Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

5 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. 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.