The Time Machine service in OS X Server 5 hasn’t changed much from the service in previous operating systems. To enable the Time Machine service, open the Server app, click on Time Machine in the SERVICES sidebar. If the service hasn’t been enabled to date, the ON/OFF switch will be in the OFF position and no “Backup destination” will be shown in the Settings pane. Click on the ON button to see the New Destination screen, used to configure a list of volumes as a destinations for Time Machine backups. The selection volume should be large enough to have space for all of the users that can potentially use the Time…
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Manage the VPN Service in Mac OS X Server 5
OS X Server has long had a VPN service that can be run. The server is capable of running the two most commonly used VPN protocols: PPTP and L2TP. The L2TP protocol is always in use, but the server can run both concurrently. You should use L2TP when at all possible. Sure, “All the great themes have been used up and turned into theme parks.” But security is a theme that it never hurts to keep in the forefront of your mind. If you were thinking of exposing the other services in OS X Server to the Internet without having users connect to a VPN service then you should think again,…
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Troubleshooting Apache, Proxies, and Tomcat in OS X Server 5
OS X Server 5 dropped last week. It’s the first time I’ve seen an OS X Server version drop before an OS release. I’m guessing there was an impetus to get it out the door before OS X 10.11 ships, so that caching and software update servers can facilitate quicker adoption and tools like Profile Manager will work on 0-day. But, there are some funny issues that are popping up. One of these is OS X Server usurping some ports that would otherwise potentially be used by other tools. Notably for Casper administrators, this includes port 8443. So here are some issues I’ve seen with Apache in the latest OS…
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Promote an Open Directory Master in OS X Server 5
Open Directory has never been so easy to setup for a basic environment as it is in OS X Server 5 (for OS X 10.11 El Capitan and OS X 10.10 Yosemite). It’s also never been so annoyingly simple to use that to do anything cool requires a bunch of command line foo. No offense to the developers, but this whole idea that the screens that were being continually refined for a decade just need to be thrown out and started fresh seems to have led to a few babies thrown out along with them. Not often as I’m kinda’ digging most of the new config screens in OS X Server…
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Use the Software Update Service In OS X Server 5
The software patching configuration built into most operating systems is configured so all that a user has to do is open a box at home, join the network and start using the computer right away. As environments grow from homes to small offices and then small offices grow into enterprises, at some point software updates and patches need to be managed centrally. OS X Server 5 (for El Capitan and Yosemite), as with its OS X Server predecessors has a Software Update service. The service in the Server app is known as Software Update and from the command line is known as swupdate. The Software Update service, by default, stores each update…