Apple Will Demo Mac OS X Server At WWDC

epec254 writes "According to MacCentral the next new version of Mac OS X Server, based on Panther, will be previewed at the WWDC session 'Apple Solutions in Enterprise.' Maybe they will get file permissions right this time."

Comments

Re:...from the oxymoron dept.

[gerbache]

Well, no it isn't a server architecture presently, but who's to say it couldn't be in the future? I'd personally like to see this work out for them. In theory, the processor will be plenty powerful for it. Who cares if they hacked on Altivec? I doubt anyone will argue that the Power architecture isn't powerful enough to be used in server applications, and Apple can certainly make administration painless and easy enough if they want to. I say give 'em a chance!

Re:Aqua Lite?

[Hungus]

Just run it headless on my Xserves at Idle I use less than 1% total CPU and thats while monitoring it. the gui only comes up when i log into it as a user ( via ARD or TB2)

Re:Windows Domain-like functions?

[m0rph3us0]

OS X supports LDAP, and i believe it also supports kerebos, these two technologies are the basis for AD in Windows 2000. It also supports NetInfo which is similar in function to LDAP

Re:Aqua Lite?

[Pathwalker]

If you were using an OSX box as a server, you would probably disable the GUI and run the system with a text console.

You do that by editing /etc/ttys and uncommenting the first of these two lines, while commenting out the second:

#console "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600" vt100 on secure

console "/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Cont ents/MacOS/loginwindow" vt100 on secure window=/System/Library/CoreServices/WindowServer onoption="/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"

(random spacing in the second long line inserted by slashdot's anti-page-widening code)

Re:Windows Domain-like functions?

[kwerle]

It also supports NetInfo which is similar in function to LDAP.

How sad that it is reduced to this. NetInfo is one of the finest resource administrative systems available. It is very unfortunate that it is languishing - mostly unused and un-talked about. (yes, every system uses it by default, but I'd say that most folks on a network don't use/understand it to a fraction of it's potential)

Yes, I'm one of those NeXT zealots :-/

Re:Just don't use GUI

[Anonymous Coward]

10.2.7 already .. wow I am only at 10.2.6 how did you get the update?

Re:Guess I have to ask

[jtrascap]

Nothing a "umask 002" couldn't fix...

Sheesh - you kids.

you're thinking too hard

[Petrox]

or you could just type ">console" at the login screen and save yourself from futzing with loginwindow.app.

umask?

[netsrek]

You're misrepresenting the situation.

The default umask was the problem.

You could override this, but doing this on all your clients may not have been practical.

Re:And "OX X Server" is...

[lowmagnet]

Darwin (FreeBSD + Mach Kernel) is Open Source. (APSL) The window manager is not. (NextStep framework) Any questions?

Re:...from the oxymoron dept.

[TheRaven64]

he current Moto PPC is just too underpowered

Maybe. I suspect that this is true for large sites (well, except iTMS, which I hear works just fine on a bunch of X-Servers). For most small buisnesses, however, modern CPUs are overpowered. Our current server is a 750HMz Duron with 256MB of RAM. It handles email (SMPT, POP3, IMAP and webmail), about a hundred individual web sites (not very high traffic, about 15000 requests per day average), Jabber (public server, listed on the jabber.org site), a web-cam and a few other things. Its load average sits at under 0.20. In fact I'm running top on it right now, and the most CPU-intensive thing it's doing is running top. We stopped upgrading it a while back and diverted the funds to new workstations.

you can run it on an AMD or whatever for half the price.

For a small buisness the additional cost of an X-Server over an Intel/AMD Linux/*BSD server is minute compared to the amount that they can save by not employing someone fulltime to maintain it.

The OS is not designed to be a server, it's designed to be a personal use OS.

A lot of the kernel is from FreeBSD which is very much a server OS. The rest is designed to increase usability. Linux (and *BSD for that matter) are not friendly for people with no *NIX experience (well, they might be on a desktop where you can hide behind gnome or KDE, but not on a server). An X-Serve could quite easily be run in-house by a company which already has Mac-experienced employees, and a company that is not a 'computer company' is much more likely to have Mac people in house than *NIX people.

Of course I wouldn't recommend using an X-Serve for hosting a site like /., but for a SME that out-sources all of its IT support it would be a cost-effective solution.

Re:Windows Domain-like functions?

[netsrek]

nidump passwd /

That was my point, implement Password Server and you don't have this legacy problem with NetInfo anymore.

You'll just get "********" where the password crypt used to be.

Re:Windows Domain-like functions?

[netsrek]

The best doc is This one.

For more practical advice, you should look at the Mac OS X Server Administrators Guide, which you can find here.

Otherwise for actual day to day problems and solutions, you're best off looking through the mac os x server mailing list at Apple, and the admin list at Omnigroup. Search the archives...