Choosing a Third-Party Network Directory Service

Some organizations may prefer to use a directory service developed by manufacturers other than Apple, or they may already have a well-established infrastructure in place. When choosing an alternative to Apple's directory service, keep in mind that Open Directory is plug-in based. Apple has supplied plug-ins for various directory service protocols, such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Network Information Service (NIS), Active Directory, and NetInfo. In addition, manufacturers other than Apple can develop their own plug-ins to add features not available with the Apple plug-ins, such as ADmitMac, sold by Thursby Software.

It is important to choose the plug-in that best fits the needs of your organization. In some cases, a plug-in may provide only a limited set of features that hinder the overall usability of Mac OS X. This lesson will look into the specifics of the NIS and LDAP plug-ins that Apple supplies.

Note

The Active Directory plug-in will be covered in Lesson 5, "Integrating Mac OS X With Active Directory."

Network Information Service

Administrators have long sought to have a centrally managed network directory service on their networks. In 1985 Sun Microsystems developed one of the earliest implementations to help support administrators deploying network file system (NFS) servers. Originally called Yellow Pages, the service eventually became known as Network Information Service, or NIS. However, the utilities were never updated to reflect the name change, so most NIS utilities start with the prefix yp.

With Mac OS X v10.2.5 and later, Apple has provided an NIS plug-in for Open Directory. As with other Open Directory plug-ins, it is configured with Directory Access. Although the NIS plug-in is disabled by default, it is simple to enable and configure. If you want to use the NIS plug-in to authenticate users, be sure to add the /BDS/domain name to the Authentication pane of Directory Access after configuring the plug-in. The figure below shows where to enable the BDS/NIS plug-in and the options available within the plug-in.

Note

The NIS plug-in primarily supports legacy deployments and currently does not support NIS+ or the use of shadow files.