While the general Mac user community is ooh - ing and ahh - ing over Mac OS X 10.5 features like Time Machine , or suppose about the new Dock , Stacks , et al , those of us who corroborate Mac users are deep into learning about one of the biggest below - the - hood change to happen in any version of Mac OS X : The ending of Netinfo .
When I say “ end , ” I mean it in the most “ end - ish ” sense . In Mac OS X 10.5 , Netinfo is hold out . Not “ deprecate , ” not “ hidden away for only the most advanced users . ” It ’s conk out . delete . It does not exist . No more Netinfo database , no more Netinfo Utilities such asnicl , no more Netinfo Manager . The full structure for managing local users , groups , and other such thing has been whole replaced by local Directory Services , and the Netinfo Database is now a serial publication of XML files live in / var / db / dslocal/.
Netinfo is — well , was — a directory service used for drug user and reckoner management . Originally created for NeXTStep , Netinfo was able to manage not only individual machines , but entire web . Its biggest job was that the rest of the world plow to LDAP for doing the same thing .
Why is the end of Netinfo such an important change ? Because when it came to managing local users and groups — that is exploiter you make on your Mac , or electronic web accounts that were mapped to local chronicle ( a.k.a . mobile accounts)—Netinfo handled all that . When you created a new user in System Preferences , that was all just a overnice interface into Netinfo . When you enable communion on your Mac , grapple approach to portion was handled by Netinfo . Now , it ’s all done by Directory Services .
This may seem like a sudden change to some , but the truth is , Apple ’s been actively easing Netinfo out of the word picture since Mac OS X 10.2 . Starting with that waiver , and continue into Mac OS X 10.4 , Netinfo was trim down from the primary mechanics for managing not just local users and mathematical group , but integral connection directories , alaMicrosoft ’s Active DirectoryorNovell ’s eDirectory , to being only used for local exploiter management . With Mac OS X 10.5 , that ease out is accomplished .
So what does this mean ? Well to the mean user — whatever that means anymore — not much . The things you used to manage users , file share-out , and so onward are all still there — they just speak to different plumbing system . There are some new features in those areas in Mac OS X 10.5 , such as the “ Advanced Options ” in Accounts in System Preferences that earmark you to configure a user ’s home directory , login shell , add / hit login alias , and so forth ; you used to have to go to Netinfo Manager for these . There ’s also the raw power to apportion any folder on your toilsome drive , but that could have been done with Netinfo too . The real changes here are in other areas
The most obvious change for most is the death of the Netinfo database . With Mac OS X 10.5 , all the Netinfo database information are in a series of plist files in /var / db / dslocal/ under nodes / Default/. Within there , you see a set of directories :
Within each of these is a band of plist files where the data for that directory is kept , so in users/ , there ’s one plist per exploiter , in groups/ , one plist per group , and so on . look at the entry for the “ staff ’ radical in staff.plist , ( faculty is the default group for all local user you create in Mac OS X ) , we see the following :
It ’s pretty easy to trace . You have a UUID , or Universally Unique Identifier , a unique number that identify the group outside of conventional Unix grouping IDs . You have the GID ( or Group ID ) , the Unix group identifier issue , the name of the group , the word for the radical , ( in this case , there is n’t one ) , the realname ( or the more human friendly name ) , a sid identification number used for windows file sharing , and then a list of users in this group , including my own , jwelch . If you go looking through all the other plists , they all calculate like this , more or less .
web executive trying to cope Mac laptops on directories also benefit from the liquidation of Netinfo . Prior to Mac OS X 10.5 , binding a laptop computer to a directory was a sore process . Because of the way directory service of process work in Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier , if your laptop computer was bound , or attached to a directory service , and you had to boot up or enter when you could n’t see the internet that directory service was on , you were in a cosmos of pain , and would probably never actually lumber in , or get anything done . There were a few workarounds , but it was all very wonky , due to how Netinfo and its associated mental process — in especial , lookupd — worked . With Mac OS X 10.5 , all that is fixed , and now you’re able to have a laptop bound to a directory , and it just forge .
For those of you wondering what command demarcation utilities you use , now that all the ni * utility program and lookupd are go , it ’s pretty simple . For worldwide needs , you usedscl . If you desire to see what grouping a user or another mathematical group are a fellow member of , or check user / mathematical group UUIDs , you usedsmemberutil . To cut , create , manipulate , or delete groups , you usedseditgroup . To work with various Directory Service caches , include LDAP and DNS , you usedscacheutil . lastly , to enable root , you usedsenableroot .
The removal of Netinfo from Mac OS X is a major variety from both the in operation and historical perspective . But in end , I recall it ’s one that was long in do , and it will make Mac OS ecstasy much gracious to deal with from the decision maker point of position — something that will aid Apple as it continues to establish a greater presence in the business world .
[ John C. Welch is a Unix / Open Systems Administrator for Kansas City Life Insurance and a tenacious - time Mac IT pundit . ]
