Apple Servers

Apple has made it easy to integrate Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server systems into virtually any managed network environment — thanks to Open Directory, Apple’s standards-based directory and network authentication services architecture.

Open Directory relies on powerful open source technologies, like Open LDAP and Kerberos, for seamless interoperability with other standards-based LDAP servers. It can even plug into environments that use proprietary services, such as Microsoft’s Active Directory and Novell’s eDirectory. For organizations that haven’t yet deployed directory services, the Open Directory server is an easy-to-deploy solution that lets small operations benefit from centralized information. And because there’s no per-user or per-seat fees, Open Directory can scale with the needs of your organization — without draining your IT budget.

Support for Mixed-Platform Environments

Open Directory uses OpenLDAP, the open source implementation of LDAP, to provide directory services for mixed-platform environments. A common language for directory access lets you consolidate information from different platforms and define a single name space for all network resources. Whether you have Mac, Windows or Linux systems on your network, you can set up and manage a single directory; you don’t need maintain a separate directory or separate user records for each platform. This also streamlines the user experience: Users can move effortlessly between Mac and Windows computers — and still gain authenticated single sign-on access to directory-based system and network resources.

Strong Authentication Options

Built into Open Directory is a robust authentication server using MIT’s Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) — providing strong authentication with support for secure single sign-on. That means users need authenticate only once, with a single user name and password pair, for access to a broad range of Kerberized network services. For services that have not been Kerberized, the integrated SASL service automatically negotiates the strongest-possible authentication protocol.

NT Domain Services

Apple has integrated the NT Domain services of the popular open source Samba 3 project with Open Directory, making it possible to host NT Domain services on Mac OS X Server v10.4. You can set up Mac OS X Server as a Primary Domain Controller (PDC) or Backup Domain Controller (BDC) for your network, so Windows users can authenticate against Mac OS X Server directly from the PC login window. NT Domain services also enable Mac OS X Server to host roaming profiles and network home directories for Windows clients. Now any user in your directory can securely log in and access the same user account, authentication, home directory and network resources from a Mac or a Windows system. These capabilities make Mac OS X Server ideal for replacing aging Windows NT or Windows 2000 servers, without requiring businesses to transition to an expensive Active Directory infrastructure.

Detailed User Account Information

Mac OS X Server v10.4 adds the ability to define detailed user contact information in Workgroup Manager. When a user is added across any LDAPv3 directory domain, Mac OS X Server can import the account information — including phone, email, web log URL and home page URL — directly into the Address Book.

Reliability and Scalability

Open Directory features open source Berkeley DB, a highly scalable database, for high-performance indexing of hundreds of thousands of user records. With OpenLDAP and Kerberos standards, it’s easy to add clients from any platform and services from many vendors. In addition, a robust replication feature maximizes availability and scalability. By creating replicas of directory and authentication servers, you can easily maintain failover servers, as well as remote servers for fast client interaction on distributed networks.