This chapter extends the discussion of security
design introduced in “OpenVMS Security Model”. It describes how the operating system
controls the way a user process or an application can access a protected
object.
To summarize, the operating system controls access
to any object that contains shareable information. These objects are
known as protected objects. Devices, volumes,
logical name tables, files, common event flag clusters, group and system
global sections, resource domains, queues, capabilities, and security
classes fall into this category. An accessing process carries credentials
in the form of rights identifiers, and all
protected objects list a set of access requirements specifying who
has a right to access the object in a given manner.