Q: What is Moira?
- What is Moira?
- What is the Moira database?
Context
- Account and group management at MIT
- Moira database
- moira.mit.edu
- Project Athena
- "Directory" information at MIT
Answer
Moira is a Kerberos authenticated centralized database management system that allows people to administer mailing lists, access control grops, user accounts, printers, file systems, and other things. This information is needed by many different MIT servers. Moira handles updating all of the servers by automatically generating configuration files each night and installing them on the various servers. These updates are often referred to as DCMs. DCM stands for Data Control Manager.
Moira was originally developed as part of Project Athena, and is documented in its original implementation and architecture as part of the Project Athena Technical Plan. You can find the original document as part of the Athena distribution, in ftp://athena-dist.mit.edu/pub/ATHENA/moira/old/tech_plan.PS.Z. A PDF copy of the section is attached to this page, and linked to below.
Related information
- Web interface to Moira list information: http://webmoira.mit.edu