Programming Guides › Connector Programming Guide › The Object Model › Metadata Definition › Create New Metadata

Create New Metadata

To create new connector metadata

1. Add the following setting to the objectclass for the connector to distinguish it from all the other objectclasses listed in your metadata file:

   <metadata name="connectorMapTo">
       <value>
           <strValue>connector</strValue>
       </value>
   </metadata>
   

   Note: Similar expressions are written in short-hand as connectorMapTo=connector for the remainder of this section.

2. Verify that the connector's naming attribute has both a connectorMapTo='mapping (usually =name') and has isNaming=true'
3. Add connectorMapTo= values for all the connector's properties which are connection-related or are otherwise singled out for special handling that derived connectors want to use.

   <metadata name="isConnection"> 
       <value><boolValue>true</boolValue></value> 
   </metadata> 
   

   This is because the CA IAM CS framework informs your connector that it wants to deactivate and reactivate again after they are changed.

4. Look carefully at connectorMapTo values chosen for connection-related attributes, and use the names defined as constants of form com.ca.jcs.ConnectorConfig.CONN_*_ATTR and in ConnectorConfig's derived classes.

   The possibilities for reuse in the code that establishes connections are greatly increased, for all classes in an inheritance tree. As a result, the endpoint connector names can be independent of LDAP attribute names that tend to have different prefixes for each connector. For example, JNDI and a derived connector refer to the LDAP URL using the same connector name instead of two different LDAP attributes eTDYN* and eT???* which both map to it.

5. For all other objectclasses, do the following:
   1. Select a connectorMapTo= value.
   2. Verify that its naming attribute has a connectorMapTo= value and has isNaming=true.
   3. Verify all properties which the connector implementation supports (presumably all) have connectorMapTo = values.
   4. Repeat from step a for all other objectclasses.
6. Check that the connector is functioning at a basic level.
7. Add and test association-related metadata properties like refObjectType= which describe relationships between objectclasses.
8. Review all objectclasses and their properties to ensure that all other relevant metadata properties documented in com.ca.commons.datamodel.MetaDataDefs are correctly applied.