Access control is a set of security features which defines who can access certain resources, such as machines, services or entries, and what kinds of operations they are allowed to perform. Identity Management provides several access control areas to make it clear what kind of access is being granted and to whom it is granted. As part of this, Identity Management draws a distinction between access controls to resources within the domain and access control to the IdM configuration itself.

For details on the different internal access control mechanisms that are available for users within IdM to the IdM server and other IdM users, see Chapter 10, Defining Access Control for IdM Users.