SECURITY_IMPERSONATION_LEVEL

The SECURITY_IMPERSONATION_LEVEL enumeration type contains values that specify security impersonation levels. Security impersonation levels govern the degree to which a server process can act on behalf of a client process.

typedef enum _SECURITY_IMPERSONATION_LEVEL { // sil 
    SecurityAnonymous, 
    SecurityIdentification, 
    SecurityImpersonation, 
    SecurityDelegation 
} SECURITY_IMPERSONATION_LEVEL; 
 

Members

SecurityAnonymous

The server process cannot obtain identification information about the client and it cannot impersonate the client. It is defined with no value given, and thus, by ANSI C rules, defaults to a value of 0.

SecurityIdentification

The server process can obtain information about the client, such as security identifiers and privileges, but it cannot impersonate the client. This is useful for servers that export their own objects — for example, database products that export tables and views. Using the retrieved client-security information, the server can make access-validation decisions without being able to utilize other services using the client's security context.

SecurityImpersonation

The server process can impersonate the client's security context on its local system. The server cannot impersonate the client on remote systems.

SecurityDelegation

Windows NT security does not support this impersonation level.

Remarks

Impersonation is the ability of a process to take on the security attributes of another process.

QuickInfo

  Windows NT: Requires version 3.1 or later.
  Windows: Unsupported.
  Windows CE: Unsupported.
  Header: Declared in winnt.h.

See Also

Client/Server Access Control Overview, Client/Server Access Control Enumeration Types, CreatePrivateObjectSecurity, DuplicateToken, DuplicateTokenEx, GetTokenInformation, ImpersonateSelf, OpenThreadToken