Overview - DCE Administration Task Objects
This part of the OSF DCE Administration Guide - Core Components discusses the purpose and use of DCE administration task objects provided with DCE. Generally, these special dcecp objects perform routine high-level administration tasks by combining several lower-level operations.
Often, a single task object uses or affects multiple DCE services. For example, one of the task objects, the host object, can configure a host computer into a DCE cell. This task adds specific kinds of information to the DCE Security Service, the Cell Directory Service, and the DCE host daemon services. Because a single invocation of the host object can perform multiple steps, it shields DCE administrators from some of the lower-level administration details that would otherwise have to be attended to by using several lower-level dcecp administration objects.
While we discuss the task objects at a high level, you'll need to keep in mind that there is often more going on that we're only hinting at. In these cases, we will point out where to go in this guide for more detailed information. Usually you will be directed to the corresponding lower-level discussion in the relevant component's part of this guide.