[uochris]

I'v had an Apple system engineer request a list of issues and wish lists for OS X server. What doesn't work right? What could be improved? What is missing that you want to have added? I have my own list but I'd love to get your input so I can pass your ideas on to Apple. I need to have them by Monday the 29th.

[tmikkelsen]

Originally posted by uochris:
<STRONG>I'v had an Apple system engineer request a list of issues and wish lists for OS X server. What doesn't work right? What could be improved? What is missing that you want to have added? I have my own list but I'd love to get your input so I can pass your ideas on to Apple. I need to have them by Monday the 29th.</STRONG>

The one thing that comes to mind is disk quotas. This is a MUST have.

[speirsfr]

Here are some things:

1. Automounting needs to be made to work as advertised, or documented as to how it really works. Currently, static AFP mounts to OSX clients actually do not work, despite it being possible to set them in Server Admin. The ability to export $HOME and a finder-visible applications folder to clients is essential for me. It's just too complicated and flaky right now.

2. Document how to export and maintain unix directories (e.g. /usr/local) for network workstations.

3. Provide comprehensive UI for managing DNS in Server Admin. This isn't *that* hard to do but, done right, would knock me out the park.

4. The options *not* to install Macintosh Manager and NetBoot would be nice.

5. When using macintosh manager and Net boot, each client eats three AFP connections, making it only possible to connect three clients to a 10-client licensed server. I consider this deceptive advertising.

Please post back any feedback you get from Apple!

Thanks,
Fraser

[dtriska]

1) Quotas for user accounts.
2) LDAPv3 support to allow Mac clients to change passwords hosted by NT/W2K servers.
3) More GUI control of the server. Too many times did I have to open Terminal to do something a checkbox in Server Admin would have done.
4) A webmail interface like the one being beta-tested for Mac.com email would be nice.

[Maneki Neko]

Originally posted by uochris:
<STRONG>I'v had an Apple system engineer request a list of issues and wish lists for OS X server. What doesn't work right? What could be improved? What is missing that you want to have added? I have my own list but I'd love to get your input so I can pass your ideas on to Apple. I need to have them by Monday the 29th.</STRONG>

A mail server that doesn't store it's mail in one big (and seemingly prone to corruption) database.

More and better netinfo documentation.

Support for the secure versions of the mail protocols (POPS, IMAPS, etc.) in the Apple Mail server.

[speirsfr]

Yes, I second the call for something like webmail.mac.com to be shipped with X Server. That would be great.

FS

[Camelot]

Maybe my needs aren't typical of Mac OS X Server users but I'll go ahead, anyway.

I run a large (200+) server network (primarily Solaris) running various web applications.

My server desires (needs?) are:

1) Rackmountable hardware.
Compact, rackmountable/rack-friendly hardware. Current G4's are minimum of 6Us, even on their side - way too much. My standard Sun boxes are either quad processor/4U systems or single processor/1U systems, depending on the task. With the cost of commercial rackspace being what it is, performance per 'U' is an important factor. Many intel-based servers are now available in 'blade' configuration which provides even higher processor:U ratios.

2) Hardware Redundancy - redundant power is a must, and they should be hot-swappable. Admittedly I've never had a Mac power supply blow on me ::touch wood::, but with my Sun boxes I can just pull the failed power supply and insert a new one while the machine keeps running.
Hardware RAID is also a must (again, hot swappable is preferred). IMHO, the inability to boot off a RAID partition is a BIG limitation in the current Mac OS X.

3) Console access - Whether Steve likes it or not, serial consoles are the de facto standard in server farms and that's not likely to change soon (as much as I wish it would). Even million-dollar Cisco routers have a serial port for out-of-band management.
The advantage of a serial console is that you can get to it no matter what the state of the server or the network. If any of my Sun servers have crashed, for example, I can still console in and get some kind of system prompt, even if only to reboot the system.

4) Play nice with others.
Much of Mac OS X Server's features are geared around an all-Mac (or at least Mac-centric) network. All my servers run NIS. I'm much more likely to migrate to Mac OS X if I can easily integrate into my NIS domain rather than either running separate NIS and Mac OS X domains, or switching to a Mac domain master. (I know Mac OS X includes some level of NIS support, but I've never got it working). I also run large NFS storage systems and I need to be able to integrate NFS volumes into the system.

5) Central Installation.
An absolute must is the ability to install systems from a central location (a là jumpstart). With jumpstart I can put a brand new machine in the network and it will automatically configure and install the OS to a common configuration (including partitions, OS, applications, etc.), as well as customize the machine if needed. When complete, the machine reboots and it's on the network as an active system - no user intervention required.
NetBoot is not the same - this lets a Mac boot off a remote machine's drive, but does not configure the machine to be able to operate on its own.

6) Migration Documentation.
A big plus would be clean, concise documentation on how I'd perform common actions on Mac OS X from a Linux/Solaris/Other perspective.
Most other unix systems use various text files for their configuration. Mac OS X uses either text files or, more commonly, NetInfo.
The documentation should be something like:

Adding a mount point:

Solaris: edit /etc/vfstab and add a line in the form &lt;sample&gt;

Mac OS X: Open NetInfo Manager and do x, y, z,

In this way Solaris admins can lookup the either the task (add a mount point) or the file they're used to dealing with (/etc/vfstab) and see how to do it in Mac OS X. I challenge any unix admin who's familiar with adding startup items to Solaris' /etc/rc3.d to work out how to launch a program automatically at startup on Mac OS X. Sure, it's easy once you know but getting there is half the battle.

[kennedy]

I have three target uses of OS X Server... it is real close to being great for each... but it misses on some key point in each case.

1) BUSINESS NETWORK
Large server with large disks; all user home dirs on server; all business databases on server; potentially all applications just installed on server

a) Ability to define all users on server with their home dirs on server; no matter what machine you log into, you get your home dir and environment exactly the same. You say: done? Well, mostly... except that it is unreliable and a bit flaky. Test the heck out of this. Although mostly working, I continue to have bugs appear.

b) Static mounting of server drives on all machines
Back when I was testing with just X client, I had this working via NFS; however NFS doesn't support running apps over; when I switched to X Server, it wanted to use AFS, which nicely supported running apps. HOWEVER, it seems to *insist* on automounting. The automounting has mostly worked, but not always. And the deep, ugly, not entirely consistent paths from release to release cause chaos with setting user accounts to work. You seemed to set up '/Network/Users' and '/Network/Applications' to provide consistent, short-hand mount points, but there seems to be know way to get those mounted into or even to link from them.

c) Symbolic links to mounted drives that appear in the Finder.
I have tried to get this numerous ways; unix-defined symbolic links do not seem to appear in the Finder; and Make Alias on a mounted drive doesn't seem to work at all.

d) Ability to define the OS image once, save it onto the server, and then replicate it to each client machine such that each client is easily maintained as identical. You just push a button and the client machine's OS X partition is overwritten with the OS X Image partition from the server; similarly for the OS 9 partition. In that way, you never install apps more than once; but you get them installed on every machine.

e) Low-cost, minimal storage, no modem iMacs to be used as terminals off of the central server. Given they don't hold user data, they just need a disk large enough for an OS X partition and an OS 9 partition, each with third-party apps.


2) PUBLIC-ACCESS NETWORK
I want my customers to be able to login to any of the Macs on my public network. From there they should be able to use the network printer in the room and *ideally* a network scanner, etc. I think this could be a huge sales opp for Apple... my users will be using the Macs and be able to use iTools mail for email and iDisk for sharing stuff back to their home computer. After a while, they'll get to where they want the same functionality at home... including the network... including OS X Server (see #3 below).

a)-e) Everything from #1 above.

f) Disk quotas. I must prevent one user from sucking up the whole drive. And I'd like to charge them more based on how much space they want.

g) Time logging. I want to charge by the minute. I need to keep a timer available while they are logged in. And I must run a report periodically in order to bill them.

h) Shared resources beyond TCP/IP printing. Like scanning, faxing, etc.

i) Ability to templatize a standard user account, including default Preferences for Finder, Dock, etc., such that you can trivially introduce new users. Ideally, push button easy once template is built.


3) HOME NETWORK
I use OS X Server at home! Each family member has their own account. They can login to either of my Macs and get the exact same working environment (except only one computer has access to the scanner/printer/fax machine). My kids can modify their desktop, and otherwise do most anything they want... I've told them to experiment and have fun... I know OS X won't let them modify any body else's stuff or the system stuff. In contrast, when I had Windows machines, they weren't allowed to do much of anything... certainly no exploring... they would alter the machine for everybody too often. I see this as a *huge* differentiator for OS X in the home and school environments.

a) Low-cost version of OS X Server... 10 account limit... 5 client machine limit... maybe drop some of the server software like the mail server and the webserver (assume they'll use iTools for that)... etc.

b) Make sure server machine is also usable as a workstation, with a consistent environment maintained. For example, things in the Dock should look the same whether on a client machine or on the server. Thus, you need to be able to mount server disks in same location on server as on clients.

c) For a subset of the setup and configuration, you need to make it even easier to use... targeting average consumer, not corporate IT.


Leveraging all the above with OS X client NetBoot functionality such that you can have even cheaper diskless iMacs... then potentially a full network of Macs could be as cheap as a full network of PeeCees.

Well, that's just a few things off the top of my head.

[Westfoto]

"3) HOME NETWORK
I use OS X Server at home! Each family member has their own account. They can login to either of my Macs and get the exact same working environment (except only one computer has access to the scanner/printer/fax machine). My kids can modify their desktop, and otherwise do most anything they want... I've told them to experiment and have fun... I know OS X won't let them modify any body else's stuff or the system stuff. In contrast, when I had Windows machines, they weren't allowed to do much of anything... certainly no exploring... they would alter the machine for everybody too often. I see this as a *huge* differentiator for OS X in the home and school environments.

a) Low-cost version of OS X Server... 10 account limit... 5 client machine limit... maybe drop some of the server software like the mail server and the webserver (assume they'll use iTools for that)... etc.

b) Make sure server machine is also usable as a workstation, with a consistent environment maintained. For example, things in the Dock should look the same whether on a client machine or on the server. Thus, you need to be able to mount server disks in same location on server as on clients.

c) For a subset of the setup and configuration, you need to make it even easier to use... targeting average consumer, not corporate IT."

I like these items.

I am thing about using the old G3 at my office for this reason as I have two iMac that we use at home and it is a real pain to try to figure out where that file the kids just wrote is - and then you have to move it. How hard whould this be with the way OSX Server is right now. I am looking forward to the fact of the home for each user is the same and not to have to set that up for each machine.

Thanks for the help.

West

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Westfoto:
<STRONG>I am thing about using the old G3 at my office for this reason as I have two iMac that we use at home and it is a real pain to try to figure out where that file the kids just wrote is - and then you have to move it. How hard whould this be with the way OSX Server is right now. I am looking forward to the fact of the home for each user is the same and not to have to set that up for each machine.</STRONG>

Its not too hard at all. The initial setup isn't entirely obvious... you actually need the Admin Guide to figure out what to do... and that is far from clear. But once you get that initial setup out of the way, the ongoing effort is fairly trivial. Primary problem: the network link-ups are a bit unreliable and timing sensitive right now. That can be frustrating... but I have the same compaint about my network at work.

On the setup issue: Apple needs to introduce one or two "network templates" that you can select and have it do all the NetInfo setup accordingly. Right now, the manuals try to educate you on all the options you have... do a poor job of it... and leave the reader bewildered on what he should actually do. There should simply be a "Home" template, a "Small Business" template, a "Two Department" template, etc.

[jason75]

Allow the NetBoot system and application images to be larger than 2GB.

NetBoot OS X clients.

[darianj2]

I need to be able to change to force users to change their password upon next login. NT does this reasonably well. AND I need this for my Mac and Windows users.
I administer a 2500 person network, and need to issue all new passwords once a year (a high school - nobody remembers passwords over the summer), and allow the users to set it themselves to something they will remember.
I would also love the ability to assign automount points on non-os x servers (i.e. samba or windows nt servers).

Darian J. DeFalco