The Direct Certificate Discovery Tool (DCDT or Tool) v3.0 is an entirely new release that contains many improvements for the end user. For example, the installation and setup of DCDT has been vastly simplified. DCDT is no longer dependent on the Direct Java RI for underlying Direct functionality. Setup of DCDT's certificates is now fully automated and invisible to the end user.
In fact, the entire DCDT setup now only requires two values – its domain and IP address. The new DCDT release also provides much more detailed feedback to the user whenever a test is run. Details of each step of every test case are displayed to the user, and it is easy to pinpoint the problem when a test fails.
New Features in v3.0
Independence from Java RI
DCDT is no longer dependent on the Direct Java RI. Previously, a full Java RI installation was required to provide underlying Direct functionality to DCDT, such as LDAP, DNS, email, and cryptography. DCDT now natively handles this functionality, so the installation process is much simpler.
Automatic Setup
DCDT now automatically configures itself via a web-accessible admin console. Two values – domain and IP address – are all that are needed to configure DCDT. When these values are set in the admin console, DCDT's certificates and internal DNS and LDAP servers are automatically reconfigured without any need to even restart the application.
Improved Feedback
DCDT now provides detailed feedback to the user for every step of every test case. Whether a test passes or fails, all parameters and results are displayed to the user. Subsequent results are added to the web page as test cases are run, and previous results are minimized in accordion-like fashion.
Other Improvements
Error Handling
Errors of all types are now surfaced in a consistent and informative way to the user.
All inputs into DCDT are validated to ensure that they meet basic syntax and other requirement. Email addresses are verified to both be syntactically correct email addresses and to have valid MX records for their domain. IP addresses are validated to ensure numbers are in the proper range.