Amazon.co.uk Review
This slim volume neither aims to teach its readers UNIX nor introduces them to the Mac, but rather to show how Apple has implemented UNIX. It's a fast read that assumes--as the title implies--rather a lot of UNIX knowledge. With that requirement satisfied and this book in hand, you're likely to discover aspects of Aqua much more quickly than you otherwise would have.
The authors spend lots of time explaining how administrative tasks--such as managing groups, users and passwords--are handled in the Mac OS environment. They document netinfo fully, and call attention to its limitations (such as its inability to create home directories for users) by explaining how to do the job on the command line. They also cover C programming in the Darwin universe at greater length than any other book, providing explicit instructions for such important tasks as creating header files and linking static libraries. A guide to the command line (they call the reference section "The Missing Manpages") provides good value at this book's conclusion. --David Wall, Amazon.com --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
Book Description
Product Description
If you're a developer or system administrator lured to Mac OS X because of its Unix roots, you'll quickly discover that performing Unix tasks on a Mac is different than what you're accustomed to. Mac OS X for Unix Geeks serves as a bridge between Apple's Darwin OS and the more traditional Unix systems. This clear, concise guide gives you a tour of Mac OS X's Unix shell in both Leopard and Tiger, and helps you find the facilities that replace or correspond to standard Unix utilities.
You'll learn how to perform common Unix tasks in Mac OS X, such as using Directory Services instead of the standard Unix /etc/passwd and /etc/group, and you'll be able to compile code, link to libraries, and port Unix software using either Leopard and Tiger. This book teaches you to:
- Navigate the Terminal and understand how it differs from an xterm
- Use Open Directory (LDAP) and NetInfo as well as Directory Services
- Compile your code with GCC 4
- Port Unix programs to Mac OS X with Fink
- Use MacPorts to install free/open source software
- Search through metadata with Spotlight's command-line utilities
- Build the Darwin kernel
And there's much more. Mac OS X for Unix Geeks is the ideal survival guide to tame the Unix side of Leopard and Tiger. If you're a Unix geek with an interest in Mac OS X, you'll soon find that this book is invaluable.
From the Publisher
Enter "Mac OS X for Unix Geeks" by Brian Jepson and Ernest E. Rothman, two Unix geeks who found themselves in the same place you are. Their new book is your guide to figuring out the BSD Unix system and Mac-specific components that are making your life difficult and to help ease you into the Unix inside Mac OS X. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
About the Author
Ernest E. Rothman is a Professor of Mathematical Sciences at Salve Regina University (SRU) in Newport, Rhode Island. Ernie holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from Brown University and a BS in Mathematics from Brooklyn College, CUNY. Before accepting a full-time faculty position at SRU in 1993, he held the positions of Research Associate and Scientific Software Analyst at the Cornell Theory Center at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His professional interests are in scientific computing, applied mathematics and computational science education, and the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X. Ernie lives in southern Rhode Island with his wife Kim and Newfoundland dog Joseph. You can keep abreast of his latest activities at http://homepage.mac.com/samchops.
Brian Jepson is a, programmer, author, and executive editor for MAKE's book series. He's also a volunteer system administrator and all-around geek for AS220, a non-profit arts center in Providence, Rhode Island. AS220 gives Rhode Island artists uncensored and unjuried forums for their work. These forums include galleries, performance space, and publications. Brian sees to it that technology, especially little blinky bits of technology, supports that mission.
Rich Rosen's career began at Bell Labs, where his work with relational databases, Unix, and the Internet prepared him well for the world of Web application development. He's been a Macintosh user for over twenty years, currently using a Mac Mini as his home server, an iMac as the centerpiece of his home recording studio, and a MacBook for live musical performance and writing. He is the co-author of Web Application Architecture: Principles, Protocols & Practices, a textbook on advanced Web application development. Rich currently works at Interactive Data Corporation writing software for the Fixed Income Systems group. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Stevens Institute of Technology, and he lives in New Jersey with his wife, Celia.
Excerpted from Mac OS X for Unix Developers by Brian Jepson, Ernest E. Rothman. Copyright © 2002. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
A directory service manages information about users and resources,such as printers and servers.It can manage this information for anything from a single machine to an entire corporate network.The Directory Service architecture in Mac OSX i called Open Directory. Open Directory encompasses flat files (such as /etc/hosts ),NetInfo (the legacy directory service brought over from earlier versions of Mac OSX and NeXTSTEP), LDAPv3,and other services through third-party plug-ins.
This chapter describes how to perform common configuration tasks,such as adding a user or host on Mac OSX with the default configuration.If your system administrator has configured your Macintosh to consult an external directory server,some of these instructions may not work.If that ’s the case, you should ask your system administrator to make these kinds of changes anyhow!
Understanding Directory Services
In Mac OSX 10.1.and earlier,the system was configured to consult the NetInfo database for all directory information.If you needed to do something simple,such as adding a host, you couldn ’t just add it to /etc/hosts and be done with it.Instead,you had to use the NetInfo Manager (or NetInfo’s command-line utilities)to add the host.
However,in Mac OSX 10.2 (Jaguar),NetInfo functions more as a legacy protocol.Instead of being a major player in the directory services world, NetInfo ’s role has been reduced to that of the local directory database for machines that are not participating in a network-wide directory, such as Active Directory or OpenLDAP.NetInfo is still present on Mac OSX systems, but you can perform most configuration tasks by editing the standard Unix flat files.By default,Mac OSX 10.2 is configured to consult the local directory (also known as the NetInfo database)for authentication,which corresponds to /etc/passwd *and /etc/group on other Unix systems.You can override this setting with the Directory Access application.For more information, see "Configuring Directory Services," later in this chapter.
For users whose network configuration consists of an IP address, a default gateway,and some DNSaddresses,this default configuration should be fine. You ’ll need to tap into Open Directory ’s features for more advanced configurations, such as determining how a user can log into a workstation and find their home directory, even when that directory is hosted on a shared server.
In order to work with Mac OSX ’s Directory Services,you must first understand the overall architecture,which is known as Open Directory.Directory Services is the part of Mac OS X (and the open source Darwin operating system) that implements this architecture.Figure 3-1 shows the relationship of Directory Services to the rest of the operating system.On the top,server processes,as well as the user ’s desktop and applications,act as clients to Directory Services,which delegates requests to a directory service plug-in (see the "Configuring Directory Services "section,later in this chapter,for a description of each plug-in).
Programming with Directory Services
As a programmer,you frequently need to deal with directory information, whether you realize it or not.Your application uses Directory Services each time it looks up a host entry,authenticates a password,or uses a printer.
The Open Directory architecture unifies what used to be a random collection of flat files in /etc .The good news is that the flat files still work.The other good news is that there is a brave new world just beyond those flat files. So,while all your old Unix code should work with the Open Directory architecture,you should look for new ways to accomplish old tasks,especially if you can continue writing portable code.
To get at directory information,Unix applications typically go through the C library using such functions as gethostent().Higher-level APIs, such as Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)and Common Data Security Architecture (CDSA), also use the C library. Figure 3-2 shows how this works.The C library connects to lookupd , a thin shim that is the doorway to the DirectoryService daemon.The DirectoryService daemon consults the available plug-ins until it finds the one that can answer the directory query. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
