When you set up a distributed database, you configure two or more software installations. The configurations of these software installations could be incompatible.
A distributed database user might be able to gain access to data on a remote system with an incompatible configuration when that data would not be accessible to the same user directly on the remote system. In the worst case, the software could connect two systems that have an account with the same user name but are owned by a different user. Each user is granted the privileges of the other user at access of the database that resides on the host computer of the other user.
When two UNIX workstations are connected, the OSA must ensure that accounts with user names in common are owned by the same user.