Specifications

274 Appendix B Mac OS X Directory Data
Mac OS X user attribute Format Example values
RecordName:
A list of names associated with a
user. The rst is the user’s short
name, which is also the name of
the user’s home folder.
Important: All attributes used
for authentication must map to
RecordName.
First value: ASCII characters A–Z,
a–z, 0–9, _,-
Second value: UTF-8 text
Dave
David Mac
DMacSmith
Nonzero length, 1 to 16 values.
Maximum 255 bytes (85
triple-byte to 255 single-byte
characters) per instance.
First value must be 1 to 8 bytes
for clients using Mac OS X v10.1
or earlier.
RealName:
A single name, usually the
user’s full name; not used for
authentication.
UTF-8 text David L. MacSmith, Jr.
Nonzero length, maximum 255
bytes (85 triple-byte to 255
single-byte characters).
UniqueID:
A unique user identier, used for
access privilege management.
SIgned 32-bit ASCII string of
digits 0–9
Values below 500 can have
special signicance. Values
below 100 are typically used
for system accounts. Zero is
reserved for use by the system.
Normally unique among
entire population of users, but
sometimes can be duplicated.
Warning: A noninteger value
is interpreted as 0, which is
the UniqueID of the root user
account.
PrimaryGroupID:
A user’s primary group
association.
Signed 32-bit ASCII string of
digits 0–9
Range is 1 to 2,147,483,648.
Normally unique among all
group records. If blank, 20 is
assumed.
NFSHomeDirectory:
Local le system path to the
user’s home folder.
UTF-8 text /Network/Servers/example/
Users/K-M/Tom King
Nonzero length. Maximum 255
bytes.