
Overview of Open Directory Components
Open Directory is based on OpenLDAP, an open-source implementation of the Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), a standard protocol used for accessing directory-service
data. In addition to LDAP, Open Directory includes plug-ins for several other directory
types, including Active Directory, and NIS.
While LDAP was used in Mac OS X Server v10.3 and v10.4 for its shared database, earlier
versions of Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server used the NetInfo directory service for local
directory services. Starting with Mac OS X v10.5, NetInfo has been replaced with flat files.
This structure, coupled with the Director