In order to better manage the services running on each ARCserveIT server, one or more ARCserveIT servers can be configured to form a distinct group, called an ARCserveIT domain. The ARCserveIT domain concept provides both security and more efficient management of the entire ARCserveIT network.
In order to gain access to ARCserveIT resources, you must log in to the selected ARCserveIT domain by supplying:
ARCserveIT is designed with the arcroot super user profile that is automatically assigned root privileges for all ARCserveIT functions. The password for the arcroot profile can be set during the set up of the program or afterwards via ARCserveIT's Profile Manager. Additional ARCserveIT user profiles can be created (possessing their own set of rights), via the Profile Manager as well. See `Setting up User Profiles'.
| ARCserveIT User Names only control access to ARCserveIT related functions, and should not be confused with the operating system required log in name and password. |
Each ARCserveIT domain is identified by the primary Discovery Service. A single primary Discovery service is the common identifier for each machine selected to point to a particular domain. Therefore, all machines set to point to a particular primary Discovery service, should have the same domain name.
The domain name, as well as the related Discovery service information, is defined within the discovery.cfg configuration file. This file resides on each server within a specific ARCserveIT domain. See `The Discovery Service configuration file' for more information.
The Discovery service is a background process that collects and maintains information on the availability of the ARCserveIT servers on the network, and supplies this information to clients that request access to ARCserveIT resources. In addition, it also maintains ARCserveIT user information obtained from the ARCserveIT servers on the network.
When installing ARCserveIT on a selected machine, you are prompted as to whether or not that machine will be used as the primary (or secondary) Discovery service for its associated ARCserveIT domain. Having a secondary Discovery service is advantageous in that, in the event the primary Discovery service is down, the secondary Discovery service is employed providing fault tolerance for the ARCserveIT domain
Each server designated to run the Discovery service (either primary or secondary), maintains a database that stores ARCserveIT server availability information, in addition to user profile information.
The databases associated with the primary and secondary Discovery services are synchronized to ensure that if the primary service goes down, the server running as the secondary service has current information. This enables ARCserveIT users to have access and share all ARCserveIT resources on the system.
For more information on the authentication of ARCserveIT users, and on how ARCserveIT controls resources associated with ARCserveIT servers, see `ARCserveIT's Authentication service'.
