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April 2001

DeveloperNet University Course

Files Used in the Labs

Module Objective: After studying the concepts in this section, you should be able to describe the files used in this course's labs.

Note: If you haven't done so already, download the course folder to your development machine at this time.

Figure 1: Files Used by PBXSimulator's DirXML Driver

Figure 1 shows the files used in the lab drivers. This section explains how these files are used to build and run PBXSimulator. Each section in the figure has a number. These numbers correspond to a numbered explanation below the picture.

Numbered Explanations

1. At initialization, each lab driver's Driver shim launches PBXSimulator, then reads two files from the lab's "pbx" folder to obtain PBXSimulator data.

The first file, "loc.txt," contains information about the sites and departments (or locales) to which users have been assigned.

The second file, "pbxDB.txt," contains the information that PBXSimulator knows about its users.

The PBXSimulator's DirXML driver's design requires that its locale (site and department) information be synchronized with the NDS tree. This synchronization has been automated and will be explained later.

2. Opening a DOS window in the "sources" folder and then executing "build.bat" causes all of the java source files in the "sources" folder to be compiled into the lab driver ("Lab1Driver.jar" file).

Later in Lab 1, you will be given instructions to build "Lab1Driver.jar" and then copy it into "c:\Novell\NDS\Lib" so that the DirXML engine can locate the newly built lab driver. Before attempting to run the driver, you will be asked to shut down and restart eDirectory.

After modifying any JAR file, you must shut down and restart eDirectory because Java loads and examines all JAR files in "c:\Novell\NDS\Lib." at start up.

Because the lab driver JAR's class files implement the DirXML driver shim interfaces, the engine recognizes them as a driver.

3. The JAR files shown in group 3 contain the class libraries provided by DirXML that you need to build and run a DirXML driver. In the labs, copies of these JAR files are located in the same folder as the driver's java sources so that the compiler can find them easily during the build. Copies of the same JARs are located in the "c:\Novell\NDS\Lib" folder, where the DirXML engine loads and runs them along with all of the DirXML drivers.
   
   
4. The "pbx.jar" file contains all of the classes necessary to run the PBXSimulator application. This JAR needs to be located in the "sources" folder because the lab driver needs class information about PBXSimulator in order to build.

Later in Lab 1, you will be given instructions to copy the "pbx.jar" file into the "c:\Novell\NDS\Lib" folder so that its classes can be found and loaded when the lab driver launches PBXSimulator.

5. DirXML uses rules written in XML to provide virtually unlimited configuration functionality to drivers. A well designed DirXML driver's compiled code will be as thin as possible, allowing administrators to use rules to adapt the driver for growth and change.