Mac OS X for Unix Geeks

Configuring Directory Services

In order to configure Directory Services, use the Directory Access application (/Application/Utilities ), shown in Figure 3-3. You can enable or disable various directory service plug-ins, or change their configuration.

Figure 3-3. The Directory Access application shows the available plug-ins

Directory Access supports the following plug-ins:

AppleTalk

This is the ultimate Mac OS legacy protocol. AppleTalk was the original networking protocol supported by Mac OS versions prior to Mac OS X. Linux and the server editions of Windows also support AppleTalk.

BSD configuration files

These are flat files located in the /etc directory, such as hosts, exports, and services.

Warning

By default, the checkboxes for NetInfo and BSD Configuration Files are off. For the BSD Configuration Files, the checkbox controls whether the files are consulted for Directory Service lookups. NetInfo is a little more complicated. If the checkbox is off, NetInfo uses the local domain but does not consult network-based NetInfo domains. If the checkbox is on, NetInfo will also look for and potentially use any network-based domains that it finds.

LDAPv2

This is a version of LDAP that Mac OS X can access (read-only).

LDAPv3

This is a newer version of LDAP, which Mac OS X fully supports (read-write). This is the same version of LDAP used by Microsoft’s Active Directory and Novell’s NDS. ...