rsync hfsmode is a patch for rsync to enable recognition of Mac OS X HFS resource forks and Finder metadata, and to copy them to a remote filesystem. The destination system can be any OS and filesystem that supports rsync, so you can use rsync to archive Mac OS X files to servers running Linux, Solaris, et cetera.
Similar in concept to group policies in Active Directory, Mac OS X Server's managed preferences allow administrators to define virtually the entire user experience and restrict user access to many types of local and remote resources. These include applica