authority - Description

The top level authority of a security identity identifies the agency that created the security identity.

System defined top level authorities may be found in the enumeration authorities.

Three constructors are defined as follows.

authority - pointer	Expects a pointer to an array of six bytes - which it copies.
authority - Initialize	Copies the individually specified authority bytes.
authority - copy	Copies the six authority bytes from one instance to another.

Individual authority bytes may be accessed via:

• authority::operator[] and
• authority::operator() for const access.

Apart from the top level authority, at least one relative identity is required. System defined relative identities may be found in the enumerations:

• relative_identity,
• relative_nt and
• relative_domain.

An authority is embedded in a security identity.

For further information about utilizing authorities and identities, see the description for the class identity.