internalvsmechname(3)

💖 NAME 💖

okay so bestie, this is internalvsmechname(3) from the HeimdalGSS-APIlibrary, and it is literally all about internal names and mechanism names. no cap. ✨

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🌸 Name forms 🌸

so in GSS-API there are two forms of name: the Internal form and the Contiguous string ('flat') form. You can use gss_export_name() and gss_import_name() to convert between the two forms. slay. 💅

• The contiguous string form is described by an oid specifying the type and an octet string. A special form of the contiguous string form is the exported name object. The exported name is defined for each mechanism and is something that can be stored and compared later. The exported name is what should be used for ACLs comparisons. 👑
• The Internal form. periodt. 🫶

There's also a special form of the Internal Name (IN), and that's the Mechanism Name (MN). In the mechanism name, all the generic information is stripped off and it only contains the information for one mechanism. In GSS-API, some functions return an MN and some require an MN as input — each of these functions is marked up as such. 🌈

And yes, the page also says: describe the relationship between import_name, canonicalize_name, export_name and friends. iykyk. 🌀

kisses and bye, Version 1.5.2, dated 11 Jan 2012 🫶💅