Mac® Security Bible

Chapter 7. Securely Sharing System Resources

IN THIS CHAPTER

Learning what resources a Mac can share

Sharing an optical drive

Letting another Mac control your screen

Giving others access to your files

Sharing printers and scanners

Using your Mac as a web server

Offering SSH access to your Mac

Allowing other computers to manage your Mac or send it Apple events

Combining the computing resources of several Macs

Sharing your Mac's Internet connection

Using Bluetooth for sharing information

Mac OS X makes it easy to share a long list of system resources — you can share files, optical discs, printers, scanners, control of your screen, your Internet connection, and even spare CPU cycles with just a few clicks. You can also turn your Mac into a web server, share data and connectivity using Bluetooth devices, and use any of several mechanisms to access your Mac remotely.

The benefit of all this sharing is that other people can easily get at the information and devices you want them to be able to use, and you can use your own Mac even if it's at home and you're at the office. However, as you might expect, all this wonderful openness comes with a price. The more resources you share, the more ways are open for an unscrupulous person (or computer program) to access them in ways you want to avoid.

This chapter describes the main built-in mechanisms by which Mac OS X can share data, all of which are controlled in the Sharing pane of System Preferences. In addition to listing the ways you can share resources, ...