In-Depth with Mac OS X Lion Server
by Andrew Cunningham on August 2, 2011 8:00 AM ESTFile Sharing
Click the edit button, and you can control access permissions to each individual folder, as well as what protocols the folders are offered over - AFP for OS X clients, SMB for Windows clients, and WebDAV for iOS clients (many apps, the iOS iWork apps among them, can only connect via WebDAV - this useful new feature is one of the few that could truly justify OS X Server in a home environment).
You may remember from our Lion review that Apple changed up its SMB implementation in Lion. As in the client version, the change shouldn’t affect most server users either: Windows 7, Vista, and XP clients can still connect to SMB shares hosted by OS X Server without issue.
Podcast and Podcast Composer
The Podcast service (which needs the Wiki service to be fully functional, it would seem) works together with the Podcast Composer (another of the Server Admin Tools) to provide end-to-end podcast recording, editing, and hosting. Turn on the Podcast service (and the Wiki service if you haven't already) and then fire up the Podcast Composer.
This program is pretty straightfoward - it builds a podcasting workflow, asking you what you'd like to use to record, what file formats you'd like to export to when done, what fades and wipes you'd like to use - everything a newbie podcaster needs, really (though this does seem to be tailored more to internal-use-only recordings and less to something you'd download from the iTunes store - just an observation). You'll want to specify your server's address under the Publish heading in the default workflow, where you can also specify whether you'd like to save any of the raw files along with the final product.
Once you've successfully published, they're up on your server for everyone with appropriate permissions to see.
Time Machine
Once you do that, your server share becomes selectable from the Time Machine System Preference pane, and it works much the same as Time Machine backups to a local drive.
The thing about the Time Machine service on the Server end has always been one of scale - especially on Apple’s current server hardware, which ship by default with 500GB (Mini) and 1 TB (Mac Pro) hard drives, there’s just not enough storage available to back up dozens of computers unless you spend money on multiple servers or a huge attached storage pool.
In that sense, the Time Machine service actually makes more sense now that Apple server hardware and software are both within reach of the home user. While the Mini’s 500GB of storage (assuming you’re RAIDing your drives, as a good server admin would) might not be enough to backup the two dozen Macs that a small business would have, but it’d be great for the 1-3 Macs that a home user would have. It gives you a good network backup solution if you don’t want to splurge for a Time Capsule or something.
Whatever the case, it’s easy to setup - like most OS X Server services, it’s up to you to decide if it makes sense for you or your organization.
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ex2bot - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Upgrading OS X is not much of a pain, as Repo says. Plus, it's practical to skip at least every other upgrade. So, upgrading every four years (2 + 2) at $60 isn't a big deal and the improvements are worth it.I especially appreciate Expose', Time Machine, Spotlight, and Quick Look and use them regularly And every Mac user has benefitted from Quartz GL (uses 3d graphics card to speed up screen draws).. There have been myriad "invisible" or subtle improvements as well. See Apple's "Mac OS X" section for details.
Four years between OS upgrades is not bad, as I said. Longhorn was supposed to come out about 4 or 5 years after XP. Microsoft just had eyes bigger than its stomach and it was delayed. But Windows 7 was worth the wait. Especially features like the display compositor + aesthetically pleasing UI + improved security (and no more yellow speech bubbles popping up all the time)
Ex2bot
Automated System Process
ex2bot - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
BTW, Expose's successor is called "Mission Control."Sahrin - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - link
a reduction in advertising, if you guys are going to do all these paid reviews for Apple.Johnmcl7 - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - link
It's getting a bit of a joke these days that anything with the Apple badge will get a news article, preview, in depth review the moment it's out dwarfing everything else which barely seems to get a look-in. I get that Anand likes Apple stuff and if I don't I should go elsewhere but I like the non-Apple reviews when they do occasionally get published.John
ex2bot - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
It's no joke. Check Anand's mailbox some time*.Ex2bot
*Crazies, please don't mess with his mailbox.
ex2bot - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
I know for a fact that Apple employees stuff money into Anand's mailbox*. Lots and lots of money. They use $20s and $50s straight from Jobs' car, who burns them to light his cigs.Ex2bot
Currency Calculating Mac Fanbot
* Anand, I don't really believe this. I was kidding, as I'm sure you've figured out. Actually, I'm sure they are $100s, not $20s and $50s. After all, he's a Billionaire.
the_engineer - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - link
Thanks for this great in-depth look at Lion Servers new & continued functionality, I learned a lot reading this. However, I'm still very confused at where XSAN fits into the picture. As a storage power-user I've used software Linux raid, semi-hardware windows raid (Intel, Highpoint), and I've lately dabbled into ZFS because it seems like it's really got everything I could ever want as far as straight storage capabilities are concerned (I'm running a raidz6 with 6 750GB drives currently running on Nexenta). I'd really like to put Lion Server on a mac and install a generic SATA card and add 6 3TB hard drives and do a great big raid5 in a mac pro, but am very confused as to whether or not this will work. I was very hopeful that Lion Server would integrate 'software' RAID5 or similar functionality, but it's not clear anywhere whether it does this or not. Simply put, Do I still need to buy a dedicated raid5 card to have a redundant array of inexpensive disks on a mac or am I missing something still?-Looking for a great user experience AND a ton of redundant storage
HMTK - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
Why not set up a NAS with iSCSI or NFS ?the_engineer - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
LONG story short, geting a deidciated NAS box means spending more money than ought to be necessary at this point (I have an i7 desktop and a core2 desktop, both capable of running Lion, Windows, FreeBSD, you name it... Just fine, as well as plenty of vanilla SATA ports & cards available). I'm Trying to weigh all purely software options available to me, with ZFS/BSD sitting on top of the heap for storage features but OSX sitting on top of the heap from a usability standpoint. The longer I look at it the more likely I am to end up running one huge 20-drive ZFS based NAS under FreeBSD but was trying to avoid getting to this point.HMTK - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
If you put it on the network you can access it with all decent OS's. I've got a little HP mini proliant just for that.