Once those steps are complete, you're ready to configure your server.ĭownloading and running Server.app prompts a few changes to the operating system itself: the Screen Sharing and Remote Login features are both enabled automatically to make remote administration easier, for example. We'll talk more about how Push Notifications in OS X Server work a little later, but all you need to set them up is an Apple ID (Apple recommends you use a separate Apple ID for your organization, not a personal Apple ID used to purchase apps), which will get you a Push Notifications certificate that needs to be renewed yearly. It first walks you through configuring your server for use on a local network or with a domain name you've registered, setting up the server's host name and IP address, and enabling Push Notifications. When you first run Server.app, its wizard will get your server up and running in a few uncomplicated steps. AdvertisementĬonfiguring a hostname is the most complicated decision you'll have to make when turning your Mac into a server. You can also use Server.app to remotely manage your OS X Server from an OS X client. Snow Leopard Server and previous versions of the software required you to run the software on some sort of desktop, like an iMac or a Mac Mini or an XServe, but Lion Server dropped that stipulation and Mac laptops can now be used as servers, too. Once you've purchased Server.app, you can make as many Macs into OS X Servers as you want. Downloading the OS X Server app (hereafter "Server.app") will turn any Mac running Mountain Lion into a server. Installing Mountain Lion Server is done through the Mac App Store, just as Lion Server was. The server OS is really just the client OS with the server bits tacked on, and all of the observations made in John Siracusa's characteristically thorough review of Mountain Lion also apply to the server product. Unlike Windows Server, which contains a huge number of under-the-hood changes that make it substantially different from the client versions of Windows, Mac OS X Server is and always has been more or less indistinguishable in operation from Mac OS X. By the time you're done reading, you should have a decent working knowledge of what this software can do, how to configure it, and whether it's right for you. This article should serve as an introduction to the software's capabilities, an evaluation of how those services work compared to the competition, and a basic how-to guide for getting everything up and running. As the product has gotten cheaper and within reach of regular people, the tools used to administer it have become correspondingly less complex, both in terms of how difficult they are to use and in how powerful they are.īecause of OS X Server's newly lowered price, because so much has changed since Snow Leopard, and because Ars Technica's lengthy OS X reviews have never touched on Server before (with the exception of a piece we ran in January about using Lion Server in the home), we've got a lot of ground to cover. At $50, Lion Server cost only five percent of what Leopard Server did at $20, Mountain Lion Server costs less than half of that. With Lion Server and now Mountain Lion Server, the software has followed the hardware in becoming cheaper and simpler, and in shifting its focus from large businesses to small ones. The former sold (and continues to sell) at the $1,000 price so appealing to power users and small businesses, though the Mini lacks the Xserve's hardware monitoring features or expandability. Standalone licenses for the unlimited client version of the software cost $1,000 all the way up until Snow Leopard, when the price dropped to a still-imposing $500.Īll this changed in early 2011 when Apple discontinued the Xserve and replaced it with repurposed configurations of the Mac Mini and Mac Pro. For a long while, the software shipped only with the Xserve, Apple's enterprise-class server hardware. Update: We've covered the new features in updates 2.1 and 2.2 here.Įven long-time Mac users could be forgiven for not knowing anything about OS X Server, the business-oriented version of the operating system that has been developed alongside the better-known consumer version for as long as OS X has existed.
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