AppleOsx has facilities for integration with existing authentication and naming schemes (such as ActiveDirectory, OpenLdap or UsingNis). However OSX doesn't use nsswitch which is the conventional Unix name service switch, instead it uses a legacy NextStep tool called NetInfo, this makes things behave a little differently.
See also: AppleOsx, AppleSoftware, LdapClient, LdapAuthentication, AppleOsxIntegrationWithOpenLdap
Contents
Apple Documentation
- Apple Documention
- Note that their fucking web site does not appear to index PDF's, and all their useful documentation is in PDF format, so don't expect search to be useful.
http://www.apple.com/server/documentation/
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50525 - Integrating OSX and Active Directory
Mostly talks about how to prepare ActiveDirectory to behave like a normal OpenLdap server so AppleOsx can talk to it.
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/pdfs/MacOSXwithActiveDirectory.pdf
Other Documentation
Integration with Active Directory
- Active Directory Integration
- Good tutorial with screenshoots and step by step instructions.
- Active Directory and Kerberos
See also The Moron's Guide to Kerberos.
- Fat of the LAN
Example of how to authenticate to ActiveDirectory without changing your AD schema.
Integration with OpenLDAP
- OSX Automount using standard LDAP
- An example of how to store automount configurations in LDAP (untested).
http://bluedot.net/mail/archive/read.php?f=7&i=43783&t=43768
- LDAP over SSL Authentication
=== Integration with Other Backends ===
- NIS Integration
Great step by step document about how to integrate a Jaguar box with an existing NIS infrastructure. Has lots of useful information on OSX's AutoMount system as well.
- Samba Primary Domain Controller
- Using Netinfo to Manage Automounts
Software
- NFS Manager
- Allows managing of NFS mounts and exports, including managing mounts in Netinfo of LDAP.
- NIS Lookup
- GUI wrapper for ypcat etc commands. Useful for making sure you are connected to, and seeing, the right things.
- Login Window Manager
- GUI to manage login window features (banner, which users show, log in/out scripts etc).
- Sample Login Hook Scripts
PerlLanguage scripts for grabbing user data from the network and populating a local home directory via login hooks.
General Resources and Discussion
- Mac OSX Labs
- Lots and lots of information on doing all kinds of things with OSX but there is a LOT of noise so it's a pretty frustrating site to actually use.
- Mailing Lists
- Worst case, ask questions ...
http://lists.apple.com/mhonarc/macos-x-server
http://www.omnigroup.com/mailman/listinfo/macosx-admin - SlashDot article on OSX integration
- Lots of good links and some worthy discussion.
Troubleshooting
- Home Directories on NFS
It seems that Panther (10.3) has some problems with storing user home directories on an NFS server, especially on a Linux NFS server (though I'm currently having problems with a NetworkAppliance server). The workaround is to disable NFS locking on the client by using NFS Manager (see above) or editing /etc/hostconfig and adjusting NFSLOCKS.
- Performance Tuning NFS
Check async vs. sync mounts and you may want to adjust the number of nfsiod threads.