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Review - Mac OS X Server 10.3, Part 2
AFP
The first thing I wanted to do was get file serving up, so I selected AFP (Apple Filing Protocol). My files are all on an external 160GB FireWire hard drive. Photos, (legal) MP3s, tons of (legal) file archives, (legal) games, (legal) movies (I swear!). I am usually the only person who needs to connect via AFP, but sometimes other people do, so I want to make sure I set it up the Right Way.
I quickly discovered that Server Admin does not grant control over what is being shared, and with whom. For this, I must venture forth into Workgroup Manager, and set up a Share Point, and define who has access to it. It is fairly intuitive, and a few minutes later, I set it up and am back in Server Admin, where I make sure Rendezvous registration is on, and allow idle clients to sleep for a long time before being disconnected (good for my PowerBook, which is often asleep). I clicked "enable secure connections" and "enable administrator to masquerade as any registered user."
The masquerading is a neat feature: it allows me to type in any user's name and my admin password, and be logged in as that user. It's not something I'd use often, but it could be handy. Some have complained that this is a security hole. If you think it is, then make good use of that checkbox. Note that this is on by default in Client, where there is no apparent way to turn it off.
To turn on the AFP service, like most of the services, I then clicked the green icon with an arrow in it at the top of the window. When it turns into a red button with an X in it, the service has started; to turn it off, I can click the red button.
AFP in Server as the same as what is in Client. The only difference is that in Server, you have many more options for configuration and control of the service. Last I checked, you could do some of this configuration manually in NetInfo, but it is not for the weak-hearted.
And, as mentioned in the last article, the $500, 10-client version of Server is limited to 10 simultaneous clients on AFP. To get around this, pay double for the unlimited version, or use plain old Panther Client.
MP3s
I wish there were a lightweight music server built-in to Server, one that could use less RAM and CPU, that would just serve MP3s. Alas, there is not. So, I set up iTunes for my music sharing. I won't bore you with the details, for more boring details are yet to come.
And heck, now that iPhoto can share too, it'd be nice to have a photo server as well. What I'd really like to see is the ability to modify the photos via sharing, so I can keep them on the server but manage them with my laptop. I'd also like to download MP3s and use shared MP3s from iMovie and iPhoto. But this is not an iLife review, so I shall move on.
To be blunt: Printer Sharing does not work as I need it to -- as it does in Client -- and it is by far the biggest headache with Server, and almost enough, on its own, to make me revert to using plain old Client.
I have two printers to share: a Canon S820 USB inkjet printer, and the internal fax modem. As you may not know, you can share the fax modem in Panther. Just make sure you have printer sharing on, and that you use your fax modem once to "create" the "printer." It will be shared with everyone else on your network just like any other printer, showing up in the "Fax List" in Printer Setup Utility, and in the "Shared Faxes" popup in the Fax dialog box.
That is to say, all this happens if you are using Client to share your fax modem. This does not work if you are using Server.
Nor does the regular USB Printer Sharing work. Server does not use the same mechanism for sharing. The only way to share my printer with the Clients is to go into the Print service, select the printer in Settings -> Queues, and then share it via LPR (optionally turning on Rendezvous discovery as well).
So when I go to use it in the Client, I can see the printer available, but Client doesn't get any driver information for it. It looks to Client like a generic PostScript printer. You can select from a list of CUPS+Gimp-Print drivers, which may or may not work like the original driver, and may or may not be available for your printer.
For some people, print serving in Panther Server might be fine. You can serve printers via LPR (+Rendezvous), Samba, or AppleTalk. You can have quotas, view jobs, cancel or pause jobs, and do cool things. It's a great tool, but I can't use it.
If I want to share my printer I must either use generic drivers, which is unacceptable to me, or use Client or the AirPort Extreme Base Station. I'd never shared a printer with the Base Station before, but I tried it, and it worked. I am sending faxes through my Panther-based MP3 player in the closet (but receiving them through Server). It's a shame that the $500 Server product can't do what Client can do. Maybe Server 10.4 will fix the problem.
FTP
After wasting a lot of time on printing, I picked something simple: FTP. I do backups with Retrospect via FTP, or else I wouldn't even bother. I know, I can do it over AFP too, but I've been using FTP for awhile (I used to do backups to a Linux box), and I just stick with what works. Besides, I need a reason to enable the service for the purposes of the review.
The path setup was a bit awkward at first. I needed access to the file server via FTP, but I didn't want to define it as the FTP server root. I could have set up a symlink to it, of course, but it was already a share point for AFP, so I set FTP to use "Home Directory with Share Points" for authenticated users. This dumped a symbolic link to the FTPRoot in my home directory, and symbolic links to all the share points in the FTPRoot. That'll work.
I turned it on, tested Retrospect with the new path, and it was all good ... unlike printing, which I am still bitter about. Onward and upward. Breathe in, breathe out.
I often have issues with various SMTP servers, so I decided I should have my own. Server switched over to Postfix from Apple's proprietary server, and Cyrus for POP/IMAP, Mailman for mailing lists ... but I need only SMTP.
I clicked on Settings and selected Enable SMTP, and told it my ISP as relay host. I could send mail directly, but some servers these days don't like mail coming from home boxes. Then I went over to Filters, and to make sure I am not used as a spam relay, I allow only 127.0.0.1/32, 10.0.0.0/22, and 192.168.0.0/24 to send mail.
Now, I just need to add my external hostname to my local host aliases in Advanced, and I am all set. Turn it on, and it works.
This is getting to be fun. Except for printing! (You can't see it, but I am shaking my fist at the sky right now.)
DHCP
Just for fun, I decided to serve DHCP from here too. My hardware router did it before, but I want to have as many services running as I know what to do with. Besides, I'd like more control over IP ranges and such than my little router offers. I do know a little bit about DHCP; I hope it's enough.
I click on Settings, and I add a subnet to the list. Interface en0, start at 10.0.1.200, end at 10.0.1.239. Router -- that which used to distribute IPs -- is 10.0.1.1. Lease time ... a month. Sure, why not? Set up default domain, name server addresses. No LDAP, no WINS. OK, all set turn it on. It works.
I am starting to feel mighty confident, I tell you what. And for the moment, I forget about printing.
DNS
I have a lot of local hostnames on my network. And true, I could use .local to deal with them all, but not all of them are Macs (the horror!), and I like using the same names for my machines when I am outside the LAN. I previously shuffled around hosts files, like we did back in the day. I know not a thing about DNS. Well, now's a chance to learn, right?
Emboldened by recent successes, I bravely clicked on the DNS service and Settings. It asks if I want to allow zone transfers and recursion. Um, I guess so. I feel like a Holiday Inn Express patron.
Then I clicked on Zones, and here's where the real "fun" begins. Again, I know not a thing about DNS. Well, enough that I know what I am looking at, in general. But after playing around a little and reading some online docs about DNS and PTR records and the like, I eventually figured it out. And once I realized what I was doing, the interface made a lot of sense.
OK, I don't feel quite as good about myself as I did before, but still feeling good. Have I the stamina to try Firewall?
Firewall
My router's firewall limitations are more severe than its DHCP limitations. It can only redirect a handful of incoming ports, and set a single default IP. I would like more control than that, so I figured I could set the router to send everything to Server, where Firewall can handle it.
In retrospect, it actually worked well. I have had even less experience with firewalls than with DNS. But I just, for quite awhile, could not get it to work. In Settings, there are default IP address groups, and I selected "10-net" to open all sorts of ports on the local network. But I didn't look closely enough, and it was set up for 10.0.0.x, and all my machines are on 10.0.1.x. Those wasted hours are what I get for using the defaults and not looking at them closely.
Another problem I ran into is that there is a rather handy list of services to allow for the given addresses: merely select an address group, and check the boxes. But the list of services is not configurable, so if I want to do something simple like allow local access for remote Apple events (port 3031), I can't merely hit a checkbox, because it is not already in the list. I need to manually configure that port in the Advanced section.
As it turns out, the Advanced section isn't too bad, even for someone, like me, largely unfamiliar with firewall configuration. Once I figured out my problem with the default 10-net group, the rest went smoothly.
VPN
As I was configuring my firewall I decided to close off everything to the outside world except for a few mostly secure and essential services, and try out VPN for the rest. Most of what I wanted to keep open were for my own sake, when I am away from home with the laptop. So if I just close it all off, then I can use VPN to get access to mail, FTP, even faxing.
I read up a little bit and decided L2TP over IPsec, instead of PPTP, would be best. So I hit a checkbox to enable it, and I restricted access to my personal group ("pudge"). I added a shared secret and added a block of IP addresses.
Then I went into Internet Connect on Client, selected "New VPN Connection" under the File menu, and put in the server address, account name, password, and shared secret. I dialed up on a PPP connection so I could test it, and clicked Connect in the VPN window, and it just worked. Very nice.
Of course, my measly cable modem is slow, so when I was at a coffee house "hot spot" the other day, I could get on the network, but it was excruciating to do anything requiring significant bandwidth. I can't find a way to blame Apple for that, though.
Web
I serve various things from the local web server: MP3s (for downloading MP3 files, since iTunes assumes that is stealing), documentation, books and periodicals, a local CPAN mirror, personal photos, etc.
The web server is serviceable for basic HTML and file serving, but it is a pain to configure. It won't let you put things where you want them in the config files, and sometimes just breaks things.
For example, I want to turn use mod_rendezvous, so I add a couple of RegisterResource directives. They work fine. But the next time I edit my configuration through Server Admin, it removes one of the directives, apparently thinking that I can only have one.
The best thing to do is to use Apache's Include directive and put all the custom configurations in a separate file, wherever possible. Then Server Admin should be less likely to throw its weight around.
And then there's mod_perl, which is severely broken: normal print statements don't work. For some reason, the print() never gets tied properly to $r->print(). Thanks to the always useful macosxhints.com, I found a servicable workaround, though the only proper and decent fix is to get a nonbroken mod_perl build. Once I did this, my custom mod_perl scripts, plus Apache::MP3 and Apache::Pod, seemed to work well.
Also, I set up some directives to Deny services unless the remote address is in 10.0. In the access log, they showed up as 10.0., but in the error log, when denied, the address was 127.0.0.1. I traced this to the Performance Cache, which is turned on by default. I don't need it, so I turned it off.
In figuring this out, I discovered that a side effect of having every client appear to come from 127.0.0.1 is that the mod_status data (at the "server-status" path) was open to the world. The server-status resource is, by default, restricted so that only clients from 127.0.0.1 can access it. I don't think this can be used to directly exploit a system, but it might make private information available, such as client IPs and URLs (which may include session IDs, or other private information). It would be wise to turn off Performance Caching, or lock down your services that may be restricted by IP.
One nice feature is that the Apple-supplied mod_auth_apple uses, in addition to standard htpasswd files, the system user and passwords (if the same user is in both places, with different passwords, either password is acceptable). There's also a mod_sherlock_apple that provides web access to Sherlock content indexes, though I couldn't get this to work, and the documentation wasn't much help.
Hardware Revisited
The initial test machine was the dual G4/1.25 GHz I described earlier, but I also had the opportunity to test it on a dual G5/2 GHz. Man, is that a sweet machine. But my needs are so few, I didn't notice any substantive difference in the serving (though when I was actually working on the machine, or compiling software, or playing games, I noticed huge differences, as one would expect).
I've now got everything set up on a comparatively wimpy PowerBook G3/500. I thought it would squeal and keel over, but it's been stable and plenty fast. The one exception is when I am doing large file transfers: it seems the data moves through the PowerBook pretty slowly. Still, the CPU load stays low all the time, although it sometimes ran out of free memory pretty quickly; once I upped the RAM from 256MB to 640MB, that problem went away.
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised: after all, I used to use a 486 for a server, doing mostly the same sorts of things, and this G3 is faster than that was. I expected it to be slower because of the Mac OS X GUI overhead, I think, but Panther's speed improvements over Jaguar, especially for G3s, are probably helping out here. If I had this in a business environment though, I can't imagine anything less than a dual G4.
Verdict
I like Mac OS X Server, and apart from printing, would rather have it than not have it. Server Admin has its problems, but it is worlds better than the Jaguar Server version, and I expect it to continue to improve: more stability, UI fixes, faster response. Maybe it could even integrate more monitoring features, or make Server Monitor work with non-Xserves. What I really want is ProcessViewer to work with remote machines.
I am well aware Server is not geared toward home use, but I was hoping it might, despite the price, be something a lot of home users could benefit from. Maybe as Server improves in its ease of use and security policies are easier to enforce and audit, through Server or third-party software, it can be such a product.
For now, as much as I like Server, the price tag and knowledge requirements keep me from recommending it for home use. I want to say "if you can't figure out this stuff on your own, then buy Server," but if you really lack that ability, then you shouldn't be configuring Server anyway.
For commercial use, however, Server is an excellent product that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. It can offer the majority of services any business environment needs, for much less than the cost of Windows alternatives, and the man-hours cost saved with Server Admin is worth the price alone.
Isn't this new feature "masquerading" known traditionally as 'su'?
I hear the RIAA police on their way now. Shoulda left out that one word....
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
This strikes me as being a solution in need of a problem. Most people would agree it's far better to hire somebody to install the right server solution than to buy special hardware/software for the sole purpose of making it easier for yourself to do it.
The masquerading is a neat feature: it allows me to type in any user's name and my admin password, and be logged in as that user. It's not something I'd use often, but it could be handy. Some have complained that this is a security hole."
Why would this be any more of a security hole than someone being logged in as root and then doing "su - " ?
And this threatens you ... *how*, exactly?
Actually, information would like a turkey sandwich.
Just in case you were wondering, I know I was...
AFP = Apple Filing Protocol
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Um, get some RAM.
OS X requires at least 128 megs, and you have half that, thats the majority of your problem. Add to that that OS X isnt officially supported on your old hardware.
Right from apple
Granted it's not quite as easy as iTunes, but it's much more powerful.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Touche! :-)
Actually, information would like a turkey sandwich.
I am running jaguar + apache + tomcat + mysql on a G3 350 with 512M RAM. It is only a desktop edition OS X but runs not bad. Some people told me that Panther on G3 is slower than Jaguar, but here the information is that the Panther actually quicker, so could somebody with experience shred some light on me?
Which one is quicker?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
We have a computer lab with about 50 computers and about 500 users. I've found 10.2 Server to be great. 10.0 was rough to work with, but 10.1 and up have been easy to work with.
The Workgroup Manager program can be a bit tricky with setting up shares and network mounts, but overall is a good program.
The DHCP doesn't work in an environment when you have few spare IPs and the machines are restarted constantly.
I like that it includes PHP and MySQL, but you might want to compile your own PHP with support for more libraries such as PNG and zlib and stuff. The provided one is a bit sparse.
Overall, it's fairly painless to work with if you have the foresight to setup user policies and stick to them. It's nicely cross platform with NFS support; I wouldn't be hesitant to use it in a Unix only environment.
Maybe they like to eat _his_ penis? :)
Your lightweight mp3 server: Slimserver. It's free, it's pretty, it's open source. More info. Fairly easy setup, very configurable and best of all if you really don't like something about it you can change it.
It's called QuickTime Streaming Server 5 and it comes bundled with Panther Server. Checking out Apple's website, in addition to supporting video it also handles MP3 audio, among many other formats.
;)
To be fair, I haven't used QTSS so I can't speak to it's utility. And you did say "lightweight," so it's possible this isn't it....
I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of a Mac (a 8600/300 w/64 Megs of RAM)
Um... you're not serious, asre you? You're using a Mac from 1997 and you're complaining about performance?
Even Safari is straining to keep up as I type this
You're not going to actually try to convince us you're running OS X on that machine, are you? OS X can only be run on USB-equipped Macs.
Obviously a troll. *sigh*
Actually, information would like a turkey sandwich.
I can't help but feel that the strength of an Apple lies in its desktop features Very true - even the old versions of MacOS were a relative joy to use (OS7 era im talking about). Admittedly, I hadnt used *nix around that time, but Windows certainly wasnt great at all! Some of their newer hardware, especially their cluster servers looks absolutely gorgeous. I'd love to admin something like that :)
Good god, imagine if Virginia Tech had used racks of those instead.. A sight to behold, I'd bet!
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
Not just any user can masquerade. Only a user who has Admin access can.
This would be like using "sudo su - username" in Linux or any other place that sudo is installed. In fact, I have a suspicion that this is exactly what happens behind the scenes.
Is this a security hole? Depends on who you hand Admin accounts to, I guess.
Forgive what may sound like a troll, it's not. Just a serious reaction to a lengthy article.
This lengthy point-by-point breakdown of every feature is probably fascinating to someone who has just installed the OS. But I can't feel enthusiastic about this data dump.
Some points of comparison with what we know would be useful. What are the alternatives, and how does it compare? Is there a compelling reason for existing Windows and Linux users to migrate? If not, is this intended only for Mac users?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
I'm one of these admins where "server" means rack mounted, U rated (1U, 2U, 4U etc), non-gui'd required system located at a co-location. However, if I ran a company that was all Mac desktops then I'd want Mac servers as well, but can't picture 20+ tower cases littering the floor. I'd much perfer to mount them all in a 60U rack.
Picture of a rack, in case you don't know what I'm talking about.
I know you can put them on side-way on a shelf, but that the shelf takes up an extra 1U to 2U and case it about 6U. Rack property is very vital to some.
So does Apple have rack mounted system ... and do they look all pretty ( blue LEDs and all :) )
First off, Panther Server is an awesome product. I find it markedly better compared to Jaguar server (esp. the mail, Cyrus IMAP kicks butt over the old Apple Mail Server).
/etc/nat/) working. My experience is that Server Admin always incorrectly parses the natd.plist file, only parsing the alias IP objects but never the target IP objects.
One area that's still week is NAT, specifically port forwarding. The server admin app configures natd by parsing a plist file called natd.plist located in etc/nat/. And the only way to set up port forwarding is to manually edit this plist file or not manage natd with Apple's Server Admin app.
First boo is having to even go and configure the natd.plist file (a plist file is an XML file that many OS X apps use as a preferences file) instead of just being able to edit NAT settings in Server Admin.
Second boo is that I have never personally, nor have I heard of anyone being able to get a natd.plist file with port forwarding instructions (you have to set up an array of dictionary keys for port forwarding... for more info read the natd.plist.default file located in
Now I know that there are plenty of easy workarounds (like an airport sitting on the outside, handling the port forwarding) - but it would be nice if this worked, it would make using an older Mac as a firewall/router much more feasible IMHO.
On the other hand, the fact that this is my only gripe with Panther Server speaks volumes to how pleased I am overall with Panther Server.
Tell that to Virginia Tech.
mbbac
The Print Server in OS X Server is designed to manage network-capable printers. Client computers must have the correct drivers installed on their systems for the printer who's queue they are connecting to.
Although you can create a queue for a non-networked printer (like the USB printer Pudge was using), the client computers won't be able to use the printer's driver with the queue because the driver assumes a directly-connected USB printer.
OS X Client's USB printer sharing is a completely different mechanism that essentially tricks other computers into thinking that a shared USB printer is in fact connected directly to the local machine. This allows USB printer drivers to work correctly.
I don't know for a fact why USB printer sharing was disabled in OS X Server. It would be nice if it could be integrated into the Print Server in OS X Server, but Apple probably made the decision that the vast majority of customers would be using workgroup-sized, networked printers with OS X Server, and the time it would have taken to add USB Printer Sharing to the LPD-based Print Server wouldn't be worth it.
Workarounds include Pudge's solution of connecting the USB printer to an AirPort Extreme base station; connecting the USB printer to another computer on the network that runs OS X Client; or purchasing a simple print server for the USB printer. Many printer manufacturers sell add-on network adapters (both wired and wireless) for their USB printers.
> You're not going to actually try to convince us you're running OS X on that machine, are you? OS X can only be run on USB-equipped Macs.
That's incorrect. OSX may not support things like SCSI ports or the old appletalk printer port, but plenty of people have OSX running on beige G3 macs.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Marathon Computing makes several rack products - turns your plain ol' G3/G4 tower into a rack unit. Pretty neat, sturdy, and not overly expensive.
The 'OS X is only supported on USB-equipped Macs' is new to Panther. Previous versions supported older hardware...
Just an idiot. :P
:P
You *can* get OS X to run on older machines with XPostFacto. It's kind of an ugly hack, but it does work.
Why they wouldn't just spend the $300 for a b&w G3, I dunno..
Of COURSE an 8600/300 with 64mb RAM would struggle.. it'd struggle if it was just running 8.6 on it. RAM is cheap. Go buy some.
that everything you read on the Internet is 100% true. And, if the person who wrote it remains anonymous, then they are most likely one of the best in their field of work. HTH, HAND.
</sarcasm>
While the author is certainly trolling, you can run OSX on 8600-era hardware, if you're willing to go through some contortions.
Whether it's in any way worth the effort is highly debatable.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Most people would agree it's far better to hire somebody to install the right server solution than to buy special hardware/software for the sole purpose of making it easier for yourself to do it.
:-)
Have you looked at what networking consultants get paid? As a small business owner, I can't afford that. I'll just buy an XServe and set it up myself.
In fact, I'll bet you're a consultant...or work for the marketing department of a consulting firm...or you're an alien communist infiltrator.
blog |
And coming soon... the sequel of a lifetime:
Final Macintosh X-2!
-In stunning 3D-
68.3% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Again, you have to prove that you can find an equivalent cheaper solution. The Apple Xserve G5 compares quite favorably against your common x86 Xeon or Opteron solution, especially if you are going to run Windows of some flavor. Plus, Mac OS X Server is far more approachable for for non-UNIX admins than most Linux distributions as long as what you want to do falls within the GUI. Actually, Mac OS X Server may act as a stepping stone to other UNIX flavors. :)
Have you priced IBM iron? Or Sun iron? Compared the features, performance, and reliability? For the SMB market, Apple's solutions are quite compelling especially if you are looking at centralized storage.
But even in medium-sized enterprises, server administration is a once-in-a-while thing. You set this thing up 3 months ago, and someone from accounting says it is broken. At this point you really benefit from a good UI that helps you find the problem when you've almost forgotten now you set it up. Plus you're under a lot of stress to get things back up and running.
So putting a smart (not pretty) face on a server is not always a waste of time.
-- ac at work
Most people would agree it's far better to hire somebody to install the right server solution than to buy special hardware/software for the sole purpose of making it easier for yourself to do it.
You just hit the problem on the head. G5 XServe is $2,610.00, IT person's salary is how much? I don't think you will get your IBM box for 3K, or will be able to manage it by itself. PC - well let's just not mention all the "management" software that will install itself unless you keep patching the box.
Even if you already have an IT department, their time is better spent on supporting users and installing more software rather than mundane tasks like configuring a VPN.
Me, I don't see who wouldn't want to go with XServe, provided that their application is ported to MacOSX. Maybe companies like Google that have thousands of nodes and calculated that Intel hardware will be cheaper.
One of the reasons NT/2000 took off was that people were able to reuse the skills they had gained running their home desktop computers to also run the server. I can see this server taking off in small Apple shops for the same reason.
Why learn a different platform for the servers if you don't need to?
TW
And, as mentioned in the last article, the $500, 10-client version of Server is limited to 10 simultaneous clients on AFP. To get around this, pay double for the unlimited version, or use plain old Panther Client.
I saw this mentioned in comments to yesterday's review as well, so last night I checked this out on my home network. With the client version, you are limited to 10 AFP connections (it says so at the bottom of the window when you click on Personal File Sharing). It isn't unlimited. I'm not sure about Windows File Sharing (SMB), as I don't use it and didn't think to check.
So is it the Mac hardware or Mac OS that sucks?
OS X server is for companies and not consumers so an iPhoto server application and an iTunes server application is pretty pointless.
BTW...Quicktime has many server apps, one of them is a streaming application that will stream MP3s.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
old versions of MacOS were a relative joy to use (OS7 era im talking about)
Do you also enjoy having your eyelids pulled out and your fingers broken, healed, and rebroken repeatedly? OS 7 was by far the biggest mistake Apple ever made. I was at two separate companies that switched from Mac to PC because of the instability of OS 7. Did you enjoy having to go to the chooser everytime you wanted to change printers? How about when the machine just randomly locked up even when left alone for a couple of hours? Maybe you licked the Force Quit that did nothing more than lock the machine. I still have nightmares of the years I wasted working on OS 7, 7.5, and 7.6. When we switched to NT 4 we actually looked forward to the once a week blue screens. At least then we knew we crashed and we didn't try every key combination possible to get it back.
small business period......just because it is apple does not mean it will not work well as a file/print/web server for a small business that uses PCs.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Do you think that any company would get nearly the deal that VT got? The fact that you linked to an Apple site instead of VT should give you a hint. That whole thing was a huge marketing ploy. Apple would have outbid anything that came along just to get what became a marketing windfall for them.
Macs have had NTP built in since at least OS 9, maybe OS 8, can't remember.
Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 Bits of Randomness...
I've stuck with Linux as a server for the last four years for two reasons: 1) It was there as a stable platform, 2) I could always get a **quiet** PC.
I'd actually move over to OS X Server using an old G4/400/PCI if I could actually make the damn thing quiet. Unfortunately, Apple is still WAY behind the curve on this front even with the latest systems. All I can see is a case mod or just a new case for my old Mac. So, anyone know of one? Until that time (Apple releases a quiet system or case mod is available), I will happily stick with the PC side of things...the ST62K from Shuttle looks like a keeper IMHO.
Nt started out in small businesses too. We may yet find that these work great in large businesses 5 - 10 years from now.
TW
what i am looking for in a review about osxserver is a comparison with the almighty linuxserver that runs free software on a much cheaper machine than a Mac.
What are the advantages of running an osxserver when you can have a linuxserver?
bada bing
you have just been the victim of a troll that started back in 1996.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
http://www.apple.com/xserve/cluster/wgcluster.html
and try to tell me Apple is producing shit hardware.
Maybe the reason there is so much Apple stuff on /. lately is becuase at this moment they are making the coolest stuff available in the computing world bar none, and /. editors *might* be able to tell when a company has turned itself around and react accordingly with increased coverage of thats company's offerings??
Or do you think they should still be pissing down a rope at Apples products of 3 or 4 years ago, like the asshats who give lame outdated reasons to bash Apple. Wake up. Things are different now.
This strikes me as being a solution in need of a problem. Most people would agree it's far better to hire somebody to install the right server solution than to buy special hardware/software for the sole purpose of making it easier for yourself to do it.
Most people would refuse to answer this question without in-depth knowledge of a particular situation. At least most of the reasonable ones. It's not that diffucult to imagine a small company with a small network, say - an independent design or advertising studio or an editorial office of a local newspaper - that ALREADY has a Mac network and one guy, who generally services all the dozen-or-so Macs in this network. It might be _more_ feasible to purchase XServe + MacOS X Server and give it to this guy to set up rather than hire an external networking consultant. Obviously, it's not a solution for everyone and I think in many cases indeed it would be cheaper to get someone just to put Linux on any given beige-box; but that's what Apple succesfully does since Steve's return - profitable exploration of niches.
neither suck, the guy is a troll....this troll can be traced back to 1996. it has also been applied to Windows, Linux, BSD, and I am sure BeOS in its heyday.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
the post was a classic troll dating to 1996 and has been reused for Windows, Linux, BSD, etc.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
To the first, you can run the built-in NTPd. No build-in GUI to get it configured and running though.
To the second, yes macs do NTP natively. You can either use one of the three built-in NTP server addresses, or enter in your preferred address.
Except that VT paid retail for the hardware.
mbbac
Amen. If you like Linux, there are reasons to like Apple.
I ran a Linux server and a Linx laptop at home for 2+ years (both Debian, up to 3.0 at the end), and although I had a ton of fun, my new PowerBook with OS X beats the pants off that experience. I *still* get to tinker with open source software *and* have a great, gorgeous GUI and devices that just work when attached. It's like having my cake and eating it, too.
in 2-3 years I bet with the advent of Xserves with G5 and ECC RAM.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
> that ALREADY has a Mac network
Well, for many years Apple sold "servers" for the Mac Network market that were simply desktops that had a sticker that said "server" on them.
The question is if xServes are useful for the broader server market, or if they are simply traditional AFP Mac Network servers in a rackmount case.
It's funny you say that, I single-handedly and simultaneously administered the Macs at 4 separate advertising agencies during the OS 7.x era, and everyone seemed pretty darn productive. Wonder how that happened if the OS sucked so bad? Could it be that you let your users install every retarded interface hack or system extension they could find? Probably.
What about small businesses, who cannot afford to hire an expert?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Here's a new reason: Their gay-ass advertising campaign. And uppity mac users.
I *OWN* Apple hardware, but still!
And how the hell do you plan on getting a BS degree from a community college? Loser.
Thanks for the info!
(You learn something new everyday)
I have an hp USB printer connected to my windows 2000 desktop. I'd like to print to it from my Powerbook G4 over samba, but the os X drivers assume a direct USB connection, and will not offer the driver as an option for samba printing.
:sigh:
Who is at fault here... hp? apple? me for not buying a network-native priner?
I love cable swaps!
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
No offense intended to the writer, but this review is not representative of the target market for a real server OS. What business would use USB connected printers? Use a software firewall? This review probably covers your typical Slashdotter who wants to run OS X Server for the fun of it, but is not useful to those who might use it as a real server in any sort of production environment. Those people will want to know how it deals with large numbers of connections, how it integrates with things like XServe RAID, etc.
Err... VT paid full educational pricing on the machines.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Most people would agree it's far better to hire somebody to install the right server solution than to buy special hardware/software for the sole purpose of making it easier for yourself to do it.
These people then obviously have no clue about the difference in costs between those two options.
Well my place of work just dropped $150K on a SAN that dosn't do nearly as well (or hold half as much) as a $15K XServe RAID would.
Apple hardware is 'heavy metal', all their pro-desktops are workstation-class hardware, and the servers are rock-solid.
As for file serving, I haven't seen a properly-configured file server have more than 10% CPU load from just serving files in over five years now. File serving for our entire school (over 1000 users, about 2TB data) would be just as fast from the end-user perspective with a 400MHz G3 as it is with our dual-Xeon PIII monster.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
So, I don't know the poster, so I don't really know how much they know about DNS. However, from the article, it sounds like "not much." And yet they set up DNS on Panther Server without much difficulty. If this is true, this is amazing, and means that 90% of people who manage a server should go out and buy as XServe. I've set up DNS using BIND and Active Directory, and it's a huge PITA. And I know a bit about DNS.
Not only your mac, but every mac in the country (world?) should have the same time. By default, OS X has a NTP client (and has since like system 8) and it points to time.apple.com IIRC.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
I run 10.1 on Power Computing boxen with a range of 125-240mhz 604 CPUs, 10.2 on a a Umax S900 with a G3 450mhx card, 10.3 on a Beige (with a Radeon 7000 card)... The Minimum OX Box I ever installed on was a 7500 with a 603 120mhz card with 64mb memory. It did NOT run well, but it booted. btw. Do not attmept to load Classic with less then 128mb memory.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
This guy has been trolling this entry SINCE 1997. Word for word. Do a search, you'll see what I mean. I bit once, posted a good rebuttal, then kicked myself. You can search on that too.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I believe your print-sharing problem arose because you were using a non-postscript usb printer. The administrator manual says, in these cases, to use the client mechanism to share (ie Sharing in System Preferences). The print server is intended for postscript printers (even if they are connected via USB).
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
It's wierd to me that people will buy the IBM blade server with the PPC 970, but not consider the X-Serve G5 from Apple which is about the same machine for about the same price.
I don't know why you'd assume that the IBM hardware is better for what you need just because its IBM. Of corse, if you want the really powerful computers based on the POWER series of processors, then you need IBM.
Panther is FASTER on the same hardware. OS X is getting better and better about resource management, optimization, etc. as time goes on. Remember that the whole system benefits from improvements to GCC, binutils, and other OSS projects, because the whole system is compiled with them. Opening apps in Panther on older hardware seems much snappier than when using Jaguar, and I chalk it up to better disk-access, caching, optimization, prelinking, and drivers.
Also, Apple really rushed to get OS X out the door, now the developers are getting their hands dirty with tweaks, getting much more proficient with Objective-C, and they have a user base to check things with.
I think this will continue for some time too, possibly until Apple stops supporting G3 CPUs. The architecture of the whole system seems to lend itself well to growing without 'bloating'.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Subject says all... but be sure to run Software Update and let it update to 10.3.2... fixes a few bugs and security holes, but more importantly, it also contains new gfx drivers that bring OpenGL back up to speed. (10.3.0 was only slower than 10.2.8 in one area -- OpenGL... but 10.3.2 fixes that).
You clearly have never met a real Mac zealot.
Compared to Windows 3.x (including Workgroups), which was what was out there at the time, the MacOS 7.x era was pure bliss. BTW, 7.5.3 was considered so good, that many Mac users chose not to adopt 8.0 , 8.1, 8.5 or 8.6, and only moved on to 9.x when their applications absolutely forced them to (because of the carbon libraries.)
Win2000 was the first MS system I would even consider using for anything more important than playing games.
Does Mac OS X Server have a well tested, near bulletproof backup solution for all those terrabytes of disks yet?
From what I have heard Retrospect doesn't quite cut it yet. What kinds of tape drives/robots are supported?
IMO If Apple doesn't have a backup solution, then they don't have a server solution. All they have is a way to lose more data.
-DU-...etc...
"Don't sweat the technique."
Slashdot needs to be more discerning in which reviews it accepts. Accepting a poor quality review simply because it is submitted is unacceptable and does not make a positive contribution to the website.
,from his own statements throughout the review, to make such an assessment.
Throughout the review the reviewer speaks in reference of the ease of use he had when he was with the regular Panther Client version, or how he is not sure how feature X works or why is this so complicated?
It was not designed for the reviwer's needs. Nor is this review of use to anyone who may actually use the features of Mac OSX Server. This simply displays that this user lacks the need, and the knowledge to properly take advantage of the product.
If we break down the reviewer's conclusion we discover that.
a) Oh well I really should've done my homework because Server doesn't really offer anything I need, but its not bad.
b) "For commercial use, however, Server is an excellent product that I wouldn't hesitate to recommend. It can offer the majority of services any business environment needs, for much less than the cost of Windows alternatives, and the man-hours cost saved with Server Admin is worth the price alone."
How can you possibly come to this conclusion based upon the experiences you have had? The reviewer has not faced the challenges of a sysadmin in a broader environment nor is the reviewer qualified
If Slashdot wishes to increase its content - it should do so by accepting the submission of quality reviews, not reviews such as Part 1/2 of this.
Er, samba? I don't know how that got in there. Although, for windows printing, that would work fine :) I meant to say lpr. Of course lpr doesn't provide for autodiscovery... Maybe the solution is to run netatalk :D
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
With the exception of the minitower flavored G4s, most Macs are very quiet... some don't even have fans. The loudest, by far, were the "hairdryer" 1.0 - 1.4 GHz G4 systems. Still not as loud as an SGI Octane, but loud enough.
I don't recall that the "Yikes" PCI G4 was all that loud, maybe you have a bad fan. If you want a really quiet Mac for a server, get an iMac, eMac, an old G4 Cube (no fan!) or a new G5 (lots of slow-moving, quiet fans).
XServe is very loud, but its designed that way... suited for a back room or datacenter/server room... small case, lots of air flow in the event of building air conditioning failure.
You try pricing web server, mail server, group calendaring, filesharing, network home directories and network mgmt software for Windows, and put it on equivalent hardware with, say, 200 users. I promise you, just the exchange portion will be more expensive than the entire she-bang for the Apple stuff.
[...]and that the type of computing muscle necessary to run more than the meekest fileserver would be either more cheaply purchased in PC components[...]
I would not want to sound redundant here, but have you ever heard of VT? Speaking of "computing muscle", these guys have built the world's third-fastest supercomputer with G5's, for pocket money (as far as supercomputers go). Yeah, Moore's Law and whatever but your statement is definitely arguable nowadays (really arguable, some would claim just false). Please drop this dated misconception.
And no, I will not base my business central storage and computing center off some WalMart cheapo clone, I will buy some brand with their guarantee and support.
more reliably purchased in IBM iron
IMHO, this is also arguable (though not so much as point one). Please take a close look at the little big chip(s) inside an Apple -say G5- server... I you look closely you will see a shiny gasp! IBM logo. Yeah, incredible. I am sure these guys at IBM must know something or two about processor design... and they have Apple share the stuff.
As for reliability... well, I have not hard facts, but given my personal experience, I have had Macs in headless service (and they were not even servers) for years. No shites, no silly bugs, no crashes, none, zip, no HD breakdowns, nada. I can't even remember when I last formatted my G4, when was it? When I ****ing bought and partitioned it, years ago, back in the OS9 era. Not necessarily SPARC-quality, but for that price I can buy a bunch of G5 stuff.
dani++
You are confused -- System 7.5 was around between 1995 and 1997, so it would have been competing with Windows 95 and NT4.0
I don't think they "got it right" until System 7.6.
I can't believe that OSX refuses to start it's GUI if there is no monitor attached on bootup. That means you can't start a VNC server to remotely use the GUI tools. There's a dongle you must buy in order to fool the server into thinking that a monitor is attached. I can see if it's done to protect the end user, but there should be a selectable option to turn this off, especially on the server version. Apple does not sound like much of a server company if they can't think about these things.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Yes, but the OP was saying that it was especially likely in shops where people already had Mac skills.
Heh, I did have NTP set up on the Server, but some of my computers are laptops that I take outside the house every once in awhile, and it was just easier to select the Apple NTP server than set up my own and make sure I can hit it from outside the LAN.
you don't need mac skills to run a mac, but yes, a mac show will use it.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
> Maybe the reason there is so much Apple stuff on /. lately is becuase at this moment they are making the coolest stuff available
This sound much like "Seinfeld uses a Mac because they are the coolest" (when in fact it was paid placement). Typical Evangilista logic --- Apple is Cool so Slashdot runs Apple Stories so Apple is Cool. Well, the troll rumor is that Taco got a free powerbook.
But the main reason Slashdot runs Apple stories because Apple Fans (and Foes) provide a ton of hits. It's the same reason they run a daily SCO story or Microsoft Bash-Fest.
Note I have nothing against Apple, but it would be nice if BSD or Sun stories were as "lively" as the Apple ones. (It would also be nice if the Apple Zealots toned down their posts and stopped using the moderation system to censor anything apart from the Jobs Party Line, but that might be asking too much.)
To the first, you can run the built-in NTPd. No build-in GUI to get it configured and running though.
Yes there is. Server Admin -> Server Name -> Settings -> Advanced -> Enable NTP.
Exactly. 7.5 was only slightly more stable than Windows 95.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
G5s XServes already have ECC Ram.
I haven't encountered many companies that value their employees time so much to not want them to save a couple of thousand dollars.
Also, there are some fundamental problems with debates on what a value the XServe is:
-it assumes you've had to buy software to do the same. Even using Linux most comparisons I've seen talk about expensive, 'enterprise' versions. Should be compared to free software.
-assumes you've had to do make each box one at a time with no copied config files or installers and no knowledge retention (lots of talk on the expense of admin do to difficulty when compared to X's interface)
-assumes you like everything about the XServe and OS X. The way you update programs, the proprietary hardware, the admin system, etc.
I'm not saying it's not a swell machine. If you like it go for it. But don't think it's the best value for everyone. Many companies have stacks of Intel boxes, and paid for hardware with lots of spare parts and internal expertise.
Mmm, bondage. SCSI cable whips and daisy-chains, anyone?
Ack.
And he also missed out on rule #1: If you want people to read your stuff then add pretty pictures!
Why are people complaining? So a 2 part article was posted on a subject (a hybrid *nix server OS) the author was interested in. So what? If one isn't interested in reading it, one could scroll down and read the other articles. It certainly takes less effort than posting a pointless complaint. I suppose if this was a 2 part article on [insert favorite subject or OS] then it would be okay. These conspiracy theories are sad. An ad? Karma whore? Zealot? Please. Give the author a break. Don't try to control the content with childish whining and name calling.
I've been upgraded to "bad"!
> And, as mentioned in the last article, the $500, 10-client version of Server is limited to 10 simultaneous clients on AFP. To get around this, pay double for the unlimited version, or use plain old Panther Client.
>
>
>MP3s
>
>
>I wish there were a lightweight music server built-in to Server,
2 details here...
The upper paragraph is not quite correct, Panther Client is also limited to the "10 simultaneous clients".
as for MP3's and music server, he should check out the quicktime streaming server
According to his review most of the server related functions are your stock ftpd, samba, bind, etc... that work with the aqua GUI. Even the firewalling is just plain old IPFW, with a GUI interface.
OS X server is more likley showing indirectly how to configure all these services without CLI - rather than bridge the gap between user & admin.
A windows box can be bought for the same price or cheaper with support. Most WINDOWS shops are better off not purchasing an XServ. It may work for basic file and print, but most small shops also need a domain controller, and may want to run things like SQL Server or Exchange.
For a small MAC shop this is a great solution, but not for a Windows shop.
As far as intel hardware goes, why anyone would buy IBM I will never know. HP and DEL are much more relaible in this arena.
"I wish there were a lightweight music server built-in to Server, one that could use less RAM and CPU, that would just serve MP3s. Alas, there is not. So, I set up iTunes for my music sharing. I won't bore you with the details, for more boring details are yet to come." Ever heard of Quicktime Streaming Server 5?
When you've grown up and lost your virginity, you'll understand what some of those words mean. Meanwhile, it's quite clever how you can type with one hand while pulling your pudding with the other. But enough of this nonsense. Go to your room, and no Internet for a week!
You lazy bum, how's it a drag? What? Gotta move your hand a little and click the link? Give the guy some time to prepare the other one. Why does it matter that much?
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
If you want to stream MP3's portably, stick with QTSS or Slimserver. But if you want to duplicate iTunes functionality, only without the GUI--but including AAC streaming and browsing from within iTunes clients--try daapd . Of course, it's available in Fink, so it's not hard to get started.
"Hey, who took the cork off my lunch?" -- W. C. Fields
Moderators: shame on you for not modding down this flamebait.
Trade you Cuba for Jupiter. ;-)
Actually, eMacs are pretty loud (they have one huge fan). Best bet would be to find an old cube, then upgrade it with a faster processor.
Speaking of SMB, normally when someone slips a server into a network they do an analysis of how well it fits with the existing machines. Yet, I see no mention of Windows/Samba filesharing in this article. Why is that?
Took me 2 minutes to set up QTSS. Hooked up a firewire camera, plugged it into my PowerBook, reflected it off a QT Streaming Server, and sent it to a friend across the country.
Really. 2 minutes.
"By far more of a pain in the ass?" Hmmm.
Me, I don't see who wouldn't want to go with XServe, provided that their application is ported to MacOSX. Maybe companies like Google that have thousands of nodes and calculated that Intel hardware will be cheaper.
And wasn't that calculation done before the G5s came out?
Price/performance was dramatically different when a top of the line Mac was a dual G4 machine. The virginia tech G5 cluster was a lot cheaper than the comparable intel clusters, I believe.
I can't help but think that you have no idea what you are talking about. In fact, a g4 400 can saturate a t1 and those are cheap. In fact, in the review, he talks about running it on an old g2 laptop.
I have Mac OS 10.3 on my 7300 right now. 400MHz G3, 408MB RAM, two 9GB HDs, & a Rage 128 using XPostFacto. Built form spare parts, a bare bones 7300, & $40 worth of RAM. Not bad for $40.
hmm, domain controller, see OS X Windows services
SQL, see OpenBase SQL, oh and all Mac OS X installs, client and server, come with MySQL installed.
Exchange. Yep, you got me there. That proprietary product from MS isn't available for OS X. Imagine that. You'll justy have to ditch the MS and use open standard tools (and the other OS X fold on the network can share calenders and scheduling with iCal).
You've pointed up the whole problem with windows and MSs negligence of interoperability. By buying into their closed-proprietary software, you're stuck.
Oh, and, BTW, it's Mac, not MAC.
The potato it is uninformed.
MQ,
I'm not picking...but I do feel it's not a valid comparison between an Xserve (NAS) which gives file level access, and a SAN which give block level access. SAN can provide boot volumes. NAS is a large shared harddrive. SAN can provide serverless backup, or run a database, or house an exchange mailstore (and no damn comments about Exchange all you ACs. Some of us actually WORK in the corporate world). NAS is great...and the Xserve is a NICE NAS. But it's NOT the same tool as SAN. Not knowing your environment, I can't say which is the right choice. But to compare them is comparing (pardon the pun) Apples to oranges.
Always value the individual over the system. --Bruce Lee "I don't need a Sig - I have a custom 191" - me
What is so great about that hardware?
The fact that it has a really badass looking metal front grillplate?
What does it offer over a cluster of linux machines running say Opterons? Not performance. Price is a wash (though if you build the machines obviously you're better off with Opterons).
"Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
The author was documenting his experiences setting up MacOS X 10.3 Server, not writing a more general review, and (I'm guessing) he doesn't have any Windows comptuters around.
SMB/Samba works fine with MacOS X 10.3 client, though to do anything interesting with it you need to edit config files (by deafult it only shares user home directories, so you have to add a line to the Samba config to create new mountpoints), so I'd assume that it also works on the server version.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Though I have not checked out 10.3 Server (still on 10.2 Server), 10.2 gives me detailed logs of what is going on (you have to enable some of it though)
how about fink/samba? is that unlimited?
I'm planning on setting up a web server w/Panther Server and I have no use for the workgroup managment software. I am just wondering how easy it is to set up the server for multiple accounts and domains w/Mail, FTP, and Web services for each. Is it as easy as creating a new user for every site and setting up virtual hosts or would it require significant work? My other option is a linux box but I would love to be able to have it work without the hassle of command-line tools. Thanks
I was a user and trust me we never installed anything. We used about 4 applications - one of which required a complete restart before using. I don't know how big these advertising agencies were but I am talking about one company that at the time was the largest accounting firm in the world and another company with about 2000 employees. Congrats on getting your six or seven macs to work properly.
I would also point out that we were still productive in spite of our computers. We are even more productive now with W2K (which eliminated the blue screens we had on NT 4).
And if OS 7 didn't suck so bad why did it almost drive Apple out of business? It wasn't until OS X that Apple became a viable choice. I don't have to argue with you about how great your little shops worked. I can just point to the numbers.
But who was using 95 in a corporate environment? Even with its problems NT was the most stable desktop OS out there. Even usability-wise NT was pretty close to OS 7. Somebody tell me what they were thinking with that stupid seatbelt thing on the bottom of the screen.
If you believe that I have a bridge for sale at retail.
He knows that.
The trick here is that the G5 is probably cheaper when you calculate bang for buck. And you still haven't figured out your ROI in terms of lesser overtime, etc because things 'just work'.
Did you look into using the built in QTSS server to set up an Mp3 streaming server? Last I checked you can throw all your mp3s in the QTSS source directory in your home directory on the server, fire up the QTSS publisher app or web admin and set up play lists for any quicktime supported media type. I think QTSS even has built in web page templates that will make your site look good. You can eve add weights to different songs and put the list on loop so when people tune in, they hear certain songs more than others.
>7.5 was only slightly more stable than Windows 95.
That varied by the particular flavor of 7.5 and the particular hardware. Anything prior to 7.5.3 on a PCI Mac made even W95 look good, and 7.5.3 was usable, but still flakey until you updated Open Transport to something like 1.1. System 7.5 ran great on my IIci, and was still going strong the last time anybody used that machine.
It took 7.6 (or was it 7.6.1?) to be really good on a 7500.
My parents have an LCIII running MacOS 7.1. I love it. Hate their newer computer (beige G3 that has killed a hard drive, 2 cd drives, and a floppy drive). It does have the random lockup issue, but aside from that it runs wonderfully even after 10 years.
Actually IBM has servers based on the same cpu at about the same price: See here
I've tried to find "official" iCal serving info on Apple's website, without success.
I'd like to be able to have calendars which can be updated by several different people (secretary updating boss' calendar which he can also update).
I found (and tried) this this article on MacOSXhints. I got it to work on my local lab network, but I still cannot edit the calendar by anyone else but the original publisher.
Does Mac OS X Server have an out-of-box solution? Is it even possible to have more than one person with update rights to a calendar?
Oh I don't know.... ARS Technica did a a little comparison and the G5 more then held its own against the Opteron! IIRC actually beat it pretty soundly in a couple of places.
And sure you could build your own boxen and all. But if something should fail during the first year or you screw up in the building and zorch something (okay low odds but don't tell me it doesn't happen out there in the world), then you don't have a warranty to fix the thing and are further out of pocket.
So it really is a factor of how you want to spend your time and money: You can either go get the parts to build a box, and then take the time and actually put it together. The load Linux, make sure that it works on your Frankenstein, configure it and get it operational.....
Or you could drive down to CompUsa plunk down some cash, drive home unpack, plugin, load the OS, and config. And spend the time that you did not use in the building of the above alternative boxen doing something else....like spending time with your family! Your girl/or guy depending upon taste and orientation.... dumping your paycheck down your throat one beer at a time...
you know having a LIFE! Not being a slave to your machine...seeing sunlight!
Factor in the cost for MY time the money saved by your build it for cheap and use a ostensibly "free" OS (it may be low cost but time is still money still money, and if I get a Linux distro off the web I have to factor in the time downloading etc), box can become a lot higher then you would expect.
Hey I understand the hobby angle of doing it all yourself, hell my Dad and etched out own motherboards way back in the misty past. But you know after a few years I frankly don't care to do that kind of crap with what little is left of my personal time!
but I do feel it's not a valid comparison between an Xserve (NAS) which gives file level access
Ummm... where does it say that it's a NAS? Maybe I'm confused, but it seems to be a "block level" device to me... it connects using an HBA connection, and "looks" like another drive on the box. It's not a Network Attached Storage solution that just appears as a shared drive over the network.
The fact that it's being pushed by Aple to do professional non-linear video editing kind of screams to me that they aren't just NAS devices, and allow "block-level" access.
Am I missing something?
True, it's not a SAN, but it's also nowhere near the price and doesn't offer anywhere near the features. It seems to me that it's just a big whack of relatively fast, redundant drives that attaches to the box.
Now, if you want to run Oracle RAC, which requires shared storage access (via a SAN), then this is for SURE not going to do what you want it to, but it's just fine for running a local developer release of Oracle, or a big honking mySQL server, etc.
$0.02 (CDN)
OOPS, we actually spent $150k on the NAS, it's just a rack of SCSI drives totaling about 2TB connected to some Dell PowerEdge server. All it does is serve files via SMB to the entire school. I misued the term SAN.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I may be completely wrong here, but from what I can gather, the built-in DHCP server in Panther offers no easy way of allocating fixed addresses to machines using MAC. I know you can install and use the ISC DHCP server and then do it (clicky) but i still think apple should put this in. I think a lot of organisations would find this useful to prevent stray laptops from popping up on the network.
I haven't encountered many companies that value their employees time so much to not want them to save a couple of thousand dollars.
No? Then why do companies get Windows and MS Office when they could obviously save money with Linux/OpenOffice? Why won't they invest on ease of use (real or percieved) in other areas then - like Apple servers or for that matter desktops?
assumes you've had to do make each box one at a time with no copied config files or installers and no knowledge retention.
Well, first of all a small business might only have one server. The bigger problem is that someone with the knowledge needs to work for the company in the first place and needs to stay around to maintain the stuff. With XServe, it's conceivable that one of the existing employees can manage the server without taking too much time off his/her primary job.
No? Then why do companies get Windows and MS Office when they could obviously save money with Linux/OpenOffice? Why won't they invest on ease of use (real or percieved) in other areas then - like Apple servers or for that matter desktops?
Use of MS Office is based on what everyone else uses, inertia, fears of the unknown (read job security), etc. Not ease of use issues. Don't misinterpret this to mean I like MS Office.
Additionally, there isn't a set in stone standard for servers like there is for desktop apps.
And while it's true that if you have an office that has no existing hardware and no expertise in house you might be able to buy an XServe and be very happy with it and not need any technical help, this is not the typical server customer. Most customers have existing equipment, spare parts, and expertise. They know what works, and the XServe is somewhat of an unknown, and it costs more than altneratives cost.
Xserve definately does use a Fiber Channel network to communicate with connected systems. Hmm... sounds like a block device to me!