Node:Beginning to use Mingle, Next:Sending remote requests, Previous:Mingle Introduction, Up:Top
A Mingle cluster consists of one or more Mingle hosts. On each host, there is a Mingle server running as a daemon. A user may issue a request from any host to any of the servers by launching a Mingle client program. In many cases, a user may wish to issue request to all hosts in a Mingle cluster without specifying host identities. To enable this, you will need to configure a master server for each Mingle cluster (see Master server configuration).
A Mingle server can work in single user mode or multiple user mode. In single user mode, the server will not be used by other local users that have accounts on the same computer. While in multiple user mode, only one copy of server will be running on a host and the server is shared by all the local users (see User mode set up).
Before using Mingle, each user will need to sign on a Mingle ID that identifies the user to Mingle servers in a uniform way. Each Mingle ID is globally unique within a Mingle cluster. A Mingle ID is assigned to a user via a registration process called Mingle single sign-on (see Mingle single sign-on).
If you wish to index files on a host or specify access control decisions, a Mingle ID is usually not enough. The corresponding Mingle server has to know which local user you are to perform such operations. Therefore, you will need to present both your local identity and your Mingle ID to the corresponding servers by a process called "Mingle init", when your local user ID is associated with your Mingle ID (see Mingle init).
To protect data from being searched by unauthorized users, a Mingle server will authenticate each user request. The local request authentication is performed by the operating system when the user logs in to the host. The remote request authentication is based on conventional digital signature using the RSA algorithms. Each Mingle user is associated with a pair of RSA keys (a public RSA key and a private RSA key) that are generated by the Master server at single sign-on (see RSA key distribution).