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Mac OS X Server gets quietly updated

updated 10:43 am EST, Wed January 10, 2001

Ted Swinyar talked with Apple reps on the show floor yesterday about the new version of Mac OS X Server, which Apple has quietly updated: "[Apple] basically crossed the current AppleShare IP GUI and ease of use with the current Mac OSX Server's functionality, all while building everything around the new 'guts' of OSX (client)." Setting up virtual domain hosting uses intuitive dialog boxes, and the interface is familiar to those who have used ASIP. According to Swinyar, "all of the features of a high-end Web serving solution are included, [such as] PHP4 and Perl." Apple representatives note that the product is due "soon" (6-8 weeks) after the release of Mac OS X in late March.

by MacNN Staff

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01/10, 11:25am | report spam | close Reply | delete
porting ASIP to X

..is pretty cool stuff

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01/10, 11:38am | report spam | close Reply | delete
a few more details?

(from Omni's mailing list)

I had a long chat with two of the Apple reps about OSX Server. This is a very cool product. IThe reps say Server will probably be out a few weeks after March 24. No word on pricing yet, though he said it would probably be reminicent of AppleShare IP pricing. I was not allowed to run free on the system, but they would show me pretty much anything I wanted to see.

OSX Server is (obviously) is designed to replace AppleShare IP. I don't know if this is news or not, but apparently NetInfo is consulted for authentication for HTTP, FTP, AFP, and presumably other things. The reps made a point to mention that there's a lot of room for LDAP integration as, and it appears than an LDAP server is included in OSX Server. Due to security concerns, Apple is ditching the chroot approach for ftp, and simply denying full filesystem access to anyone via ftp, including registered users. This should mean less OSX boxes being hacked. Though, you can put whatever aliases in the FTP root that you want, and I assume this includes anything at the top level. DHCP server is present, as well.

The mail server is not based on sendmail/qpopper. It's based on the mail server from AppleShare IP. Apple definitely is in interesting in leveraging BSD tools whenever possible, but it sounds like they just though there would be too many hoops to jump through to get sendmail to do what they wanted without making a really ugly config file. Though I'm sure sendmail is still there for the obvious reasons (scripts).

The Apache admin stuff is _really_ nice. Virtual hosting as it should be done. It does apparently write to the apache.conf file, but I'm told Apple's config stuff is clearly marked off so there's no confusion. I actually asked if there was any chance of Apache looking up config information from NetInfo in the future, since writing custom apps to do that is much easier/safer than parsing and writing to a a plain text file with a custom structure. Apparently, this is not currently in the plan because they do want to not make their version of Apache too alien from the rest.

It looks like broader user and group management tools will stay as part of Server (this was debated on this list recently), and I was told this partially because some customers felt that even Mac OS 9's user/group implementation was too hard to grasp. I have an opinion on that, but this is sort of a moot point. You can do it by hand with NetInfoManager regardless, and it makes sense to have this as part of a server product.

I'm told that OSX Server should be a fully-functional OS out of the box (that is, it's not reliant on a OSX installation), although it can be installed as an extra package on top of an existing OSX installation as well. The machines running OSX Server had two processor, and they made a point to say that Apple realizes the importance of multiple processors in a server environment. For anyone

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01/10, 11:40am | report spam | close Reply | delete
continued from above

I'm told that OSX Server should be a fully-functional OS out of the box (that is, it's not reliant on a OSX installation), although it can be installed as an extra package on top of an existing OSX installation as well. The machines running OSX Server had two processor, and they made a point to say that Apple realizes the importance of multiple processors in a server environment. For anyone concerned about this issue, I think it's a fair guess that dual 667s and 733s will appear as soon as Motorola can get its fab act together.

I think iTools is probably pretty much out of the picture now, though Tenon probably should have seen this coming. But not just Apple muscling them out of the picture. The admin tools for Apache, etc are much nicer than anything I've ever seen on any platform -- NT, Solaris, Linux, etc. I asked to see the tool that allows you to create virtual interfaces (different IPs, same ethernet card), but apparently that's not in. I hope that makes it into the final release (don't see why it wouldn't).

I know I'm gushing, but I'm extremely excited about this release. There's a good chance OSXS will be replacing the tasks I currently give to Linux -- something I couldn't have said about OSXS 1.2. And it look like it could just beat the pants of Win2K in the low and mid-range markets. They had some version of WebObjects Project Builder running on either OSX or OSXS, but I didn't get a chance to examine it very closely. Don't know what version it was. I'll check again tomorrow.

If anybody wants to find out additional details about any of this stuff and can't make it to the show -- email me and I'll try to get answers in the next day or two.

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01/10, 11:56am | report spam | close Reply | delete
wow, thanks, dude

Thank you for the extra X server info! I'm loving this X.

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01/10, 11:58am | report spam | close Reply | delete
The question is...

will Apple actually go out of its way to pitch these products to the right people? Here in the federal government, MS has a dominating presence mostly due to ignorance on the part of our sysadmins. If they could be shown that the OS X boxen are a better solution, especially in a mixed environment, they might actually pay attention.

Also, will Apple ever have some kind of certification in place for Mac sysadmins or developers?

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01/10, 12:01pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Question for above poster

If you get a chance I would like to know about gui configuration for the BSD tools. specificaly: Bind, MySQL,JSP and PHP. Any remote configuration options, telnet or http? can the config files be changed from the command line? If netinfo/ldap contains some of the config information, how is that changed from the command line? what about optimizations for OSX release of BSD tools like MySQL, BIND, PHP, JSP, Apache? Will a 733Mhz OSX Server be able to hold its own against red hat linux 6.0 on a 1.5Ghz machine?

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01/10, 12:09pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
OS X Server - Firewire

We use ASIP 6.3. We would switch over to MOSXServer, but from what I understand, MOSXServer doesn't allow firewire hard drives. Am I wrong about this and if so, will the updated MOSXServer coming out in a couple months allow firewire hard drives?

Tyler@OmahaMagazine.com

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01/10, 12:41pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
As an Add-On to MacOS X

Hi,

Great stuff on this thread! Can anyone comment in more detail in regards to how MacOS X Server can be installed on top of the OS X client?

I own MacOS X Server 1.2 and I am sure curious if I Apple is going to make me dish out another $500. That would be rather sucky...

Thanks everyone,
-FB

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01/10, 12:58pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
This is huge!

I would like to know if this new Mac OS X Server integrates NetInfo with LDAP in such a way that NetInfo can be fed from data in an LDAP directory.

If so, this is the nirvana that my campus has been looking for (well, I've been doing the looking for the campus, but you get the idea) that will possibly help with everything from standardized logins to roaming profiles and beyond.

We already have an LDAP directory. We want NetInfo to be fed directory data from it, so that there's less to maintain overall. LDAP can be replicated and is more of a standard than NetInfo (even trying to find solid data about NetInfo is difficult, to say the least). We may also be using LDAP to feed Microsoft's Active Directory service. So having LDAP feed into NetInfo would be a huge win!

This alone is as big an announcement as anything that went into the keynote.

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01/10, 01:34pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
One question

Nice report!
One Q - will one be able to netboot OS X clients too?

I.e not only netboot an diskless iMac with OS 9.1, but instead netboot it and havei loading OS X?
(Having an image of OS X on the OS X "new" server)

Even more useful would be to be able at netboottime choose whetever to boot into OS 9.1 or or X, or have the admin set which person can log in with what OS:....

orjan larsson / orjan@mac.com

P.s Would love to have that new OS X Server running on my Network Server 700!

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01/10, 02:06pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
w***

I would really like to know if I should upgrade to w*** 4.5 now, or wait for the new OS X Server and see if Apple bundles the full suite of w*** tools. My goal is not to deploy anytime soon, but to learn Web Objects.

Also, anyone have any info on what the upgrade price will be from OS X Server 1.2?

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01/10, 02:50pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
info

Dir services can query both LDAP and NI, thus your infoservices are seperate but integrated functionally (netinfo is not 'fed' by LDAP, there's really no need to run NI in most LDAP environments...

As for the guy wanting telnet-- you're obviously an idiot, since telnet on any network is extremely insecure and SSH is already included in public beta. Remote mgmt, however, is also accomplished via a lightweight admin app that can be run from either Mac OS 9 or Mac OS X.

Mac OS X (and thys this server) can use Firewire HD's.

Tennon includes an asp pkg which makes them a good solution in several envvironments.

Anyhting else?

LAter

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01/10, 02:55pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
About time...

Well it is about time news of the surfaced. :) I have been using beta 5 of the new OS X Server now for about a month...very nice :) Apple now just needs to market it correctly (they blew the whole OS X Server 1.0 thing).

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01/10, 03:16pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
New Mac Internet Servers

I'm ready to update my Mac Internet server. Can anyone offer a best guess about the earliest date Apple is likely to offer a new Mac internet bundle, and what it might include?

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01/10, 03:16pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
NIS Integration

Does anyone know if there is any NIS integration? We currently feed our UNIX cluster using NIS, due to the wide range of OSs (SunOS, Solaris, FreeBSD, IRIX). It would be lovely to just slot an OS X Server box into the NIS mess.

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01/10, 03:52pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fault tolerance?

Can you ask the Apple folks there at the show if they'd care to clarify the blurb in the Mac Os X Server system requirements info that says "fault tolerance systems require a new Macintosh Server G4 or Power Mac G4"?

Does this mean we can expect to see boxes with server-class features such as redundant power supplies once Mac OS X Server 2.0 rolls out?

This certainly wouldn't be tough to accomplish for a reasonably small price increase ($500-600), so I wouldn't be surprised. And it would suddenly create a viable reason to use PowerMacs for WebObjects deployment rather than Solaris machines (although a more business-friendly support plan for repair/replacement would also certainly help).

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01/10, 04:06pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fault tolerance

on the OS X Server page apple says this in regards to fault tolerance:

1)Automatically detects and recovers from failures of essential system services.

2)Continuously monitors, and auto-restarts server services in case of a failure

3)Power cycles and reboots new Macintosh Server G4 and Power Mac G4 hardware in the unlikely event of a system failure

4)Automatically reboots the computer and restarts services after a power failure

I don't think apple is going to release any serious server hardware or software any time soon (i.e redundant powersupply, hot plug PCI, Load balancing, fail-over, 4GB memory support) I do think that this product will be great for workgroup and small offices serving needs.

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01/10, 04:46pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Upgrade path

Is there any upgrade path from MacOS X Server 1.0 or ASIP 6.3.3?

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01/10, 05:29pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Hardware

I hope apple will put out better server oriented hardware, or at least let third parties design servers. I would like to see servers that can hold hot swap scsi hard drives, multiple processors, high amounts of memory, and raid configurations. These types of servers would be great for small to medium size businesses.

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01/10, 08:23pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Fault tolerance

According to the spec sheet the current G4 Servers have redundant power supplies.

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01/10, 09:18pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Windows Suppport

According to the web site, this release will support windows clients as well. This will be important for me. I will be faced with replacing a Novell 4.11 server in the near future and would love to use X.

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01/11, 12:00am | report spam | close Reply | delete
"Benchmark" vs. LinuxPP

We have a license for MacOS Server and ran it for over a year without a single crash. However, it appeared to be slow when accessing the disk. A sample Perl installation program took up to 20 seconds to complete an installation (about 12meg) with MacOS Server 1.2. Recently I removed that software and installed LinuxPPC 2000. The same installation now requires less than 1 second on the same hardware. FTP and other things are also much faster (and LinuxPPC has never crashed). Very surprising, considering MacOS Server was $400 and LinuxPPC was free.

Maybe the new MacOS Server will be faster, maybe not. I'm a firm believer in Linux now, though ...

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01/11, 01:05am | report spam | close Reply | delete
I SAW IT!

I was at Macworld SF today and a VERY KIND and helpful Apple employee showed me quite a lot of it..
*Windows file sharing based on Samba (it can act as master browser and other stuff) - the Windows NT Server can now be TRASHED!
*OpenSSH 2.x stuff - you can turn on SSH server from the GUI
*OpenSSL stuff - you can have websites use SSL
*DNS server
*DHCP server
*some Apache proxy/caching server

Oh god, it ROCKS ROCKS ROCKS... I'm almost sorry to say that I'm cancelling my plans to add more Linux servers, I've got a G3/300 that this software will work GREAT on (it's already an Appleshare IP 6.3.x server...)

YAY!@!

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01/11, 01:20pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
on LDAP and stuff..

I'm responding to a lot of questions above...

The LDAP integeration is AWESOME. Well, let me put that another way, the Directory Services are AWESOME. Someone posted a few questions about LDAP. First LDAP IS NOT INCLUDED as in the original post (according to the people I spoke with) the LDAP PLUGIN for Directory Services is included. Second, you get to pick and choose the mappings from the ASIP "database" and your directory. e.i. Username = ldap uid, Password = ldap password, Group = ldap whatever, etc. Very eligant and the best thing I've seen. LDAP doesn't feed into netinfo. The process goes like this: User logs in (via ANY service) login ask's netinfo first ("local" users) then it consults LDAP (or Novell's NDS, whatever plugin you have installed). There is feed into, the directory is consulted DIRECTLY! Very cool!!! No syncing or anything, it "just works" :)

Netboot is only for Mac OS 9 and 9.1 clients (it's on Apple's web site) at least for right now.

the install will come as a full OS install, not as a services upgrade. It will install just like Mac OS X Server does today. It will upgrade ASIP 6.3 when it comes out if all goes well. It will not be a set of packages that install it will be a FULL OS install. Will it overwrite an existing install of Mac OS X of do a merge? I don't know.

Mac OS X Server will support all connected devices (firewire HD's, etc.) as drives, just as MacOS/ASIP does now.

Tenon's iTools is still needed IMHO. Remote config's via a web browser. Apples remote admin and admin software are great, but web browsers are still more easily found when one needs to update a server quickly.

Chris

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01/11, 02:43pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
NIS integration

I found this article about NIS integration:

Also, when I posted about NetInfo being fed by LDAP, I was really hoping that NetInfo could use data directly from LDAP. At least one post was very clear that fields could be matched up, which makes me happy. As for NetInfo not being needed in an LDAP environment, I beg to differ. The default directory and network login system for Mac OS X seems to be very clear: it's NetInfo for now. The Directory Services API does provide a way to integrate many different kinds of directory services -- at least common elements -- into something usable by OS X, though.

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01/11, 02:44pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
NIS integration

The URL didn't come through. Try this:

http://www.bresink.de/osx/nis.html

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01/11, 11:54pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
Where do I get a beta?

To the reader using beta 5 of MOSXS2,

Did you get this copy through the normal developer program or something special? Nobody at Apple will tell me how to get started in the developer program if I want to obtain a beta of X Server. Beta of X Client, no problem. I've got an X Server 1.2v3 box (G4/450x2) that I'd love to convert over, because frankly MacOS X Server 1.2 sucks, Darwin rocks, but the GUI and lack of multi-processor support screams 1.0.

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01/12, 12:52am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Unix Bits

A rep told me that the GUI tools for many of the unix tools will be non existant - specifically I asked about mySQL and Tomcat.

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01/12, 03:02pm | report spam | close Reply | delete
OSX Upgrade

We just upgraded to a MacOSX Server. We tried to purchase it in July, right after the cube announcement, but it was pulled from the resellers. We ordered it again as soon as Apple released it in late Oct/early Nov. Now they announce a new version. What are we going to have to pay for this? Also, we had long talks about this with the reps at Macworld. we were told that this realy won't be a new product, just standard OSX with the new server tools compiled into it.

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01/13, 02:03am | report spam | close Reply | delete
more info

Here we go:

Supports the emerging WebDAV standard for drag-and-drop publishing and file sharing, which also integrates with Mac OS X for the desktop

Includes Apache modules for CGIs, Perl, and Java Servlets; enhanced server-side includes; an integrated caching proxy server; and support for PHP, MySQL and JSP

Offers Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocol support for secure encrypted and authenticated communications.
==
So it does have support for *all* that stuff. Looks pretty good to me! If they pull off the price and the marketing -- this could be very, very big from what I've seen.

I think MOSXS 1.0 was sort of a beta release -- few people actually knew about it. With the coming of X Client, now this powerful Server OS will really come into its own. Fully Aqua compliant (I like how Client is Blue and Server is Graphite), it has the Dock, etc as well as enhanced server tools.

Nice ideas, and beautiful implementation -- it's truly very powerful. I hope it does well, cause it looks like it rocks!

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01/16, 01:48am | report spam | close Reply | delete
Software Push

Ditto the earlier comments about proper marketing of this product, development of robust enterprise server hardware, and not ignoring the federal market (where I work; outsourcing is increasing here, likely to continue under Bush, and offers opportunities for large-scale changeovers from legacy hardware).

What I'd like to see is the ability to run my own Software Update server under OS X Server. Apple's service is OK for consumers, but our contract requires us to test things before deployment. On the other hand, a system like this would save us hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in keeping software current. Of course, Software Update would have to support third party applications as well, but that shouldn't be too difficult. C'mon Apple ... help us make it easier to sell thousands of Macs to our federal customers rather than forcing us to fight for tens of units ...

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Mac OS X Server gets quietly updated

updated 10:43 am EST, Wed January 10, 2001

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porting ASIP to X

a few more details?

continued from above

wow, thanks, dude

The question is...

Question for above poster

OS X Server - Firewire

As an Add-On to MacOS X

This is huge!

One question

w***

info

About time...

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Fault tolerance

Upgrade path

Hardware

Fault tolerance

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"Benchmark" vs. LinuxPP

I SAW IT!

on LDAP and stuff..

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NIS integration

Where do I get a beta?

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OSX Upgrade

more info

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