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Apple Deprecates More Services In OS X Server (apple.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the not-dying-just-fading-away dept.

Long-time Slashdot reader HEMI426 writes: Long ago, Apple used to produce rack servers, and a special flavor of OS X for that hardware with extra, server-friendly features. After Apple got out of the rack server game, OS X Server soldiered on, with the occasional change in cost or distribution method.

The next stop on the long, slow death march of OS X Server is here. With a recent post to their knowledgebase, Apple states that almost all of the services not necessary for the management of networked Macs and other iDevices are being deprecated. These services will be hidden for new installs, and dropped in the future.
Apple writes that "those depending on them should consider alternatives, including hosted services."

9 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Lots of courage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It takes an awful lot of courage to remove DNS and DHCP services from a...server. Way to go, apple!

  2. So... by jawtheshark · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, let me get this straight: This is a server OS, with basic server functionalities removed? In what way is this still a server OS?

    --
    Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    1. Re:So... by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's a server app, with all the server functionality removed. Staring at this list, I'm struggling to think of anything that wasn't removed. Apparently, they kept the user and device management — the part that for 99% of Server.app users is the least useful, but admittedly also the only part that's at all Mac-specific.

      That said, Server.app sucks. Always has. The Apache functionality has been a constant struggle even to get it to do basic things like update certs programmatically (they bizarrely store them in the keychain, then require some weird custom commands to force the server to grab the new credentials, and they're basically undocumented as far as I can tell). And heaven help you if you try to import any existing Apache config. You're pretty much guaranteed to end up with something nonfunctional.

      The only reason I even install Server.app at all is so that the software updates for Apache and BIND happen without me having to pay attention to the CERT mailing lists. And even then, I don't let the app configure *anything*, using a separate launchd plist with a different identifier and a separate config file so that none of Apple's code has any effect on the actual operation of the server.

      I guess with this change, there's no reason to bother installing it ever again, since I don't manage a network of users. This, of course, also means I have one less reason to keep using Macs as servers, but I digress.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  3. Is it actually a want ad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    People complain about the iPad commercial where the kid asks "What's a computer", but could it be that Apple is genuinely asking what one is since it is looking more and more like they themselves don't know.

  4. Most services on the list seem to be FOSS projects by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It should be easy enough to install them on your own, if for some reason you want to use a macOS box as a server.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  5. Re:What do Apple use? by MikeDataLink · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Please tell me they manage all their people with a Windows AD + Exchange! ;).

    They use an in-house version of iCloud, or so an insider friends tells me.

    --
    Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
  6. Not Apple anymore.... by bigtiny · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't think that at the time of his death Jobs thought his 'digital hub' concept would lead to Apple's becoming a huge, overfunded cell phone company that would let its computer business die a horrible death. But I think that's exactly what's happening.

  7. Re:Most services on the list seem to be FOSS proje by _merlin · · Score: 3, Informative

    They didn't do their own web server. It was a pretty GUI for configuring Apache. Same for mail, originally OSX server used Cyrus, I think they switched to dovecot later. DNS was always implemented with BIND. A few of the services like DHCP/NetBoot used their own implementations, but most of it just a GUI for configuring open source services.

    OSX Server used to be a compelling proposition for a small business, because it made configuring these services easy for someone who isn't a professional sysadmin. But once they changed it from being a separate OS spin to a feature pack in the app store, it was pretty clear they just didn't care.

  8. So what? by Yaztromo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    macOS on the Server side of things is so far behind what can be done with Linux, it isn't even funny. You can't run macOS in AWS. You can't containerize macOS apps (Docker on macOS uses macOS's hypervisor to run Linux in the background). If you want to run in the server space, and you aren't tied to Microsoft proprietary ways of doing things, Linux is the place to be. Apple knows this -- they're already too far behind, and are simply never going to be able to keep pace with what's going on in the Linux world.

    Apple needs to focus on continuing to ensure that macOS is a highly compatible client OS. Linux still falls flat in this area. Other than for some Apple proprietary stuff (like iOS provisioning), a macOS server is pointless. Use Linux on the server and macOS on the client.

    Yaz