Mac® Security Bible

31.3. Securing Address Book Server

One of the new features Apple introduced in Snow Leopard Server was Address Book Server, which enables an organization to host individual and group address books on a server, making them available both to the Address Book application in Mac OS X and, optionally, via the web. Address Book Server can be used instead of or in addition to LDAP for contact information, although LDAP is still used for directory services.

The security features you can configure for Address Book Server are the authentication method(s) supported and whether to use SSL, resulting in encrypted transfer of all contact data across the network. In general, SSL is unnecessary if all your users are on the local network. For remote users, it adds a small amount of security, but because the types of data typically sent and received by this service aren't normally highly confidential, you may feel that the bother outweighs the benefit.

Before you can activate SSL for Address Book Server, you must already have a valid SSL certificate installed for the domain name in question.

To configure Address Book Server's security features, follow these steps:

1. Open Server Admin, which is located in /Applications/Server.

2. In the sidebar on the left, select your server.

3. If no services are listed under the server name, click the disclosure triangle next to the server name to reveal them.

4. If the service names are dimmed, choose Server Connect, type your username and password if they're not already ...