Access DLL's among Different Packages (Roles)

A role is a symbolic name that defines a class of users for a set of components. Each role defines which users are allowed to invoke interfaces on a component. A role is the primary mechanism to enforce security. Role-based security is handled at the component level. It's possible that this may be at the method level in a future version of MTS. Security cannot be enforced on the Windows 95 version of MTS.

Roles are stored at the package level. Each component in a package can belong to one of more of the defined roles. For example, an Inventory package might contain a Visual FoxPro server whose responsibility is to handle inventory. There are two roles defined in this package: Managers and Clerks. These two roles are simply collections of Windows NT users/groups with a collective name that you provide. Your server is coded so that Clerks can access inventory data for normal order entries and reporting. Managers have additional power in that they can override inventory levels to make adjustments (for example, quarterly product shrinkage estimates).

You can set up security so that it is automatically handled (for instance, users not in roles are given "Access is denied" error message), or you can manage it programmatically through code. The Context object's IsCallerInRole method is ideal for this.