The system type is the name of the authentication system used to authenticate all user identities defined as members of the domain. Each authentication system supports a particular set of user accounts and allows one or both of the following authentication operations on a user identity:

  • User authentication by OpenEdge — If the authentication system supports user authentication by OpenEdge, OpenEdge automatically supports it for SSO.
  • Single sign-on (SSO) by OpenEdge — If the authentication system only supports SSO by OpenEdge, an ABL application must implement the user authentication, possibly with the help of an external user account system, such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), OpenID, or GoogleID.

For more information on OpenEdge authentication operations for ABL, SQL, and database command-line utilities, see How is OpenEdge Identity Managed?.

OpenEdge supports the authentication systems shown in the following table, which describes the supported user accounts and the support for OpenEdge user authentication and SSO.

Note: In some OpenEdge database administration tools, the Domain Type in an authentication system configuration window is the same as the System Type in a domain configuration window.
Table 1. OpenEdge authentication systems
Name(“Domain Type”) Description OpenEdge SSO supported? OpenEdge User authn supported?
_oeusertable Built-in system that authenticates against the _User table accounts, supported for all OpenEdge database clients Yes Yes
_oslocal Built-in system that authenticates against the operating system user accounts, supported for all OpenEdge database clients Yes Yes
_extsso Built-in system that relies on an ABL application to do user authentication, supported for ABL clients only Yes No
user-defined User-defined system with a name you specify, supported for ABL clients only. If you enable it only for OpenEdge SSO, it relies on an ABL application to do user authentication. If you enable it for OpenEdge user authentication, you must also configure an ABL authentication callback to validate user credentials against user accounts. Yes Yes/No