Originally posted by MacTroll:
While what you say is very true. MM still has some very cool functionality that netinfo, or most any other lab admin system, can't replicate.
Perhaps you don't have much experience with NFS/NIS and network databases. As I said before... Macintosh Manager is just a wrapper... an app... that gives you a GUI front end to managing the netinfo database. It can not do anything that netinfo can't do.
Got that... I have several students that use laptops... many of them are dual boot. They can sync their /home/userid directory (under Linux) AND their My Documents folder (under Windows) AND their whatever folders (under Mac). This was fairly trivial to set up... I don't have to activate it on a per user basis all they need is an account on the server. They have control and responsibility of what gets synced and when. Since we have made this service available many of the students back up ALL their work to the server because we make regular backups to a second array of disks of /home and /var/lib every night. This gives them a fast way to restore data. In addition... once the mirror is done it is backed up to tape every night.
The utility of all of this is that a student can work seamlessly between home/dorm/lab without having to lug around zip disks and floppies (or even a laptop). Even better... for students that run Linux in their dorm we allow them to rsync to the server.
The main advantage to all this is that it doesn't matter what client system they run. Some prefer Mac, some Windows, and some Linux... our system allows them to use their system of choice and have access to their data in a central place, reliably backed up, and secure. All of this is centrally managed on the server... the server can be remotely managed via ssh, swat, and/or linuxconf. While MM and MacOS-X server are capable of serving Mac clients they are not capable of serving non-Mac clients... not without a kludge of different programs that are too expensive for us and may not integrate well together. I think the license for "Dave" is $150/client.
Again... perhaps you don't have much experience with other network databases. All of this is doable AND done via NIS/NFS/atalk/Samba. Not just CDs but entire sections of the file system on the server. All of this is "built in" on a Linux system. We have duplicated the exports that we had under MM but now it is under atalk to the Macs. We have no loss of functionality or fine grained control. One problem we had with MM was printing. Seems that it would "forget" what printers were set up and who was allowed to print from where. This was one of the main reasons for switching over. All of that is in the past.
I think netinfo is inherently stable... it HAS to be. I am not so trusting of MM however. We had the problems with the printing an also with just "forgetting" permissions, extreme lag in propagation of changes, and even some reports of data loss (I never saw that personally).
We have a 100Mbit/s switched network... mebbe we need Gigabit? I don't think MM was straining the network anymore than Macs normally do.
While the interface is OK. I really don't think it is all that well laid out. Can't give specifics because I dumped it over a year ago... and I don't have to remember anything about it. Netinfo has the niutil CLI and it is definitely not easy to learn how to use. It would be somewhat trivial to write a decent frontend to that IF one knows and understands NetInfo well.
I am interested in what finer control you got with Linux then with MM.
Not neccessarily "finer" but certainly easier, quicker, more consistent control. Ferinstance... we have a network folder on all clients for general lab use. In that folder are subfolders with ALL lab data, experiments, and relevant documents... these are read only for the generic user. There is one and only one subfolder they can write to called Public. Anyhting they write to there can be read and copied by anyone else but another user can not change or delete a file a different user has created. The generic user has access to one and only one printer... the one in the same room as the Mac.
For users with regular accounts on the server they have access to their /home/userid directory and also to the Public directory... they also have access to any printer in the lab (we have six total). Another nice thing that didn't seem to work properly under MM is users preferences and bookmark folders for Netscape... those are all centrally located on the server in their /home/userid directory.
In short... the main reason we switched is due to Linux ability to "talk" to all the clients in a consistent and reliable way. The cost was another significant factor in our decision.
YMMV
-DU-...etc...
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