Apple Training Series Mac OS X Server Essentials, Second Edition

Introducing Directory Services Concepts

Giving a user multiple user accounts on different computers can cause problems. For

instance, if each computer in a network has its own authentication database, a user might

have to remember a different password for each computer. Even if you assign the user the

same password on every computer, the information can become inconsistent over time,

because the user changes passwords in one location but forgets to do so in another. A

single authentication database can solve this problem.

Directory services provide this central repository for information about the computers,

applications, and users in an organization. With directory services, you can maintain con-

sistent information about all the users—such as their ...