Reference › The Directory User Agent (DUA) › The DUA

The DUA

The directory user agent (DUA) is an executable that accesses DSAs as a client. The DUA is supplied in the samples folder and can run on any host that has directory services installed. It communicates user requests to a DSA, which can be be on any host in the network, and then passes the DSA responses back to the user.

Usually you use an LDAP client such as JXweb to access the directory. However the DUA is useful when you want a command line interface, for example to run batch operations such as tests on the directory.

The DUA commands fully implement every aspect of every X.500 service and form the basis for testing CA Directory. You can consult the test scripts released with CA Directory for various examples of any given service.

DUA commands issued at the console are asynchronous. That is, you can enter a command without waiting for the previous one to be complete. If you use DUA commands in a script then use the wait command to force the script to wait till the command is complete.

The DUA prompt is dua>.

See the X.500 standards documentation for full details of Directory User Agent services.