Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
What is OS X Server good for?
- Thread starter majordude
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
rezenclowd3
macrumors 65816
Many things:
File sharing
Email
Chat
Directory Services
just to name a few.
There are MANY uses for a server. The school I work for uses servers for the above and database management. Look into this: Server Resources
File sharing
Chat
Directory Services
just to name a few.
There are MANY uses for a server. The school I work for uses servers for the above and database management. Look into this: Server Resources
I doubt I would use OS X server for hosting websites. OpenBSD is far better suited to tasks like that.
How's that? I find the Leopard web hosting tools incredibly powerful yet easy to use.
That I think sums up why someone would use Mac OS X Server.
It's not the most cost effective web server, It does not use the least amount of electrical power and there is very little choice in hardware selection but if what you know is Mac OS X then this let's you use something you are familiar with.
As an office server if all or most of your desktop clients re macs then Mac OS X Server makes a lot of sense.
In terms of performance, scalability and cost effectiveness for a server that hosts web content or a large database it's hard to beat BSD or Solaris or Linux.
Personally I'd go nuts trying to figure out how to point and click my way around a GUI and just give up and edit some files in /etc myself. It's quicker
Mac OS X is based on BSD, and you can find all the configuration files you would like to edit.
I do fully agree that it's not the cheapest solution and for that reason would not know why anyone would choose an Apple machine as a server.
We're using an XServe and OS X Server as an access-controlled file share across (student) print media groups. Works beautifully with the Macs owned by the various media groups, lets us control read/write access across folders belonging to different groups.
It's also not too incredibly complicated to administer; we don't have a dedicated network admin (& haven't) and we're running along fine.
It's also not too incredibly complicated to administer; we don't have a dedicated network admin (& haven't) and we're running along fine.
Except it is missing some of the features that make BSD so great. Namely the pf firewall. I have a feeling Mac OS X uses the ipfw firewall which in comparison doesn't cut the mustard.
We use it for
Hosting Email through Kerio.
Apple desktop login authentication system, Kerberos . Active Directory Replacement
Samba file sharing.
Intranet Chat Server.
Hosting intranet pages.
Is it really necessary? No. You can probably do all this on a Mac Mini, iMac, Pro with the Unlimited Server License. Xserve is nice since its a 1U server platform, we bought it because it was pretty. Personally I think its overkill. A redhat, centos, ubuntu box running on a Dell PowerEdge would work just as well and much cheaper if you know what you are doing.
Hosting Email through Kerio.
Apple desktop login authentication system, Kerberos . Active Directory Replacement
Samba file sharing.
Intranet Chat Server.
Hosting intranet pages.
Is it really necessary? No. You can probably do all this on a Mac Mini, iMac, Pro with the Unlimited Server License. Xserve is nice since its a 1U server platform, we bought it because it was pretty. Personally I think its overkill. A redhat, centos, ubuntu box running on a Dell PowerEdge would work just as well and much cheaper if you know what you are doing.
That was exactly my point. Mac OS X and BSD are roughly equivalent except that BSD is free (zero cost) can can run on either much less expensive hardware or much more powerful hardware. With mac OS X Server you pay a lot for the software and have very limited hardware selection. If you are going to edit files you loose any advantage mac OS X has over BSD.
The question was "what is Mac OS X Server good for?" if is good for people who want the nice Mac GUI on their server.
I'm used to and prefer the command line and to have the abilty to ssh into the server. For many uses Solaris, now that it is free and open source looks like it is best.
Maybe that's why Leopard's file sharing is flaky, Apple was trying to differentiate its products
