Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Configuring Directory Services

In order to configure Directory Services, use the Directory Access application located in /Applications/Utilities, shown in Figure 11-2. You can enable or disable various directory service plug-ins, or change their configuration.

Figure 11-2. The Directory Access application shows the available plug-ins

Directory Access supports the following plug-ins:

Active Directory

This plug-in lets Mac OS X consult an Active Directory domain on a server running Windows 2000 or Windows 2003.

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 Flat File and NIS

This includes the Network Information Service (NIS) and the flat files located in the /etc directory, such as hosts, exports, and services. By default, this option is switched off. After you enable it, click Apply, switch to the Authentication tab, choose Custom Path from the search menu, click the Add button, choose /BSD/Local, and click Apply again.

LDAPv3

This is the same version of LDAP used by Microsoft’s Active Directory and Novell’s NDS. In addition to the client components, Mac OS X includes slapd, a standalone LDAP daemon. Mac OS X’s LDAP support comes through OpenLDAP (http://www.openldap.org), an open source LDAPv3 implementation.

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