Moira Technical Overview

On this page:

Moira serves as MIT's system of record for

• Users (Kerberos, AFS, LDAP, Active Directory, Hesiod, Warehouse)
• Lists / Groups (AFS, LDAP, Active Directory, Hesiod)
• Networks, Hosts & IP address assignments (DNS, AD, Hesiod)
• Printers (CUPS, SAP)
• File systems (AFS, Hesiod, a tiny bit of NFS)

Architecture: Protocol & APIs

• Primary API: C implementation of Kerberos-authenticated RPC protocol.
  libmoira: mr_connect(), mr_krb5_auth(), mr_query(), etc.
  libmrclient: helper library / convenience functions.
  Additional language bindings for Java (JNI), Perl, Python.

• SOAP API exists for web application use.
  X.509 certificate authenticated.
  Only exposes user & list related queries.
  Primarily used by Web Moira.

Systems Overview Diagram

Learn more

• Email Lists (Moira and Mailman)
• Powerpoint Presentation on Moira
• Web Moira