New to Servers

[pavvento]

Hello,

I am being given a Mac with Panther server installed onto it as a way of familiarizing myself with Mac server. I plan on attending some classes over the summer, but I wanted to know in the meantime some things I can do with the server without knowing a whole lot.

I also have a MacBook Pro and a netbook which are both running leopard. Will this cause problems if the server is Panther?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[belvdr]

I don't think the OS differences will cause any issues. That said, go to the OS X Server page at Apple, and see what it can do. Then google those topics. It's just too broad of a question to be answered simply.

 

[pavvento]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[stukdog]

If you are given the Mac, you may take Apple up on the offer of a free trial with Leopard Server. They'll send it to you in the mail and give you a serial that lasts a few months.

This way, you'll get familiar with the latest technologies.

 

[twoodcc]

If you are given the Mac, you may take Apple up on the offer of a free trial with Leopard Server. They'll send it to you in the mail and give you a serial that lasts a few months.

This way, you'll get familiar with the latest technologies.

really? i did not know this. do you have a link for this?

 

[JerryA]

Hello,

... but I wanted to know in the meantime some things I can do with the server without knowing a whole lot.

Easiest thing you can do with the server is simply make it a File Server. It doesn't leverage much of the systems' capabilities, but is really easy to configure, depending on your knowledge of joining computers with your network. It just requires that you have a service such as AFP and/or SMB running on the server, and specify some access control settings.

If you are in a Windows Server domain environment you just join the Mac server with the domain and configure it's Role as "Connected to a Directory System". It may be some-what different with Panther, however I am running a Tiger (10.4) server configured in this manner and it seems to work good enough, but not perfect by any means. The client desktops that connect with the server are mostly Mac OS 10.5, and some Windows XP computers. I purchased a book called "Mac OS X Server Essentials" that helps cover the basics of configuring Mac OS X Server from start to finish.

 

[stukdog]

Here's the link for Leopard Server evaluation. You fill that out and it takes a couple weeks to get to you, then you'll have a serial that is good for a few months.

http://seminars.apple.com/contactme/LeopardEvaluation/