In-Depth with Mac OS X Lion Server
by Andrew Cunningham on August 2, 2011 8:00 AM ESTWe’ve now covered every service manageable by Server.app, which addresses the core of OS X Server’s functionality. As we mentioned before, though, the Server Admin Tools still expose quite a bit of extra functionality that Server.app still doesn’t manage, and I’ll do my best to cover the services still managed by Server Admin, as well as the rest of the Tools.
There are a few services I’m not going to go over in very much depth: DHCP, DNS, Firewall, NAT, and RADIUS. Below is a very basic explanation of what it is they do, but if you need more information, you can check out the Snow Leopard Server documentation for them. These services are basically unchanged from their earlier implementation, and the documentation is far more thorough than I could hope to be.
In case you don’t know what DHCP is: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is responsible for automatically assigning and then keeping track of IP addresses for each device on your network. Without DHCP, you’d have to configure every one of your network-attached devices manually, to say nothing of keeping track of which device uses which IP.
For most home and small business users, your router is going to do this for you - nearly all routers have a basic DHCP service, as well as tools for assigning fixed IP addresses to devices on your network.
If you need something a little more advanced, the DHCP service in Lion Server can create different subnets, map static IP addresses, and provide more detailed logs than many routers.
DNS (Doman Name System) is also IP address-related, in that it redirects IP addresses to more easily-remembered names. That’s why you can type Anandtech.com into your address bar to get here instead of a 12-digit IP address followed by a five-digit port number.
The Firewall service lets you block access to ports on your server, as well as for your network and any computers attached to it. Most home users and enterprises are protected by a firewall at the network level, but this can be useful if you want to explicitly allow or deny access to a particular port or ports.
The Network Address Translation service handles port forwarding, enabling one IP address to host many different services. This is another service usually handled by routers: it’s the reason why multiple computers and other devices can access the Internet despite having only one IP address (to see your true IP address, as opposed to the IP address assigned to your device by your router, you can use a service like whatismyip.com or IP Chicken).
DHCP
In case you don’t know what DHCP is: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol is responsible for automatically assigning and then keeping track of IP addresses for each device on your network. Without DHCP, you’d have to configure every one of your network-attached devices manually, to say nothing of keeping track of which device uses which IP.
For most home and small business users, your router is going to do this for you - nearly all routers have a basic DHCP service, as well as tools for assigning fixed IP addresses to devices on your network.
If you need something a little more advanced, the DHCP service in Lion Server can create different subnets, map static IP addresses, and provide more detailed logs than many routers.
DNS
DNS (Doman Name System) is also IP address-related, in that it redirects IP addresses to more easily-remembered names. That’s why you can type Anandtech.com into your address bar to get here instead of a 12-digit IP address followed by a five-digit port number.
Firewall
The Firewall service lets you block access to ports on your server, as well as for your network and any computers attached to it. Most home users and enterprises are protected by a firewall at the network level, but this can be useful if you want to explicitly allow or deny access to a particular port or ports.
NAT
The Network Address Translation service handles port forwarding, enabling one IP address to host many different services. This is another service usually handled by routers: it’s the reason why multiple computers and other devices can access the Internet despite having only one IP address (to see your true IP address, as opposed to the IP address assigned to your device by your router, you can use a service like whatismyip.com or IP Chicken).
RADIUS
Remote Authentication Dial-in User Service provides an extra level of authentication and logging to your network, though the service's insistence on AirPort base stations will probably limit its usefulness for most. Basically, once its setup, it allows you to control access to your wireless network using Open Directory user credentials. Handy if you can use it, inconsequential otherwise.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
77 Comments
View All Comments
HMTK - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
OK so you can definitely run a Mac OS X vm on vSphere 5 but only on Apple hardware. What a joke! Probably Apple idiocy rather than a technical limitation.Spazweasel - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
Apple is a hardware company. OS/X and iOS exist to make hardware sales possible (thus the cost of development is included in the pricing for Apple hardware, something the Apple haters conveniently overlook) Allowing the running of OS/X on non-Apple hardware reduces Apple hardware sales, so they don't do it."Idiocy"? Yeah, sure, whatever.
HMTK - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
Not allowing Mac OS to run under a hypervisor on non-Apple branded hardware won't help them either. Or do you think a halfway decent IT-department would put a desktop machine or a hard disk posing as a server in a data center? They'd rather pay a few 100 € more for a license if they could run it on ESXi/XenServer/Hyper-V and reliable hardware.Spazweasel - Wednesday, August 3, 2011 - link
Apple makes its money on the desktop, not the server room. I doubt it's worth the effort. OS/X in the server room is a niche product, and Apple know it; it's much more suited as a workgroup/small office server, and those environments do not have ESX or Xen installations.Apple has no incentive to support OS/X in a VM, and plenty of reasons not to. Really, I don't see why this is a surprise.
HMTK - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
I'm not saying it's a big surprise, I'm saying it's stupid. why not make good manegement tools for their iOS available in a way that companies can integrate better in their infrastructure?You might be surprised as to how many small shops are going the virtualization route. Even if you have only a single server it makes sense in the long run when the time comes to replace the hardware. Just import the VM on the hypervisor on the new hardware and you're done.
GotThumbs - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - link
This is an interesting article and I enjoyed the depth of detail. As a builder of my own systems for years, does the use of this software bind you to using only a ready built Apple system? It seems Apple is slowly trying to create a close proprietary system where you have to use apple hardware and apple software. I know their are hackintosh systems but it seems its still going to be quite a bit of effort and so far seems to be a waste of time for me. As the article mentions, there are lots of alternatives available. Apples MO seems to be offering zero options for using outside sources. Apple consumers are being channeled to Itunes and the Mac App Store for all purchases. I'm personally not a fan of that trend and have no intentions of bowing down to that kind of control. I can see where the general consumer who has very little technical knowledge is quite accepting of Apples controls as its a very simple and somewhat brainless system packaged in a slick looking package.GrizzledYoungMan - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - link
Or is it still something we're all going to pretend works, when it very clearly doesn't out in the real world (If it worked, why would DAVE exist)? I'm referring here to the myriad of permissions issues and oodles of useless garbage sidecar files that pop up after a few days of operation in a mixed environment.Haven't read the article. Probably won't. Sorry. Apple is a joke at anything that designing anything that doesn't fit in your pocket/surrogate vagina of choice.
I get this feeling, deep in my angry muscle, every time some imbecile waves around his iThing, raving about Apple's genius, while I'm thinking about all the time that has been wasted trying to get OS X desktop clients to do things that have worked out in the real world for years now.
blueeyesm - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - link
Not in Lion, as Samba moved to GPL3 licensing.http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/03/23/insi...
GrizzledYoungMan - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - link
You know what's wild? I should actually be excited they're moving to a new standard - the NAS' I often recommend to clients support SMB2, and see useful performance gains from it.But then I read "Windows networking software developed by Apple" and my heart sinks. Realistically, what are the odds this is going to work?
Honestly, I don't really blame the design teams over there so much as a closed corporate culture that both ignores the feedback of their customers and denies any complaints exist.
They're really missing out on the sorts of improvements that most big software developers make using the information gathered during large, open betas and the like.
repoman27 - Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - link
As the article you linked to points out, since version 10.2 Mac OS X has shipped with Samba, an open-source, reverse engineered version of SMB 1.0. With Lion, Apple dropped Samba and added native support for SMB2 while maintaining the ability to connect with SMB 1.0 machines as long as they use UNICODE and extended security. This means Mac OS X 10.7 can no longer connect out of the box with some SMB 1.0 or Samba machines (which it had done for the last 9 years), but it does have full support for SMB2.As for GrizzledYoungMan's "oodles of useless garbage sidecar files," it's not like Mac users have any use for a thumbs.db file either. Just hide the metadata files, or don't allow write permissions on the folder if you don't want to see that kind of stuff, but these types of files are most likely only going to become more prevalent as time goes by.