Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to deliver networking-related enhancements

Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" will include several networking-related improvements to system technologies such as Rendezvous and CFNetwork and will also introduce a new network-based diagnostics features, sources tell AppleInsider.

Rendezvous Enhancements

Tiger will sport an enhancement to Rendezvous that will allow the networking technology to support browsing across subnets, whereas previous versions of Rendezvous returned only the local subnet. When asked for a list of available domain names, the new version will return the list of all available domain names, sources said.

In July, AppleInsider was first to report that Apple and Tibco Software had settled a trademark dispute through a mutual out of court settlement. As part of the deal, Apple reportedly agreed to phase out its use of the "Rendezvous" name and will most likely rename the technology "OpenTalk" before Tiger hits the market.

CFNetwork Enhancements

CFNetwork is a framework which provides developers with programming interfaces aimed at making network-based communications easier. It is designed for programs that work with BSD sockets, manage information about remote hosts, or interact with HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP servers.

The version of CFNetwork that will ship with Tiger will include stability and performance enhancements and improved interoperability with NT LAN Manager. More specifically, Tiger will add support for "CFHTTPAuthentication," which provides support for efficient authentication of HTTP proxies and HTTP servers supporting Basic, Digest, SPNEGO, and NTLM authentication methods.

New Diagnostic App

Additionally, sources say that a new network diagnostics feature of Tiger will allow developers to interface their applications with an underlying Mac OS X 10.4 diagnostic application that would ultimately help user locate and correct network issues.

The functionality is said to be an extension of the CFNetwork framework called CFNetDiagnostics.