[twinoaks]

I'm doing some research, about to get a new server.
Most of my experience has been as a systems admin of power macs a couple years ago.
Now I'm working on a commune, with mostly pcs (windows nt, 2000 and 98) and two macs, both with os x.
I want to know if anyone has any experience with the osx server with a mostly pc network (14 or 15 ibm clones)
Apple's website says it can do everything, but I'd like to hear from someone who has done it.
I'd like to switch to more mac's in the future, but will be stuck with the pc's for the business end of things.

[Maneki Neko]

I haven't had any problems with file sharing to PCs.

What exactly are you looking to do?

[twinoaks]

Currently I have an old pieced together pc server. It has a DHCP server on it, and eventually will have an email server and document server on it. (right now the email server is on a linux box and the documents are on a pc box) I also would like to have the satilite modem on it I think. THere is a phone system which is somehow linked to the computer system too. THis should all be basic server functions, but the system I inheirited is kind of crazy. There is also a linux web server linked to the server, which may or may not be used in the future. After writing my origianl post I did some research, looks like xserve is what I'd want to get. how many folx have experience with that?

[Camelot]

What you're going to find is that Mac OS X Server does, indeed include everything you need to get a simple windows-centric network up and running with users able to share files, send email, etc., etc. with no problem.

From a 'commercial network' (for want of a better term) perspective, it is lacking in some areas, though.

First, a Mac OS X Server-based network would not include all the security options available in a Windows NT/2000 domain. For example, most of the Domain Security Policy options are not available out of the box (password tracking, expiration, account disabling, administrative controls, etc., etc.)

For printing, make sure your printers are network-ready. Many Windows networks are based on the printer(s) being directly attached (usually via parallel cable) to a print server. While Mac OS X does include an lpr server, you'll have MUCH better success if your users can print directly to the printer.

Generally, it's easier to setup a heterogeneous network with multiple OS's on a Mac server than it is on Windows (Windows server works well with Windows clients, but supporting any other OS will result in gray hairs).

What you'll also find is that the Mac OS X server might not come with everything you need in the box but, thanks to its Unix heritage, adding features is usually just a matter of downloading the relevant software and compiling (usually a simple matter). There's almost nothing you can't do with a Unix server, it's just a matter of how much you get bundled vs. what you have to add yourself.

(corrected typo)

<small>[ 06-03-2002, 08:44 PM: Message edited by: Camelot ]</small>

[sbjordal]

SMB implementation in a domain structure is still problematic. Right now, our solution has been to simply use Samba to configure shares on any OSX box, and simply use password access, where knowing the password gave you access to the specific share.
The nice folks over on <a href="http://xamba.sourceforge.net/index.shtml" target="_blank">http://xamba.sourceforge.net/index.shtml</a>
have created a nice Samba implementation that makes it really easy to configure SMB on your OSX box.