properly caring for a mac os x server?

[spirid]

We're a small office running our own Mac os x server machine - right now it's mainly being used to run our website and a few other stuff. I was just wondering if anyone have experience running and maintaining one of these babies - and could share with me how you keep it maintained? I understand that for the most part the server runs fine by itself, but there must be some maintenance needed by the admin?

Right now the only thing I really can think of is doing regular backups of the server. Maybe every now and then scan for junk files and cleaning those?

 

[bld44]

Don't forget updates.
For the most part, you won't really need to do anything other than what you would do with a regular mac. The only thing I can think of is that after a long time, the logs might need to be flushed (just to save space). I can't remember if SLS does this on it's own.

 

[Lotus Esprit V8]

Along with doing updates on a monthly basis it is common to defragment the hard drive as well. That is, if the system doesn't do it automatically.

 

[acurafan]

hope you're not running it off a single hdd drive mini, or iMac. if so, you better be checking backups daily if you value those data (and seriously think about a RAID mac pro or better).

 

[Les Kern]

We're a small office running our own Mac os x server machine - right now it's mainly being used to run our website and a few other stuff. I was just wondering if anyone have experience running and maintaining one of these babies - and could share with me how you keep it maintained? I understand that for the most part the server runs fine by itself, but there must be some maintenance needed by the admin?

Right now the only thing I really can think of is doing regular backups of the server. Maybe every now and then scan for junk files and cleaning those?

On a low-use server it's been my experience (which is extensive) to answer the question "Why does a dog lick itself?". **
I have some servers running 3.9.x doing some simple sharing that I have not updated or even restarted in YEARS. Of course they run Retrospect and I do an internal clone using rSync every day, but think about it: If it's working perfectly, why touch it? Really... WHY?

** Because it can, not because it should.

 

[spirid]

server admin tools/monitor

do you guys use server admin tools/monitor on a daily basis? I figured that having it up 24/7 is a good thing (or whenever i'm available to look at the server). What's your experience in using that...does it do a good job monitoring health status of the server as a whole? We're still running Tiger OS X on our server