User Guide

20
Users and authentication
(Workgroup configuration only)
A workgroup configuration is designed to integrate with a directory server in your organization. If
your server’s users already have user accounts on your organization’s Open Directory server or Active
Directory server, your server can import the existing accounts. Your server uses the account name,
password, and other attributes that already exist on your organization’s directory server. Your server
can augment the existing attributes with attributes needed for its services. For example, imported
users can be members of a group you create on your server.
During setup, you specify these settings:
 Connect to directory server: Specify the directory server’s DNS name or IP address. You select the
directory server from a drop-down list. If the server isn’t on the list, you can enter its DNS name or
IP address.
 User account name and password: Specify the name and password of a user account on the
directory server. This can be a standard user account; it doesn’t need to be a directory administrator
account.
Add user accounts
Specify whether you want to add a batch of user accounts during setup with Server Assistant, or add
them all after setup by using Server Preferences. After setup, you can use Server Preferences to add
more user accounts and enter more information for the accounts you added during setup. For
information about user accounts, see Chapter 5, “Managing Users,” in Getting Started.
Add new user accounts
(Skip this if you want to add all new accounts after setup or your server will connect to a directory server.)
If you’re setting up a standard configuration, or a workgroup configuration that isn’t connected to a
directory server in your organization, Server Assistant streamlines the process of entering basic
information for a batch of new user accounts.
For each user account you want to create during setup, you specify the user name and a short name.
The user name (also called the full name or real name) is the long name for a user, such as Ravi Patel
or Dr. Anne Johnson. The short name is an abbreviated name, such as rpatel or annejohnson. Users
can log in using either name. The short name is used for the user’s instant messaging and email
accounts. When entering a short name, use only the characters a–z, A–Z, 0–9, - (hyphen), and
_ (underscore).
Note: If a user already has a Mac set up, try to get the user’s short name on that Mac and use the
same short name for the user’s account on the server. Having the same short name will facilitate
logging in for services.
You can specify an initial password for each user account, or you can have Server Assistant
automatically use each user’s short name for the initial password. Users can change their passwords
later.
If you don’t want the new user accounts to use generic pictures, you can specify the picture for each
user. You can choose a standard Mac OS X user picture, take a picture using an attached camera, or
open a picture file (such as the files in /Library/User Pictures/). You can also crop the picture and apply
a visual effect.
Import user accounts
(Workgroup configuration only; skip this if you want to import all users after setup.)
If you’re setting up a workgroup configuration that’s connected to a directory server in your
organization, Server Assistant facilitates importing a batch of existing users and group members.
Server Assistant lists available users and groups by name, and you select the ones you want imported.
Thus you need to know the names of user accounts you want to import individually. You also need to
know the names of groups whose members you want imported automatically.