unit and dc domain context to obtain this domain name the system parses the retrieved distinguishedname field by searching for the u201c dc u201d instances taking the information between the u201c dc u201d and comma or end of field data and concatenating or combining the taken information in order with period separators delimiters therebetween as domain delimiters when the network employs nds embodiments parse the sa configured field u201c dn u201d to obtain the user 39 s context the u201c dn u201d field data is similar to the following here the context is u201c sunproxy usag u201d and dn distinguished name cn common name and o organization in embodiments the system searches for the u201c cn u201d and u201c o u201d tags takes the information following the equals sign and preceding the next comma or end of field and combines the information in order with periods therebetween to return the context of u201c sunproxy usag u201d alternatively embodiments parse the reply data from the directory server into tags based on delimiters such as commas or semicolons separating portions of the data embodiments then search the tags for protocol dependent identifiers strips the identifiers from the tags and stores the remainders of the tags the remainders being portions of the domain name context associated with the user the portions are finally concatenated with domain delimiters between the portions to obtain the realm domain name or context an example of some model code that could be employed to achieve embodiments is as follows embodiments require that the authentication server be setup with domain referrals however embodiments allow that a device originating the request for authentication could be any system that can connect to a network and that the authentication server and directory.