Book Image

The macOS User Administration Guide

By : Herta Nava
Book Image

The macOS User Administration Guide

By: Herta Nava

Overview of this book

Apple is pushing the capabilities of its technologies to help users achieve high performance, including improvements in its OS running across all Mac systems, macOS, and new technologies such as M1 Silicon chips. This book walks you through macOS from a system administration and support point of view, exploring its latest features. The book starts by explaining macOS architecture, installation, and startup processes to enable you to get started with the OS. You'll learn how to manage users and discover techniques for user security and privacy. Moving on, you'll get to grips with the macOS file system and learn to manage disks, volumes, and partitions for effective file management. Most of the examples covered in this book are from an administrator's perspective; however, when relevant, a standard user's perspective is also presented. You'll find illustrations for Mac systems running macOS 11 (Big Sur), and when necessary, for macOS 10.15 (macOS Catalina). Finally, you'll explore advanced topics such as networking and using command-line tools for administration tasks. By the end of this macOS book, you'll be well-versed with macOS features, administration tasks, and best practices. You'll also be able to apply the concepts to increase your chances of success in obtaining Apple certifications such as Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP).
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
18
About Packt

Summary

Having reached the end of this chapter, you now understand system resources and the types macOS uses, such as extensions, frameworks, fonts, preference files, and more. You also understand other methods macOS employs to keep the filesystem clean, organized, and more secure, such as domains, sandboxing, and hidden items, and you know of several methods to unhide items hidden by default. You can manage the most familiar type of system resource for a standard user: fonts. You discovered yet another method used for filesystem organization – shortcuts, including aliases, symbolic links, and hard links, and their purpose. And you know how to create your own aliases to organize your own filesystem.

In the next chapter, we will explore metadata in macOS, what it is used for, and how to manage it. We will also look at handy tools for quickly and efficiently searching and performing day-to-day tasks, such as Spotlight.