Apple Mac OS X Server (Administrator’s Guide) - Manual (Page 122)

122 Chapter 3
How User Accounts Are Used
When you define a user’s account, you specify the information needed to prove the user’s
identity: user name, password, and user ID. Other information in a user’s account is needed
by various services—to determine what the user is authorized to do and perhaps to
personalize the user’s environment.
Authentication
Before a user can log in to or connect with a Mac OS X computer, he or she must enter a
name and password associated with a user account that the computer can find.
A Mac OS X computer can find user accounts that are stored in a directory domain of the
computer’s search policy. A directory domain is like a database that a computer is
configured to access in order to retrieve configuration information. A search policy is a list of
directory domains the computer searches when it needs configuration information, starting
with the local directory domain on the user’s computer. Chapter 2, “Directory Services,”
describes the different kinds of directory domains and tells you how to configure search
policies on any Mac OS X computer.
In the following picture, for example, a user logs in to a Mac OS X computer that can locate
the user’s account in a directory domain of its search policy.
After login, the user can connect to a remote Mac OS X computer if the user’s account can be
located within the search policy of the remote computer
Log in to
Mac OS X
Directory domains
in search policy
Connect to
Mac OS X Server
Directory domains
in search policy