Lesson24.Mac OS X Network Architecture

Lesson 24. Mac OS X Network Architecture

Time	This lesson takes approximately 1 hour to complete.
Goals	Understand the content of hostconfig, NetworkInterfaces.plist, and preferences.plist files Understand the architecture of configd and the different plug-ins associated with it, and identify their functions Use ifconfig to identify the computer's network interfaces and their attributes Understand the importance of lookupd and how it impacts networking

To be an effective system administrator, you need to effectively configure, administer, and troubleshoot Mac OS X on a network. This lesson presents the underlying network architecture of Mac OS X, which is the foundational to everything else you will do with a Mac OS X computer.

In Lesson 22, "Unmanaged Networking," you saw how various processes such as Bonjour handle networking without management. And in Lesson 23, "IP Networks and Services," you reviewed domain name system (DNS), Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) to understand how managed networking works in Mac OS X. With this lesson, you'll go behind the scenes of Mac OS X to gain a deeper understanding of how networking works.