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Managed network clients and preference settings

As a modern operating system, Mac OS X is supporting features for central network management. An administrator can setup a network server in a way that all client computers automatically load predefined settings from the central server. This can save a lot of work and simplify management enormously. Imagine a campus network of a large university which has bought 50 new Macs for a computer room which should be used by students. It would be tedious work to configure all the basic preferences 50 times when setting up the new computers, for example the name of the university's e-mail server for use by Apple's Mail program. Instead, the network administrator can define such an important preference setting on the master management server and then force all new Macs to automatically read this setting and enable it when the Macs connect to the network.

Mac OS X uses the term Managed Clients to refer to this feature. It is usually abbreviated as MCX (“Managed Clients for Mac OS X”).

The application used to setup predefined network preferences is the Workgroup Manager which is part of Mac OS X Server. A managed preference setting can either be defined to be loaded once by the clients, or to be enforced “always”. In the first case, the setting will have the character of a suggested default. The MCX technology here just helps to setup a new network computer, preloading it with configuration information and in-house standards it should “know” about. Users are free to overwrite the preference if they like to. In the latter case, the preference setting will have the character of an enforced policy. For example, if the students should not be allowed to burn CDs with the Finder in the aforementioned campus example, Mac OS X can ensure that the preference setting which enables the burn features of the Finder is always kept at a “no” value.

It is beyond the scope of this manual to describe how the MCX technology works. It is only important to understand that some specific preference settings can be automatically readjusted by Mac OS X at certain times, for example when starting a new computer, or each time a user logs in. The fact that a setting is being managed does not become visible in a preference file. However, PrefEdit will display this when opening a domain of the preferences database. In this case, a checkmark in the column MCX will appear at each managed setting.