Specifications

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Use this chapter to learn how to use search policies with
domains and to understand automatic, custom, and local-
only search policies.
Each Mac OS X computer has a search policy, also commonly referred to as a search
path, that species which directory domains Open Directory can access, such as the
computer’s local directory domain and a particular shared directory.
The search policy also species the order in which Open Directory accesses directory
domains. Open Directory searches each directory domain and stops searching when it
nds a match. For example, Open Directory stops searching for a user record when it
nds a record whose user name matches the name it’s looking for.
Search Policy Levels
A search policy can include only the local directory domain, the local directory domain
and a shared directory, or the local directory domain and multiple shared directories.
On a network with a shared directory, several computers generally access the shared
directory. This arrangement can be depicted as a tree-like structure with the shared
directory at the top and local directories at the bottom.
Local Directory Domain Search Policy
The simplest search policy consists only of a computer’s local directory domain. In this
case, Open Directory looks for user information and other administrative data only in
the local directory domain of each computer.
If a server on the network hosts a shared directory, Open Directory does not look there
for user information or administrative data because the shared directory is not part of
the computer’s search policy.
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Open Directory Search Policies