have used
Perl 5.005_03 build this extension, but I know it works on older versions;
at least back to 5.004. It will currently complain if you run it from
anything before 5.004.
* IMPORTANT NOTE *
This module has changed in one significant way from 1.01: dmAPIInit()
and dmAPIDeinit() are now called implicitly within the module. As such
your client programs do not need to call this. Especially careful
client code which may check the return status of these calls will
complain or fail, depending on what you're doing with the results.
This version has been built and tested with Documentum versions 3.1.5, 3.1.6,
and 4.0.2 (4i), but should work with older versions, as the API hasn't
changed much in a long time. The Makefile.PL will automatically write make
files for NT and Solaris. If you're using a different platform let me
know what settings you use and I'll include them in the future. Note:
regardless of your OS, the paths in the Makefile.PL file may need to be tweaked
depending upon your particular setup.
To build this extension, unpack the distribution, and edit Makefile.PL
to point at your documentum client libraries. Then do the typical
Perl module building stuff:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
The test.pl script will prompt you for the information it needs,
connect to your docbase, generate a new document
(from the dm_document class) and link it into the /Temp cabinet
(its called "Perl Test". You can destroy this document after the tests
have run, but this is an easy way to exercise all of the API functions.
If you're nervous about the test script doing evil things to your
production docbase, point it at a test docbase, or write your
own client code. :-)
This interface works much better than the sick, hacked version of
Perl 5.001 that Documentum provides with the server. This module
doesn't dump core when errors are encountered (like a non-existent
object attribute).
Documentum::Tools
-----------------
This is a set of helper functions that simplify a couple of common
tasks when writing a Documentum client application.
dm_Connect -
Encapsulates the process of connecting to a docbase.
Arguments: docbase, username, and password are required. Two
extra args are optional, and your dm_check_password program
(or equivalent) should be configured to do the right thing
with them. See the etc/dm_check_password.pl program included
with this distribution for an example that uses Kerberos v4
service tickets to authenticate to Documentum.
Returns: the session identifer on success. Nothing on failure.
dm_LastError -
Generic interface for evaluating the error log for the current
session.
Arguments: session identifier, error level, and number of entries
to report, all optional. Session id defaults to 'apisession'
for handling connect() failures. Error level defaults to 3, which
is a good choice in most situations, and number of entries
defaults to 'all'.
Returns: character string containing the error data, suitable for
printing to the user.
dm_CreateObject -
NOTE: The %ATTRS hash is no longer a HoL. This is a change from v1.2
Generic wrapper to create new instances of object types and optionally
populate attributes. Note: this function does NOT perform a 'save'.
Repeating attributes are declared as a scalar with delimiters between
repeating values. See below. The default delimiter is set at:
$Db::Documentum::Tools::Delimiter
Arguments: Documentum object type, required. Hash of attributes for object,
optional. For example:
$delim = $Db::Documentum::Tools::Delimiter;
%ATTRS = (object_name => 'test_doc2',
title => 'My Test Doc 2',
authors => 'Scott 1'.$delim.'Scott 2',
keywords => 'Scott'.$delim.'Test'.$delim.$DocVar.$delim.'2',
r_version_label => 'TEST');
$doc_id = dm_CreateObject ("dm_document",%ATTRS);
Returns: scalar containing the r_object_id of the new object.
dm_CreateType -
Generic wrapper to create new object type in the docbase.
Arguments: Object name and Documentum superclass name, required. Hash
of field definitions, optional. For example:
%field_defs = (cat_id => 'char(16)',
loc => 'char(64)',
editions => 'char(6) REPEATING');
$api_stat = dm_CreateType ("my_document","dm_document",%field_defs);
Returns: TRUE on success, FALSE on failure.
dm_KrbConnect -
Requires Krb4.pm from CPAN. You'll want to comment out the
'use Krb4'; statement in the header of the library if you
don't plan on using this.
Connects to Documentum and authenticates the user using a Kerberos
v4 service ticket. This is fairly tricky stuff. The library does a
bunch of Kerberos calls to obtain all of the necessary info to
build the service ticket. The ticket is then encoded, along with
a nonce value used to prevent replay attacks, and sent to the
server. A compatible dm_check_password program should be installed
on the server to decode and decrypt the session info.
You need to be fairly Kerberos-savvy to make this work. The code is
fairly-well commented, but it does assume you have a working
K4 KDC installed, and a service ticket entry in your server machine's
srvtab. I did my testing with the default rcmd.hostname@REALM ticket,
but now use documentum.hostname@REALM (which is how this code is
configured). You'll need to configure the service in both the
client library code as well as the dm_check_password.pl program if
you want to change it.
The big problem with this code is that there is no good way to
map Kerberos problems to Documentum connect() error codes, and
reporting reporting Kerberos messages back to the user is not
possible given the interface between the authentication program
and the user, which is simply the exit value of the program (0
on success, something else on failure). Thus this may be
difficult to support if there are Kerberos problems. The
client code does capture basic problems, like the user's TGT
having expired.
Arguments: docbase name (required)
Returns: The session identifier on success. Nothing on failure.
dm_LocateServer -
Locates the currently-active server for a particular docbase.
This is only really necessary since to obtain a Kerberos
service ticket, you must know the hostname of the machine you're
connecting to. The Docbroker hides this layer from the user
by default, and this routine exposes it. This only gets
called by dm_KrbConnect() in my implementation.
Arguments: docbase name (required).
Returns: Hostname for docbase on success. Nothing on failure.
etc/dm_check_password.pl
------------------------
This Perl version of dm_check_password knows how to authenticate
users in the following ways:
1. Local passwords in /etc/passwd (/etc/shadow, whatever).
2. Against a Kerberos KDC using the user's kerberos password.
3. Against a Kerberos KDC using the user's kerberos service ticket.
It should be installed setuid root with appropriate permissions. See
the existing dm_check_password for the right settings.
Method #2 should be deprecated, given the fact that there doesn't
appear to be any session encryption between the documentum client
and server during the authentication phase. Exposing your
kerberos password to the network is potentially hazardous to the
health of your network, and certain to make your network administrator
unhappy (or it should).
Checking works like this:
- If the user supplies the additional optional arguments to connect,
the first one is ignored, and the second one is assumed to be
the encrypted nonce for this session, as long as it is at least
8 characters long. We ignore the first one since the server
doesn't appear to pass it properly.
- If a nonce is found, method 3 is tried (Kerberos service ticket).
- If a nonce is not found, the user is authenticated against the
local passwd file. If the user has a local entry, but the password
does not match, the session is denied.
- If the user does not have a local passwd entry, then they are
authenticated against the Kerberos KDC (a la krb_get_pw_in_tkt).
If the password doesn't match here, the session is denied.
- If for some reason we don't exit before this point, the session
is denied (just in case).
Error passing back to the user is pretty primitive. Also I don't
pay attention to any of the password-aging stuff.
If you encounter problems with the module that appear to be confined
to the module (or can't tell), please let me know. If you find this
module useful, let us know as well.
Brian W. Spolarich
UUNET Technologies
<briansp@UU.NET>
Scott Roth
Science Applications International Corp.
<Scott_Roth@saic-nmsd.com>