The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 02, 2003
Filed:
Apr. 09, 1999
Benjamin H. Stoltz, Mountain View, CA (US);
James G. Hanko, Redwood City, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
Authentication and session management can be used with a system architecture that partitions functionality between a human interface device (HID) and a computational service provider such as a server. An authentication manager executing on a server interacts with the HID to validate the user when the user connects to the system via the HID. The authentication manager interacts with authentication modules. Each authentication module may be configured to authenticate a user based on a different authentication mechanism (e.g., using a smart card, using a login and password, using biometric data, etc.) and may be utilized in connection with one or more sessions. The authentication manager and authentication modules are also responsible for controlling access to services/sessions and may remove/revoke or augment such access. A session manager executing on a server manages services running on computers providing computational services (e.g., programs) on behalf of the user. The session manager notifies each service in a session that the user is attached to the system using a given desktop machine. A service can direct display output to the HID while the user is attached to the system. When a user detaches from the system, each of the service's executing for the user is notified via the authentication manager and the session manager. Upon notification that the user is detached from the system, a service continues to execute while stopping its display to the desktop machine.