What You've Learned

This lesson introduced finding and connecting to different network services, including how directory services are used for service discovery, account management, and authentication.

• Mac OS X includes support for a variety of Internet services, including mail, web, instant messaging, and networked scheduling. Each of these services requires an application that the user must configure in order to locate and access the appropriate server.

• Support for networked file services is built into the operating system, allowing users to access networked file servers as easily as accessing local hard drives. Mac OS X includes support for several network file system protocols, including AFP, SMB, NFS, WebDAV, and FTP.

• You use service discovery protocols to find out what network services are available. Key service discovery protocols are Bonjour, SMB, AppleTalk, and SLP. You use Directory Access to configure service discovery protocols.

• User account information is provided to applications through Open Directory, the implementation of directory services on Mac OS X. Directory services also allow multiple computers, including different servers, to share user account information. Information about networked services can also be provided by directory services.

• Authentication is the process of identifying a user. Each server can require a different user password, but if you use a directory service or Kerberos, users don't have to use different passwords for each network service.

References

The following Knowledge Base documents (located at www.apple.com/ support) will provide you with further information regarding service discovery in Mac OS X.

Mac OS X

• 9804, "Mac OS System Error Codes: 299 to 5553."

• 107804, "About network browsing and connected servers in Mac OS X 10.3"

AppleTalk

• 106298, "Mac OS X: Using AppleTalk With PPPoE"

• 106613, "Mac OS X: 'No AppleTalk printers are available' Message"

Bonjour

• 107346, "Mac OS X 10.2: Rendezvous Name Fails to Save"

• 106472, "Mac OS X: FTP, Internet Sharing, Rendezvous, SSH, and Telnet Require the BSD Subsystem"

• 106964, "Mac OS X 10.2: About Your Computer's Rendezvous Name"

• 107174, "Mac OS X 10.2: About Multicast DNS"

Windows (SMB)

• 107085, "Mac OS X 10.2: Expected, User-Defined Windows (SMB) Computer Name Does Not Appear in Connect to Server Dialog"

• 107117, "Mac OS X 10.2: Windows File Sharing (SMB) Computers Beyond Your Subnet Do Not Appear in Connect to Server Dialog"

• 19652, "Networking with a Windows PC"

• 61646, "Mac OS X 10.1: About Improving SMB File Transfer Speed with cp or CpMac"

• 106471, "Mac OS X 10.1 or later: How to Connect to Windows File Sharing (SMB)"

• 107943, "Using network homes with the Active Directory plug-in for Mac OS X 10.3.3 or later"

URLs

Visit the following websites for more information:

• Microsoft Knowledge Base article 188001, "Description of the Microsoft Computer Browser Service"

  http://support.microsoft.com

• Windows NT Services for Macintosh: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windowsnt/4/server/proddocs/en-us/network/xns15.mspx

Books

Read the following books for more information:

• LDAP overview: Carter, Gerald, LDAP System Administration, Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly and Associates, March 2003.

• Kerberos overview: Garman, Jason, Kerberos: The Definitive Guide, Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly and Associates, August 2003.