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Review - Mac OS X Server 10.3, Part 1
Sure, I can read. I can go to the Mac OS X Server web site and read all the documentation for things related to "standards-based management," "share printers and files," "n-tier" solutions. Yawn. I know all about this stuff, and I know I can do it already. If I am paying good money for this, it better have value I can't already get for free.
First Things First
Essentially, Mac OS X Server is the same thing as Mac OS X (a.k.a. Client). It's the same core OS, it has the same versioning (10.3.2 as of this writing), it runs the same programs. But Server comes with programs and tools and configurations geared toward being a server, rather than a user's workstation.
Server comes in two flavors: a 10-client version for $500, and an unlimited client version for $1000. The only difference between the two is that the 10-client version limits file and windows sharing to 10 simultaneous clients. You can have any number of users, but only 10 can connect to those services at the same time.
With that money, you also get 90 days of "up-and-running" support covering the software that ships with Server. So if you've read the frelling manual and still can't figure out why the firewall doesn't seem to be working, you can get some help. After 90 days, you can still get help -- including more advanced topics -- but it will cost you from $6,000 to $50,000.
Hardware
The Xserve, Apple's rack-mountable computer, comes with the unlimited client version of Server preinstalled; and really, Server is built with Xserve in mind. Server Monitor, included with Server, displays uptime, temperature, drives, power, network usage, fans, and security of Xserve boxes.
You can configure Xserve boxes automatically with Panther Server preinstalled. Design your configuration on one machine, set up an LDAP server and put it in the DHCP server settings, and add your configuration file to the LDAP server. Turn on the other servers for the first time, and each one will find the DHCP server, find the LDAP server, find the configuration file, and configure itself automatically. You can also put the configuration file on a USB key or somesuch, and the machines will configure themselves that way, too.
My test box is a dual G4/1.25 GHz Power Mac; it performs with nary a hiccup. If I had a large network or many users, I can imagine wanting more power: with a Power Mac or Xserve G5, I'd be able to take advantage of an OS that is optimized for the 64-bit CPU. For me, however, this would result in a depressingly, perpetually, low CPU load.
Initial Security Considerations
Out of the box, assuming no one has set up a rogue DHCP server on your network, Mac OS X Server is mostly secure: only SSH is on by default. As other services are turned on, more security concerns are created, because new security holes may be opened.
For the most part, the default configurations of the various services are secure, but that largely depends on your specific environment. Mac OS X Server is excellent at making advanced server configuration easier, but this ease of use comes with a price: you may be opening yourself up to attack. Mac users are often not used to the idea of making themselves vulnerable just by clicking checkboxes.
This may look like a Mac, and may be easy to use, but it is no substitute for having a real live sysadmin on hand to -- at the very least -- audit the security of the system. It'd be nice if Server included audit tools; I envision UI elements that warn you when you have conflicts, or when you've opened up a hole, or when you've violated predefined security policies. On the other hand, it would be more reliable to have a third-party system to do the audit, on basic principle. But that's so un-Mac-like.
Open
Tom Goguen, Director of Marketing for Mac OS X Server, says that Apple is 100% into using open standards and open source in the core operating system.
Mac OS X Server has always been largely based on open standards, but the Panther incarnation has gone even further. Gone are Apple's proprietary mail systems; they are replaced by postfix, mailman, and cyrus. Mostly gone is NetInfo; it is replaced by LDAP. Rendezvous, also an open system that others can plug into, is a bigger part of Server now: FTP, LPR, and web services are all announced via Rendezvous.
Of course, as always, Server -- just like Client -- is based on FreeBSD (now version 4.8, with some of 5.0 stirred in), and most of the Apple core OS itself is under the Apple Public Source License.
A Case for Case
New to Panther is case sensitivity in HFS+. For many years, Mac OS has used the HFS as its file system, which treated "Foo" and "foo" as the same file. Some years ago, HFS+ was introduced to overcome many of the limitations of HFS, but case sensitivity -- seen more as a usability feature than a limitation -- remained.
But in Unix, this certainly is a limitation for many people. "Makefile" vs. "makefile" and "head" vs. "HEAD" have caused many a headache for Mac OS X/Unix users. But now case sensitivity is a formatting option.
Because case insensitivity is still seen as a usability feature, this feature is not available by default on Client, although you could always connect your drive to a Server to format it. It is also possible, in theory, to format a drive with case sensitivity in Client using various tricks.
Setting it Up
My server is connected to my home network via a 100BaseT switch, to which is also connected a cable modem and an AirPort Extreme base station. My PowerBook G4/867 connects to the network via AirPort or the switch. My wife has an iBook G3/600, and I've got a PowerBook G3/400 in my stereo closet for playing MP3s. The PowerBook doesn't have internal AirPort, and instead is connected to another switch and another Extreme base station, configured to do WDS. I've also got the PS2 connected in there. Everything is running Panther Client (except for the PS2, last I checked).
Looking at the various services offered by Server, I can already see many things I want to set up: file sharing (Apple Filing Protocol, or AFP), DHCP for guests, DNS, FTP, SMTP, printing, and web. I have most of those already set up now, but I wouldn't mind if they were easier to configure and manage.
After surveying my situation, I installed Panther Server and took a look around.
The first thing I wanted to see was what my configuration options were. And lo, there in my Dock were not the expected iMovie, iTunes, iPhoto, and the like, but icons that a mouseover revealed to be representative of programs like Workgroup Manager, the aforementioned Server Monitor, and Server Admin.
Workgroup Manager uses a lot of terminology that is completely lost on me, and I am not managing any users, really. My wife doesn't need the file server -- we can exchange files via iChat, or I can copy them to her machine via scp -- and she keeps all her own files on her machine. We won't be using any print quotas. I do use Workgroup Manager to create some basic user accounts for friends, but I don't need any features more advanced than what is in Client.
Server Admin is what I want to sink my greedy little digits into. I opened it up, clicked the "add new server" button, typed in my server name ("Sweeney.local") and password, and started playing.
As I started looking around, I remembered that there was an extra CD in the distribution called Admin Tools. It allows you to install these tools on any Client machine, so you can manage the Server remotely. I want to go hang out in my La-Z-Boy while I configure my server, so I installed the tools on my PowerBook. Nifty.
Server Admin lists each machine and the services available to it, with an icon next to each describing its status. If you select a machine's name, you see several tabs: Overview, Logs, System, Graphs, Update, and Settings. Overview reports the system version, names, and dates. Under Logs, you can view the system log, watchdog log, etc. System reports what network interfaces and volumes are available. Graphs displays CPU and network use in pretty pictures. Update runs Software Update. Settings controls the system names, the date and time and timezone.
This is basic stuff, and each service is laid out in similar fashion. All of them have at least two tabs: Overview and Settings. Most also have a Logs tab. Some have other tabs like Connections, Graphs, Clients, Activity, Accounts, Queues, and Jobs.
The available services are AFP, Application Server, DHCP, DNS, Firewall, FTP, Mail, NAT, NetBoot, NFS, Open Directory, Print, QuickTime Streaming, VPN, Web, and Windows. Somewhat conspicuous in its absence, to me, is MySQL, which is included in Server, but doesn't have an interface in Server Admin.
Server Admin does have its problems. It will crash on occasion, but I see no evidence of my settings being corrupted, or any other lasting ill effects. Some of the lists are not sortable, though they appear to be: for example, the DNS zone listings are not sortable, even though clicking on the column headers indicate otherwise.
Also, it can be slow to update. This is understandable, but annoying. Logs don't refresh immediately, and when you hit reload, the wrong log is selected, instead of the current log being refreshed. When restarting services or viewing logs, I will sometimes use the command line tools, as they are more efficient; it would be nice if Server Admin would display the path to the log you are looking at, so you can easily find and tail it in a shell.
Sharing
Some of these services are available in a minimal form in Client, in Sharing under System Preferences: file sharing, Windows sharing, web, FTP, and printing. In Server, the Sharing preferences are still there, but contain only three items: Remote Login, Apple Remote Desktop, and Remote Apple Events. Remote Login is simple: it allows users to connect with ssh/scp, and can be turned on or off. The other two require, perhaps, a bit more explanation.
Apple Remote Desktop is a way for an admin to control client computers. Previously, the client was distributed only as part of the software package of the same name, but now the client is included with Panther. It is, of course, off by default, and once turned on, each machine must define what users have access to what resources (this can be done via the command line, too). I most commonly use ARD for controlling and viewing the screen of another computer, installing packages, and copying files.
Remote Apple Events has been in Mac OS for many years, since back in version 7-dot-something. It allows controlling "scriptable" Mac applications -- such as with AppleScript -- over the network. It used to run over AppleTalk, but now runs over plain old TCP/IP. Not many people make use of remote Apple events in my experience, but I use them often; for example, I have a Perl script that queries iTunes on a remote box, and sets the current track in iChat.
Windows
I don't use Windows, and therefore can't really test the new Windows integration in Panther Server. But from what I can tell, Apple has added quite a few improvements. Samba has been updated to version 3, and the lists of Unix and Windows users can be united via Directory Services. But I confess to a crippling ignorance and apathy about this small corner of the computing world. Sorry.
To Be Continued
Tomorrow, I'll get into the details of setting up the services I use on my network.
ya
The answer to all your problems
what a loser!
apple mac users are faggots.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - presidential hopeful Howard Dean was found dead in his New Hampshire hotel this afternoon. The only details released were that he suffered a massive brain hemorrage due to excessive excitement and anger. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his platform, there's no denying his contributions to American politics. Truly a Type A icon.
how else are you going to catalog and store all your pr0n???
Isn't it interesting how you come to recognize posters based solely on their sigs???
Why not post the whole review at once?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Yawn. I know all about this stuff, and I know I can do it already. If I am paying good money for this, it better have value I can't already get for free. You may be able to do it- but to those who cannot a simpl GUI on top makes a world of difference. Different strokes for different folks- don't buy it.
Tomorrow, I'll get into the details of setting up the services I use on my network.
iCan't wait for more of this.
the point of it the same of any company; to make money. Duh, imagine that, apple trying to profit!
Mac will be dead in 10 years.
EEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGHHHHHHHHH!
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like Dean screaming.
"Server comes in two flavors: a 10-client version for $500, and an unlimited client version for $1000. The only difference between the two is that the 10-client version limits file and windows sharing to 10 simultaneous clients. You can have any number of users, but only 10 can connect to those services at the same time."
They charge per client? Looks like Apple adopted the single most annoying feature of Windows server software
No matter how many versions they come out with between Windows, there's always new additions that make this server OS something you have to go out and get.
More info.
but you say i have to _pay_??
Why not post the whole thing at once?
I'd like to see your setup.
I'm getting an Xserve G5 soon and I haven't used OS X Server at all. Tell us about Netbooting. The idea intrigues me...I must know more about it.
What other things are fun to use with it? The Xserve will be running PHP/MySQL, I don't know much about Mac OS X Server so please let me know!
I ffropgaermgaeromgaegoSRAGKWgaer/.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Did you realize that the vast majority of homosexuals use Macintoshes? There was even a study carried out (I think the study was codenamed LemonParty for secrecy purposes, googling should bring it up without too much trouble) that found that ~80% of homosexuals that use computers uses Macs. I was forced to use a Mac for a homework assignment at school and immediately people started to look at me differently. I've found Macs very uncomfortable to be around since.
The prevalence of iPods around my school's campus is very disturbing. It's not like I live in San Fransisco or anything...
Just something interesting I found on the Net. Please don't respond unless you've RTFReport, I'm looking for serious discussion.
Sure, I can read. I can go to the Mac OS X Server web site and read all the documentation for things related to "standards-based management," "share printers and files," "n-tier" solutions.
We can do that now to, even without going to apple.com, thanx to yhis "tiny" informative article
Or we won't...
Where did you get this "After 90 days, you can still get help -- including more advanced topics -- but it will cost you from $6,000 to $50,000." quote? Link? Facts?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
The main reason Apple developed the XServe is because their original server, the iRack, was inadvertenly taken over by the US military due to a typo.
Please stop saying that MacOS X unix tools is based upon FreeBSD.
:
/usr/bin/* /bin/* /sbin/* /usr/sbin/* 2>/dev/null | fgrep OpenBSD | wc -l /usr/bin/* /bin/* /sbin/* /usr/sbin/* 2>/dev/null | fgrep FreeBSD | wc -l /usr/bin/* /bin/* /sbin/* /usr/sbin/* 2>/dev/null | fgrep NetBSD | wc -l
:
Apple actually took parts of NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD.
Most tools actually come from OpenBSD.
If you got MacOS X and if you need a proof, just try
ident
ident
ident
Here's what I get on Darwin 7.2.0 (Panther, everything up to date)
OpenBSD : 303
FreeBSD : 258
NetBSD : 143
The rest is mostly GNU tools.
{{.sig}}
I think Apple missed the boat not supporting these Macs with OS X. They make great little OS X workhorses.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
I Miss BeOS.
Young man, there's no need to feel down. I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground. I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new town There's no need to be unhappy.
...
...
...
...
...
...
... you'll find it at the y-m-c-a. Young man, young man, there's no need to feel down. Young man, young man, get yourself off the ground.
... you'll find it at the y-m-c-a. Young man, young man, there's no need to feel down. Young man, young man, get yourself off the ground.
... just go to the y-m-c-a. Young man, young man, are you listening to me? Young man, young man, what do you wanna be?
Young man, there's a place you can go. I said, young man, when you're short on your dough. You can stay there, and I'm sure you will find Many ways to have a good time.
It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a. It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys
It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a. It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
You can get yourself cleaned, you can have a good meal, You can do whatever you feel
Young man, are you listening to me? I said, young man, what do you want to be? I said, young man, you can make real your dreams. But you got to know this one thing!
No man does it all by himself. I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf, And just go there, to the y.m.c.a. I'm sure they can help you today.
It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a. It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys
It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a. It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
You can get yourself cleaned, you can have a good meal, You can do whatever you feel
Young man, I was once in your shoes. I said, I was down and out with the blues. I felt no man cared if I were alive. I felt the whole world was so tight
That's when someone came up to me, And said, young man, take a walk up the street. There's a place there called the y.m.c.a. They can start you back on your way.
It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a. It's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
They have everything for you men to enjoy, You can hang out with all the boys
Y-m-c-a
Y-m-c-a
Y-m-c-a
This is my new favorite Offtopic/Troll. That was the funniest shit I've ever seen. I need to find a video of that so I can relive the moment over and over.
I'm not sure if this is a joke or if this is a typical Mac user's view of the computing landscape today.
How many clients can connect to OS X Client? That would be interesting to know. Granted, the server version comes with tools, but what tools are really there that aren't available for free somewhere?
stuff |
Must be nice, ever consider adoption? ;D
--- Do you believe in the day?
"Mac OS X is Unix."
Be careful about statements like that. The Open Group could sue you for that...rightfully so. Mac OS X is not Unix. It's Unix-based. Whatever. FreeBSD rocks.
01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00101110
While you can easily do everything that Panther Server does on your linux box, what Panther excels in is integration. Specifically the binding together of OpenLDAP, Samba, Apache, Postfix, IMAP, POP, and CUPS with the OpenDirectory password server. OpenDirectory's password server is essentially a SASL password store that they've hacked all the programs mentioned to interact directly with it for all authentication. Think of it similarly to what pam does for linux. The nice thing about OpenDirectory is that a password change from any of these mechanisms (say via samba) then all of the password hashes in the database are automatically synced (even kerberos is synced). This makes for very slick administration of users all from one central console. In the past on Linux, it was not uncommon to have to hack together some scripts to syncronize ldap, samba, and kerberos authentication stores. Even in the best case right now, samba password hashes have to be kept in the ldap database along with either an md5 hash for unix logins, or a pointer to kerberos. With OpenDirectory, there are no passwords stored in ldap itself. Instead an Apple Password field points to the password database which can provide md5 challenges and responses, samba challenges, and general password verification.
Essentially OpenDirectory brings all the technologies together that we already use and make them into a service that competes very well with Active Directory or NDS.
Another bonus is that since OpenDirectory (all its parts including the SASL password database and patches to cups, samba, etc) is open source, we could build a complete OpenDirectory-compatible system on Linux. I plan to do this over the next year or so. Most likely there will have to be a pam module created, and some patches made to OpenLDAP, Samba, etc. But it's a very exciting example of how to put open source projects together and have them work really well.
It is commonly known that HOMOSEXUALS fancy apple because homos like design stuff shit like that. Mac is the commonly know gay computer and favoured in gay communities!
You know, a lot of friends and colleagues have been laughing at me when I tell them that Mac is the new force to be reckoned with. I've been watching them for a little while now and ever since they integrated FreeBSD into their OS, they've taken on a new direction which seems a lot more proffitable.
Don't get me wrong, I still have my two Linux and two OpenBSD boxes at home along with the obligatory windows boxes for the wife, daughter and gaming.. but you know what? I'd love to get my hands on one of them OS X boxes..
If you don't think I'm right.. that's your opinion.. but I know if I had OS X experience, I might be able to get a job Here!
---
No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife in the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style.
So asking a reasonable question is trolling now? Yeah, right.
Hey you apple users! Join the APPLE computer club YMCA!!!! Men and boys do it together!!! YMCA!!!!
...I really do want to know why I should use this in a Win2K environment. My boss wouldn't care what I get as long as it does the job. What I want to know is: Can this server provide me with tools to form a good bridge between Windows, Apple, and Linux clients?
SAMBA 3, from what I read is GREAT, but it in no way yet compares to the ease of use of MS's Active Directory tools (at least in configuring Windows clients).
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
You mean there is an argument over that ? Emacs trashes VI, doesn't it ? Hehehehehehe.....
i just want to say that i enjoyed this review, and i'm looking forward to tomorrow's followup.
/. quality, i figured that i'd actually do the opposite for a change and congratulate the editors for a 'stuff that matters' moment... i thought this article was fun to read, and not just because i too am an osx/linux weenie.
in light of the fact that its so easy to complain about
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Come on, this one was funny, you gotta have some sense of humor! Mod up! I mean, you are gays (gay = happy?).
To me, Workgroup Manager is the reason to buy OS X Server (assuming you are running a Mac OS X network with multiple users and OS X clients). It is a nice, zero effort way to manage multiple users and client computers - controlling who can use which client computers and which files/folders will follow them around from computer to computer.
Sign up now and meet a gal who knows a lot about Unix, is probably overweight, and deals with her own crushing insecurity by assuming all those around her are stupid! Maybe like this one!
Wow, even when there's no article to click on to read, you don't even read the review - just the headline and the "Reply" button. Try to read it, and understand that the Apple hardware is super reliable, supported, and runs an easy to use, high performance, standards-based OS with open-source apps. Then consider that many people have Mac technique experience, from GUI to other skills, and those skills can be used to get the power of a commercial unix server: MacOSX Server.
--
make install -not war
I thought when Jobs introduced the new XServe he also said that they would come with an unlimited client license.
You're missing the killer server features.
You know how Kerberos can be a real pain to set up and manage? Well with Panther Server, if you've set up a box as an Open Directory master, it automatically integrates itself as a KDC.
Any boxes which log into that OD/LDAP directory automatically retrieve the relevant Kerberos information from the LDAP store, no extra configuration required.
The AFP server, the SMB server, the POP/IMAP/SMTP servers are all Keberized, as is the ssh daemon, and the loginwindow of any client machines.
It's probably worth discussing the fact that Apple have finally gotten their shit together with regards to command line administration, as in that everything you can do with the GUI tools you now have *simple* command line equivalents.
ie, no more screwing around with NetInfo and inserting properties by hand to construct mounts/users, you now have proper tools.
Apple finally did the smart thing and followed what most OSXS admins have been doing for a few years, they've dropped their proprietary AppleMailServer in favour of postfix+cyrus.
They've pretty much dropped NetInfo for network directories, it's now just restricted to a local store, and LDAP publishes this information by default. You can still run a NetInfo directory, and indeed I've got boxes logging into both my old NetInfo directory and my new LDAP directory so that I can do user migration more easily.
There are a wealth of features that weren't even touched upon by this review, it's just kind of lame to read a home user's review of a server product.
i don't read slashdot anymore.
Interesting.. I got 287/224/126. I wonder whats different about our boxes. I've got everything updated, as well.
having spent half the day yesterday working on getting 10.3 server with Open Directory/PDC mojo working on a brand new xserve, let me just say that Apple does not have 10.3 server configuring itself correctly at all. 1. DNS is not turned on or preconfigured with a minimally working zone file. 2. Kerberos isn't set up or on. And if it isn't set up, Open Directory wont work. Oops, did I mention that DNS isn't on either? That will also prevent Kerberos and OD from working. 3. The LDAP db that gets set up is buggered from the start because of 1 and 2. 4. Because of 1, 2 and 3, forget getting the Windows PDC stuff working. A nice Apple server tech sent me a loooong handwritten doc on what needed to be changed to get it all to work, which it did after I followed it. But, out of the box, even after those nice configuration wizard screens, it just isn't set up correctly. Amazing.
I have been a Linux user for about 10 years (when I first got Slackware over a 1200 baud modem) and until recently I was using a super-cheap Linux box to run Java server side stuff for my little NLP software business.
I switched over to using an old G4 Mac for running web services about 4 months ago. It is a little too early to tell, but I seem to be spending less time taking care of the G4 server (approxametely 1 hour a month - and I think that I used to spend 2 or 3 hours a month messing with my Linux server).
Anyway, a life for old Macs :-)
-Mark
I've got a PowerBook G3/400 in my stereo closet for playing MP3s. The PowerBook doesn't have internal AirPort, and instead is connected to another switch and another Extreme base station, configured to do WDS.
Run a god damn wire you dumb shit! You've thrown away several HUNDRED dollars so you can be cool and have wireless to a STATIONARY laptop. Or if you're not in the mood for a little physical labor (fat ass?) you could at a minimum buy an Airport card, or if the PowerBook is too old you could get a USB wireless adaptor.
Good lord. How much credit do I give this guy on servers when he does retarded ass things like this?
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
Maybe he has more packages installed than you?
the writer meant that Mac/Windows network integration services is a small corner of the computing world. That's the only way I can read it that doesn't make the writer sound extremely isolated.
creation science book
Ha! No GUI for you! Open up Terminal and administer via CLI like the rest of the unwashed masses.
Let's see here, I have a "server" at home that does some similar things:
1. DNS
2. DHCP
3. Samba
4. Appletalk
5. Appleshare
6. Remote administration
7. LDAP
8. FTP
9. Apache
Funny though, when I type "uname -o" in a "terminal" window, it tells me GNU/Linux. Did I get ripped off? Oh wait, I didn't have to pay $500 for this, I got it for free! My bad...
Another amusing quote:
My wife doesn't need the file server -- we can exchange files via iChat, or I can copy them to her machine via scp -- and she keeps all her own files on her machine. We won't be using any print quotas. I do use Workgroup Manager to create some basic user accounts for friends, but I don't need any features more advanced than what is in Client.
Um ... what's the point in paying $500 for a server OS (and I use that term loosely) if you're not going to ... serve?
THE 311 NUMBER IS A SCAM. NOBODY IS BEING HELPED WHEN YOU CALL. POLICE TAKE THE COLD AND HOMELESS AND RELOCATE THEM TO SLIGHTLY WARMER CLIMATES - THIS DOES NOT MAKE THEM HAPPY. LEAVING YOUR AREA WITHOUT A TRACE OR PENDING FAMILY NOTIFICATION IS HORRENDOUS. DO NOT CALL 311. IT IS A SCAM.
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Workgroup Manager uses a lot of terminology that is completely lost on me, and I am not managing any users, really.
Gripe number two - who the hell is this guy? Why does he have an XServe in his home?
Has any notable person, perhaps a system administrator, done a review on the OS X Server package? I have an XServe G5 coming to my advertising agency (as soon as they ship). Perhaps I'll write a worth while review of it.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
> Please stop saying that MacOS X unix tools is based upon FreeBSD.
> Apple actually took parts of NetBSD, FreeBSD
> and OpenBSD.
> Most tools actually come from OpenBSD.
**YAWN **
Most source files that, when compiled, have RCS IDs in the resulting object file, and that are used to build tools, came from OpenBSD.
Try running a script such as
and look at the output. Many tools have no RCS IDs in the binary. Some of them have multiple RCS IDs in them, as more than one source file for a tool in that set has an RCS ID in it that shows up in the object file.
If we prune that output to leave, for each tool, only one line for each OS for each tool, we get 85 lines for NetBSD, 75 lines for FreeBSD, and 19 lines for OpenBSD - OpenBSD is overrepresented in your results because, for example, the OpenSSH stuff came from OpenBSD, with each tool having multiple source files, and most if not all of those files put the RCS ID into the binary.
NetBSD is slightly overrepresented by the counts I gave, as Panther's yacc came from NetBSD, and its skeleton parser puts an RCS ID into the object file; if we remove those 7 lines, we get 78 for NetBSD.
Of course, there are a lot of commands that don't have any RCS information at all. 171 commands do, but there are a total of 928 commands. This means that your counts and my counts don't necessarily give any believable information about the number of tools that came from FreeBSD, NetBSD, or OpenBSD, unless all the tools without RCS IDs came from elsewhere (GNU, Apple, etc.).
Run yellow dog or geentoo linux..
As the subject, ever heard of LDAP?
Hi, I have pac man fever so I bought the most expensive box at the store - OSX Server.
I put it on my computer, and then put a laptop on top of my stereo.
And then I dont really use it for managing stuff or sharing files theres only me and my cat in the house, also I dont know about technical stuff like kerbones because I'm not much of a computer guy I just know the most expensive stuff HAS to be the best.
So all in all I give Mac OSX Server a 10 out of 10 it is very cool and has wonderful animated icons, and not too many buttons on the mouse to confuse me.
Stay tuned for part 2 of my review, where I plan to put my iPod next to it and take pictures!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
WTF is up with you? He does whatever he wishes with his money unless he trespasses on other peoples rights which he doesnt do here.
<nasal voice>
I'm Robin Leach, sucking up to the rich! And today we pay a visit to 'pudge', open source luminary and owner of several hundred thousand dollars worth of Apple hardware. We check out his priceless Louis OSX 'Work-A-Do' desk inlaid with mother-of-god Cheeto fragments and get the lowdown about his LUG escapades from his wife! Stay tuned! But first, a message from our sponsors, OSDN Personals!!
</nasal-voice>
This boy need to do less of die cocaine and stop leaving da server lying round.
I find it odd how you can be personally offended by someone's use of a base station. For a PowerBook G3/400 you need to use a PCMCIA Airport card running the open source driver found here: http://wirelessdriver.sourceforge.net/
There is no Airport card for the PowerBook G3/400 or a supported USB device.
However, I'll tolerate your lack of knowledge, but I can't give your comment much credit.
Here is a review of Panther Server for you from OS News http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5221
.\.\att Clare
That's interesting, but what does Netcraft have to say about it? And what about Kreskin?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I looked at the XServe for a NAS solution but couldn't find any information on things such as snapshots. Is it there? Coming?
Ok, I admit to hearing about this OSX server, but chalked it up to marketing fluff -- stuff that wasn't meant to be understood in the context of common sense. So art houses that really think Macintoshes are better for photoshop can feel like geeks, or something.
Now, somebody on slashdot has apparently actually bought and installed it this thing. Although he doesn't seem very technical, he also doesn't seem stupid. So I don't understand why.
Darwin on X86, I suppose I could understand, for fun. Darwin on heavy IBM iron, I could understand if it scaled fairly well and got blessed properly.
But why OSX? Why would people actually pay so much money to have all that licky-clicky gui stuff get in their way on a server?
There's the rub, you're paying for the support - a grand isn't *that* much for unlimited clients if you get support (especially unlimited free, as somebody has claimed). How much is RH Enterprise?
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
``Remote Apple Events has been in Mac OS for many years, since back in version 7-dot-something. It allows controlling "scriptable" Mac applications -- such as with AppleScript -- over the network. It used to run over AppleTalk, but now runs over plain old TCP/IP. Not many people make use of remote Apple events in my experience, but I use them often; for example, I have a Perl script that queries iTunes on a remote box, and sets the current track in iChat.''
Does this mean that, on macs, you can
1. Script GUI apps
2. Script them over the network
? That gives the traditional unices a run for their money, I should think...
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Say "BSD", please. If you say "UNIX" SCO will sue Apple and Darl McBride will institute "introductory" OSX license pricing of $1000 a seat.
The man who never alters his opinion is like the stagnant water and breeds Reptiles of the Mind -- William Blake
Here's what Netcraft has to say....
</Blatant Plug>
--Paul
Trainer/Curriculum Developer
Apple Computer
RTFA. buy an xserve get the server with an unlimmed client lic.
You said frelling. I hope Ka D'argo catches you talking that way. He might like it.
www.farscape.com
Help me Mr. Wizard! Help me!
This class of comment was funny for the first 3 or 4 Apple stories /. did, but now it's just obvious. Come on people, let's get original.
, a G4 card in it, and a huge IDE system (with RAID or without) AND running Mac OS X Server. I think Apple missed the boat not supporting these Macs with OS X. They make great little OS X workhorses.
I don't think so, especially when it comes to the MacOS X Server. Remember that the 90-days "up and running" support is included in this package. PowerMacs of the 9xxx series are unable to run MacOS X without a third-party G3 upgrade card. So now Apple would have to test and support their system not on the Apple-branded hardware. They could probably do this - but this would be obviously a more expensive solution for them; especially now, when many third-party manufacturers of these cards simply no longer exist. And the whole gain would be at least questionable. These machines were running on a 33-50 MHz system bus. They have ridicolous limitations on the harddrive size (first partition must be smaller than 8 GB). Their extremely obsolete graphics cards cannot run Quartz Extreme (yes, I know, it's not that important on a server - but then again, if all you need is a headless server, why don't you just put Linux on it?). The G3 daughterboard cards generally had many compatibility and stability issues, making them a bad choice for a server and at best a stop-gap choice for workstations. I think that "running MacOS X Server on a G3-upgraded 9600" is just an even-more-geeky kind of "imagine a Beowulf cluster of these". Funny thing to think of to kill spare time, but nothing of practical value.
You know, it seems to me that Apple has replaced Sun in the high-end server department. Now, I fully admit that servers are not my usual cuppa, so someone with more experience please correct me if I'm wrong. But from where I sit Apple servers look a lot more attractive, and not just on an aesthetics level, either. Sun *used* to be the end-all-be-all when it came to high-end servers, but apart from the Sun Fires it seems that Apple has much more to offer these days.
I am using FreeBSD-CURRENT at home and I am happy with it. And sometimes I'm getting sad about how crippled Mac OS X Server got, because Apple decided to make GUIs for most things, which:
Let's take cyrus-imapd, e.g.
Secondly, I don't like the Classic environment. It is highly unstable in conjuction with Apple-events (Applescript). I am getting "Apple Event Timeouts" all the time with Adobe's Framemaker and the error messages are not very helpful.
Sometimes Classic goes up to 100% CPU usage and I have to kill it manually. It happens mostly when one application starts another application within Classic. This happens often when VISE-installer is calling himself to install a second application, which is a part of the whole package. I managed crash the Classic-engine a couple of times, while starting Mac OS 9 applications.
Maybe you have different experience, but for me it stays a disaster, because I need the G4 sometimes. One thing is sure, the upgrade from 10.2 to 10.3 brought more stability, but that's all to be happy about.
People who want 1> reliable, long lived hardware 2> relatively easy, familiar operating environment with standard apps 3> affordable support from an experienced, user-friendly service organization that actually develops the tech they're supporting. Total Cost of Ownership studies are probably available from Apple, and I'd expect they're compelling, especially for the installed base of Mac shops. You'd be surprised how much easier selling a server platform to IT can be, when there's a marketing team with decades of experience behind them, a brand name before them, and solid business cases for their technology holding it all together.
--
make install -not war
When I had both machines in place I ran into an issue where I had to rebuild the main one, so I transferred the data to the secondary server and planned to swap them. I changed their settings and IP addresses ... and all of the user accounts on the primary file server disappeared.
This was odd.
I Googled for it and came up with the answer: if you set up a password server on 10.2 Server you can't change the machine's IP address. This has to do with how Apple built the LDAP system that manages passwords, so it's a requirement if you want Windows file sharing (Samba in disguise) enabled. Which I did.
I called Apple tech support and they confirmed it: if I wanted to do Windows file sharing, I needed to set up a "password server" (LDAP). And if I set up a password server, I couldn't change the IP address of the machine. Ever. If I did, the users and groups would vanish into thin air. I asked if I could back up the user and group databases and then upload them again ... and they said no. Not without stripping the passwords out. So I'd have to have my users reset their passwords.
I was stunned. The inability to back up user account information, complete with passwords, and to change the IP address is ridiculous, and not the mark of a true, flexible server OS. So right now I'm migrating them to PPC Linux with Samba. I know 10.3 Server probably addresses these issues, but Linux is just simpler. Heck, all I have to do with Linux/Samba is replicate the passwd, group, shadow and smbpasswd files between the machines. Instant mirror servers. And it'll just work.
Besides, tar and mt will give me better control over tape backups than Retrospect did. Retrospect was always propting me for tapes of a particular set, and rejecting tapes that were from the wrong set. I don't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about backup sets. On Linux, it's just "See that tape drive? Put the data there, and shut up about it." And it does. And it's good.
End of rant.
Heh. A 9500 only has two drive bays- three if you feel like ripping out the floppy and boring holes in the case with a dremel. When it comes to internal drive capacity, you want a 9600, 8600, or beige G3- all of which have internal tray capacity for five drives (one 3.5, then four in the front that are universal trays with mounts for floppy, zip, hard drive, and CDRom- you can easily drop out the floppy and smack in a hard drive). Alternatively, you can add a few firewire cards and load in several drives, but you're still limited by the system bus. :P
:)
:D
My home fileserver is a beige G3/266 with 256 megs of ram. Two IDE hard drives - a 60 and an 80- UWSCSI for an internal 4g disk, an Adaptec 29{3|4}0 card for the outboard 9g SCA drive that holds the OS, and an Apple rom 10/100 ethernet card. It's running 10.2 Server (10.2.0- I've never bothered to patch it up) and runs out basic file services to my home network. Runs like a champ, minus the initial pains in the arse of getting the OS actually ON. All of the SLOW one experiences in OS X is totally at the graphical userland level, in my experience- which isn't something the server uses. My workstation (also a biege G3, running Panther Client thanks to XPF) is a slug, and it has 128 more ram than the server... but I use it largely for gui stuff, and the OS is (UNFORTUNATELY) on an IDE drive- the big SCSI went into the server.
I could easily do the server on my 9600 with the Sonnet ATA/66 card that's in my 7300, but the ATA card seems to be a bit flaky, and the 9600's already running linux just fine....
Alternatively, I could toss on Server 1.1 without using XPF at all. It's neat to play with if you can find the media, although I personally wouldn't use it for anything other than Apple File Services.
It is less hassle to get 10.2 or 10.3 onto a beige mac, if you don't have much linux experience- but linux has this funny habit of supporting older hardware that OS X screams about.
It's not related to the topic, but then again there's no book with answer to this, (and on net at least as I searched)
After the last (dec-17) update on 10.3, I (not really me, but few of my customers) suffered errors on OS.
When network drive is mounted, either smb: or afp: system icons in top right corner are blinking are moving, and if disk is mounted too long OS freezes (was searching on net and found very large number of problems, of which all are similiar). Other problems are not really important (not severe) and nobody cares.
Is there any solution?
And conclusion:
After troubles with powerbooks and this security update along with other problems I suspect that Apple quality control has gone bad. I was used to Apple in their better times now lucky me, Apple free shop
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
If you have a x100 lying around, or a 7200, your options consist of MKLinux or MacOS. Unless developers have made serious progress on that front, and personally, I can't imagine there being much motivation to do so. :)
:D
:-)
The only major issue I've had with linux on older mac hardware is the usual X11 nightmare, specifically with motherboard video on 8500s/7300s. Back when it was a priority for me, the one x11 config I found was wrong. THAT was a fun experience....
Another issue I've had - which is largely due to the fact I'm a longtime mac user and used to things Just Working- is that the linuces I've tried on my hardware have a funny tendency to ignore SCSI cards or refuse to boot with certain hardware in place- I have an Orange Micro board that OS X cheerfully ignores, OS 9 sees without a problem, which makes Linux quite angry, which I find fairly amusing.
Then there's modem support.
Depending on your needs and hardware, you're definitely going to get a LOT more performance out of linux than you will with OS X on beige hardware- especially if you intend to actually use a GUI. In which case, well... X11 is a SPEED DEMON on a 7300's motherboard video compared to Jaguar.
http://afp548.com/
It's a great site with lots of very informative, down and dirty technical articles. They also have a forum where you can post questions.
The same guys produce some utilities designed to make VPN and DNS easier...
Please explain how on earth a 1U 2 processor Xserve could possibly "replace" a Sun Enterprise system. Because that's "high end", believe it or not. 32 processors. Hundreds of gigabytes of ram. Disk arrays that fill closets, not 3-5U. Please point me to the SAN(no, the Xraid is NOT a SAN!) and tape backup solutions offered by Apple. Sun *used* to be the end-all-be-all when it came to high-end servers, but apart from the Sun Fires it seems that Apple has much more to offer these days.
You're smoking crack, considering Apple makes ONE model in three configs, and Sun offers everything from a Sun Fire that costs 1/2 as much as the Xserve, to systems in the millions of dollars range...and the tools that can manage that kind of hardware effectively(apple's tools are neat, but not ready for managing hundreds of servers etc.)
Please help metamoderate.
If you mean authentication realms, you can just define them to use usernames from Open Directory.
otherwise I'm not sure what you mean?
i don't read slashdot anymore.
If you run a Mac network, you can do really cool stuff with Automount points. All my Macs mount a /Network/Application, /Network/Library, and a few other mount points thrown in. The GUI land includes /Network/Library in the search path for stuff, (/System/Library for system installed stuff, /Library for stuff installed by the Admin, ~/Library for stuff installed by you, nice and clean and straightforward).
/Network/Applications (server installed apps with drag-and-drop, really nice) /Network/Library (frameworks for custom Cocoa apps, etc) /Network/Software (software installers, why not, right) ... and the Users share, that unfortunately can't be automounted as /Network/Users
Each AFP mount counts against the license, no biggie... 7 Macs, all permenantly connected, and we had 3 connections left for laptops.
Incorrect. While all my connections, once logged in, go through one AFP connection, the Automount connections are done anonymously. Oh no, 2 AFP connections from machine->server, anonymous automounts, then w/ permissions mounts. It's worse! Each automount creates it's OWN connection.
So we were automounting:
well, I had 4 (at the time) automounts, so the first two machines to boot were fine, but machine 3 was all messed up.
Took forever to diagnose and realize that we needed an unlimited license.
Took a few hours with Apple support to diagnose, and they didn't figure out the problem until I started at Server Admin and had the problem. Users couldn't log in, because starting with machine 3, they couldn't get their home directories.
I REALLY like OS X Server's admin tools. LDAP went from scary and impossible to point-and-click. However, even with Panther Server, MUCH better than Jaguar Server, it has some issues.
Alex
Er...no. Apple is a competitor in the LOW END 64 BIT MIDRANGE SERVER MARKET. For all of their bells and whistles they are missing out on a lot of the features you'll find in higher end Sun and IBM Servers (how about logical machine partitioning a la IBM's LPARs, how about having more than two processors, how about...you get the idea.) Apple will tell you this too, they don't pretend to have anything other than a low end 64 bit Server. Cluster enough of them together and you can have a super computer. They are powerful, but don't mistake them for Sun 250's.
Yes, and KDE 2.x and 3.x have it too in the form of dcop. dcop is a command-line tool that allows one access to an exported set of functions in any given KDE program. dcop bindings are available for many languages and dcop itself can be used in conjunction with the shell to script events. And yes, it even works on the network, with encryption if I add another pipe (wow, the magic of UNIX).
The main reason why I bought OS X server 3 years a go and (have kept on upgrading) was to be able to use the QuickTime streaming server. I use it in conjunction with Apache to stream QuickTime movies embedded in web pages all from the same server.
You can now use the free Darwin streaming server on different platforms. By now I am used to using OS X server.
The remote GUI admin tools are nice and now I use it for MySQL/ Apache/PHP (slightly older version pre installed), and file sharing between win2k and mac workstations.
Running those same commands on my FreeBSD 4.9 server, I get the results: 60/6769/440
The *BSDs share so much code between each other, and most source files have ident tags from different *BSDs, that Apple could have mostly pulled from FreeBSD and may still produce the numbers you saw.
And if I set up a password server, I couldn't change the IP address of the machine. Ever.
This has been addressed by Apple with a script to change the IP settings everywhere necessary, without breaking any services.
Works like a charm, I had to do it a couple months ago for a client.
~Philly
An important feature of OS X Server is the Server Administration tools. My own home server, which has the internal 6 meg ATI chipset (see above post in this thread) is a slug when I need to hit the gui. But I don't. Apple has provied Server Admin Tools with OS X Server, and the tools for Jag run very well under Panther client. These gui tools allow me to add users, manage shares, manage printers, quicktime streaming (if in use), configure Apache to an extent, DHCP, Netboot.... basically, everything you DO with a server that you don't do with client. And the tools can be installed on ANY machine running OS X. Load them up, they ask for a server IP or domain name. Enter it in, it asks for your password for the server (admin accounts only, naturally). And BLAM!
:-)
:-) And I've never had problems with hard drives bigger than 8g running OS X on IDE host adapters- I had 10.1 installed on a 60g in a 9500 awhile back, and it was Just Fine. This is due entirely to the controller- the system sees it as a SCSI drive. :D
I have complete remote control of all of my server functions from my workstation, and the ones I can't access via the gui tools can be hit through the command line. With the older Server 1.x, you needed a web browser to manage shares, which was both interesting (the convienience) and annoying (security, you needed to be at ANOTHER MACHINE that WASN'T THE SERVER to do it).
Yeah, you can do hardcore awesome amounts of remote management with linux (I recently recompiled a kernel, formatted a RAID array, installed and set up samba, netatalk, and genrally completely configured a linux server from my desktop through a slew of terminal windows. SO SEXY OMG), but the gui tools for OS X are AWESOME for admins with limited command line fu- I got Jaguar Server up and completely configured just how I wanted it without help, compared to both of my monitors being strewn with google searches and man page entries with my linux configuration process. Some people don't want to do it the hard way, and can't afford the new toys.
As for compatability and stability of G3 boards... I only had stability problems if I diddled with the defaults on the control software. So I didn't. I've run OS X, Linux, and MacOS 9.x on g3 upgraded machines, rock solid, without difficulties.
And concerning the 8 gig limit- that only affects Beige G3s and the original iMacs. And only on IDE drives. My workstation had to be partitioned (80g- 8/2/$), my iMac had to be partitioned (60g, 6/54), and my server didn't (9g SCA). It's an IDE thing, not a SCSI thing, and the old beige machines such as the 9600 are SCSI.
What I really want to know is whether OS X server can do filesystem snapshots (a la NetApp, Win2k3 storage server, Veritas-FS, etc), and if not, when are they going to support this feature.
It was the availability of Netatalk that convinced me to go with Linux/x86 back in 1996 to serve my Mac shop.
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
How much does redhat cost, now that they've gone to advanced server? Here it is:
item: basic, standard, premium
red hat enterprise, x86: 349, 799, -
red hat advanced, x86: -, $1499, $2499
red hat advanced, pseries: -, $1992, $2998
Not bad, really - it's cheaper than rhas on POWER.
I have a Beige G3 266 (oc'd to 300) as well.
We have os9 on it, and it really kills me to use it
10.1.5 is also on it, and Panther doesn't want to upgrade it, because my hardware is old.
In your experience, how well would this computer perform as a desktop (iChat, Safari, MS Office) computer?
thanks!
I'd wager that right now the Active Directory toolsets are much better and more mature than whatever you'll be using to manage samba and open directory.
I'm saying this because there are companies who's specialty is building tools to manage AD forests, while as far as I know nobody really makes real (industrial strength) tools to manage samba - and only apple (and a small part of apple at that) does anything with OD.
Um, nope. This was settled in a death match: vi trounced Emacs 17 times before Emacs finished loading!
Actually Marathon Computing made a rackmount case which you could stuff with the innards of an iMac and called it iRack.
We've got one at work, running 10.2 Server and it does fine as an accounting and file server.
I've never even heard of Firefly, but the sig just blew my mind. It's Goram. (I think)
The beauty about the Server Package are the easy to use integrated tools that allow anyone to use this Server in a already implemented Network, Active Directory or LDAP for example. You gotta have other OS's to test and review this.
Afte playing with Panther, you won't go back to another system for Services, it's easy to use and you have all the utilities you normally would use on a Unix environment + Apple Tools.
0011 1111 0111 1010
You can get a basic idea of Panther performance in my own words here: http://www.secretaboutbox.com/museum/000098.php. It's a writeup of my workstation, which is a beige G3 with a 350 processor overclocked to 366, and 388 ram.
.
:)
My experience with installing Panther is also written up, here : http://www.secretaboutbox.com/articles/000096.php
Basically, if you have a supported video card and enough ram, you'll be able to handle iChat, Safari, and Office fine. I browse the net with the machine reviewed above through a modem shared out on my iMac, and my only problem is that Safari hogs the entire connection- so it's load pages or type in IRC.
Anything more demanding than Office / internet (like video, games, photoshop), and you'll be tearing your hair out.
Run netbsd if you want a bsd flavor on it.
Though I had to move our workplace linux server into testing to snag a netatalk revision that doesn't BARF on panther, and stable revisions don't do more than the Classic MacOS filename limitations. :| And then the size limitations- afpd doesn't like anything over two gigs in my experience.... and I have a few files in the 13-16 range (I do video). So we wound up using Samba and Netatalk on the box, and juggling between the two for data transfer. :P
:-)
Still, you can get the aforementioned anemic macs on ebay for 25-100$ (depending on options), and a newer box is going to be a bit pricier, even if it's a PC. I know if I buy an 8500 for 25$ that I'm not going to have to buy a second ethernet card for it, and if all I need is a DHCP server, hey... some people don't like to deal with a bios.
Applescript is amazingly powerful. I have a friend who runs a (very simple) robot on a MMORPG using just an applescript. It's also quite simple.
I've never used the remote abilities much, mind you. Except a few times for quitting a iChat or mail.app or something else remotely.
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Well, I had an old 8600/250G3 with over 800GB of HD space crammed into it for quite a while, running 10.2 Server. I had no end of trouble getting 10.3 server to run on it, and have given up for the moment.
Don't tell Bush that there's an iRack not under his control!
You need to take your paper MCSE back to the mill where you bought it! People with (l)user attitude, like you, shouldn't set their hands anywhere NEAR a server...let alone try and configure one. I'm not really trying to be elitist or deriding here, but you sound like you want the AOL install approach where you can toss the CD in and have a server 30 minutes later. Get real, get a clue and until you do leave the server setups to professionals.
If your network is mixed like ours with static and dynamic ips and a MS DNS server :-( , it isn't plug and play. We had to upgrade all of the 10.2 clients to 10.3 to get it so users could authenticate. Was it kerberos? I don't know. What I hated about the configuration was the dc=booger dc=froogle dc=et cetera to get the client to bind to the server. You would think that somebody would write a parser to handle it. Also the user lists don't update immediately and you have the feeling that the machine didn't take the user entries although when you test it, it works. OOH and another thing, does anybody know how to get it to mount the RAID if it has to restart?
Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. (Wilde)
NeXTStep: Mach 2.x kernel with BSD 4.3 userland plus some proprietary stuff on top including a proprietary windowing system using DisplayPS.
Mac OS X: Mach 3.x kernel with BSD 4.4+ (mostly from FreeBSD) userland plus some proprietary stuff on top including a proprietary windowing system using Display PDF
Note a similarity?
10.3 (finally) updated a lot of userland from FreeBSD 3.x stuff so we have decent IPv6 support and several other improvments, major and minor.
Mach, from CMU, threads nicely and did well for NeXT. HFS+ is all but proprietary (it would be neat if the OS X UFS implementation wasn't quite so old).
We'll skip over the whole Jobs'ism of DisplayPS and Objective C and creating NI when my other 12 *nix architectures spoke NIS (only). LDAP is a fine replacement for NI/NIS/NIS+. If only I could run a window from another machine without VNC. It's just like SunView :)
The big big win is pulling over NetBSD's pkgsrc (free and openbsd call it "ports") and use it on OS X (or solaris, or linux or irix).
Building your tools from source means no "find the RPM and trust the guy who built it" and no issues with library versions (linux's version of DLL hell) plus you get NetBSD's pkg_* system and a good ftp client :).
Oh, and the fact that I can BUY it and get buy it and get contractually obligated support means less of a hard sell into the OpenSource Phobic corporate world....
if they'd get over that "but it's apple" thing. (yes, it's apple. the vendor that ships more Unix that any other company).
..I have one as well that I use in a stereo rack playing MP3s via iTunes. Its exceptionally fun now that I have a bluetooth dongle and can skip through all the songs with Salling Clicker from my Tungsten T3.
;)
All the turbo geeky goodness.
At least two friends have complained that OSX Server's Apache/Web GUI has trashed their carefully hand-crafted apache configurations without warning.
+++OK ATH
Apple is pretty smart. They know that Apple buyers really do care just how slick their server will look locked up in that rackroom or rack cabinet.
Coming from a job where the Director of Tech was an apple lover and made IT dept buy an XServe, I had a chance to play with it. Really unimpressed for the cost. All of the GUI apps had free and usually more featureful linux counterparts . Most of the time the admins did their work in the command line anyway.
When the controller and the ceo found out that we could have bought and built out three x86 boxes running linux for less, the DT was put on the short list and three months later was audited and fired. When it came down to it, there really was no ROI going with the X boxes. A flashy GUI? I'd personally fire anyone who bought server hardware based on that.
Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
Whoah.
:D
Looks like I can actually get some use out of The Collection. I acquired two each of 6100, 7100, and 8100s and they've been gathering dust in the basement.... and 6100s are evil little pizza boxes.
ph34r.
...it is more like the "reviews" I see on sites set up just so someone can get free stuff. A long description of what was done, and of the set up of the environment, but short on actual reviewing of the product itself.
"Heh heh it has Ron D. View" and "I tried on my dualie but it'll work on a hemi". Sheesh!
THIS GUY? He's telling us about a Server OS? XServe!?!
Next up, I will review a Sun E15000 for sharing MP3's with my girlfriend, and using old SGI render farms from Toy Story 1 to replace my TiVo for the two half hour shows I tape every week. Stay tuned!
I've taken my three button USB mouse from my SGI 320 and stuck it on one of my OSX machine a while back and it worked just great. It understands all the three button functions correctly out of the box in X11 and other applications without any drivers or any additional cofiguration. Apple DOES support multi-button mice. In Expose' you can program even ask a four or five button mouse to use certain functions. I now use a IBM scrool wheel mouse made for PCs. The CD did not come with a driver for OSX, but I plugged it into my OSX G4 Powerbook and now I use the fourth mouse button used by the thumb to activate the same function as F10 in Expose.
First I like the report and wait for part 2 (3??). /etc.
To sum up a reply to a lot of the posts here, you should compare an X-Serve with SUN or IBM boxes and the respective OS, or even Windows Server (whatever it may be called at the time of this writing). The X-Serve with unlimited User license out of the box gives the aforementioned systems a run for the money, verbatim.
About a year ago I gave the system a shot and installed Oracle 9i R2 and QuickTime Streaming Server to see how the box performs. I didn't manage to get the CPU load over 60 % while doing three audio streams, users connected to the fileshares (Mac and Windows) and running Oracle with load. The setup was painless and I switched between GUI and CLI to see if it makes a difference. The only thing I could really complain about, but that holds true to some Linux distros as well, is the fact that some GUI tools mess up the config files in
BTW: I'm a Unix SysAdmin for 17 years by now and went through *NIX systems some of you might not even heard of.
my 2 cents
No disrespect to Apple, but currently OS X is as optimized for 64-bit computing as OSes 8&9 were optimized for PowerPC.
You could have more applications loaded in memory, but each of them AFAIK could still address only 2GB of RAM.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Linux has become tremendously popular in the enterprise partly because it is a cheap alternative for an edge operating system. Now, Linux is also maturing into the truly business critical server market, and has for some time.
For a business with perhaps 10-20 employees, an Xserve would do nicely! And - guess what - in many countries, that is a large number of companies. A 4-processor hot-swappable box is too big and too expensive for those companies. What they want is a server to run their mail, and to be their fileserver.
Otherwise, the real savings lie in finding suitable web applications hosted elsewhere.
Stop the brainwash
i was curious, so i ran the experiment. my numbers, at least on OS X Server, are quite different. like, a ton different. it's quite curious. observe:
/usr/bin/* /bin/* /usr/sbin/* /sbin/* 2>/dev/null | fgrep OpenBSD | wc -l
16
: cider;ident /usr/bin/* /bin/* /usr/sbin/* /sbin/* 2>/dev/null | fgrep FreeBSD | wc -l
65
: cider;ident /usr/bin/* /bin/* /usr/sbin/* /sbin/* 2>/dev/null | fgrep NetBSD | wc -l
20
: cider;ident
also interesting is the fact that running the same experiment on my Panther PowerBook yields almost exactly the numbers you saw (my NetBSD count is 145; other two are spot on). i've got no idea what this says, but i found it pretty interesting.
note also that apple's own claim is that the system is mostly FreeBSD-based, with bits pulled in from [Open,Net]BSD, as well. they're not hiding anything.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
It's some variant on a BSD. It's not UNIX and it never will be, even if Apple gets it certified to carry the UNIX seal of approval. And it's GUI bites harder than the Matrix: Reloaded.
If you keep Server Admin running a lot, it will fill up /var/spool/cups/tmp with a lot of files that don't disappear. Not necessarily on the server, but on whatever machine you're running Server Admin. If you leave it running for a while (days), you'll start to notice a GB or two missing.
Just sudo rm -rf /var/spool/cups/tmp to fix it.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
No one cares cause it is Mac, and as far as i know no one gives a darn about Macs Faitfully servering PC's everywhere Joel
holdendeb didn't mention exactly which HP Smart Array controller his company was getting in those "cheap" DL380's. Considering that a 6404 is over $2k by itself, and the 6402 is over $1100, it's probably not the top of the line. Matter of fact, it is more than likely that it is the basic (discontinued) Smart Array 5i which goes for around $300. That's a dual channel Ultra 160 controller. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt that it is a Smart Array 642 with dual Ultra320 SCSI busses and PCI-X interface which sells for over $700.
While that SCSI controller might be able to do a sustained transfer for 320 megabytes per second on each bus, that's not the total throughput. Remember that with a 3 drive RAID-5 array, you have to write 150% the size of the original data - and the RAID controller has to calculate what to write - it is not as simple as just passing the data blocks onward. The bottleneck is usually the RAID controller - it can't keep up. Further, you then have the overhead of the SCSI bus arbitration - better hope he's using both channels and not all on one. Even if there is only one drive, the controller and the target still have to spend time on arbitration. His I/O's per second will probably be decent and his read performance will be good, but his write throughput will suck and the cost of the drives for the capacity will suck. I've used enough of these things to not buy into the SCSI RAID marketing literature anymore - ATA/SATA on the low end, pure FC on the high end + centralized storage where it makes sense.
With the Mac servers being so intuitive to use, Apple really has the advantage in Total Cost of Ownership.
They just haven't marketed this advantage in the server world enough.
Anonymous Coward autoparody, where's the content in *your* post? All you've got is bitter namecalling. My reasonable analysis of Apple's Server marketing and its utility is for the benefit of those questions asked, to which I respond. What's your axe to grind?
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make install -not war
Workgroup Manager uses a lot of terminology that is completely lost on me, and I am not managing any users, really.
You've just missed the boat. User management is the biggest reason to buy an OS X server.
Lots of companies run mixed environments. Here at the school we run Windows, Linux, and OS X. Having our windows domain controllers replicate user lists to OS X servers is a huge deal. Who wants to add 50 new users to three separate systems?
-ted
Jackass!
Basically, if all things are equal in terms of the features you need, the huge advantage over AD (and other directory servers) that Open Directory has that it includes no per client charge. $1000 gets you unlimited users.
Apple makes "the computer for the rest of us". The original vision of the Mac is a "home computer", an info "appliance" like a toaster, not like the mainframes still dominant in 1984 when it was introduced. $1000 toasters are really styled, so is the Mac. Watch the original Mac "1984" ads, and realize that computers then, in the public imagination, were the province of whitecoated lab techs. Steve Jobs has been selling us on "a computer in every garage" with his high-tech/high-touch designs which appeal to our human desires. The intelligent designs under the hood also reflect Apple's long-term service warranties, since the beginning, that keep maintenance costs low, so increase profitability of business units like AppleCare, and keep customers loyal with solid, infrequent service. And girls like Macs, so they make them cute.
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make install -not war