Lion Server doesn’t have an option in the GUI for throttling the maximum number of users that can connect to the server via SMB. Nor does it have said option in the serveradmin interface. If you run the following, you would have previously seen the required setting:
serveradmin settings smb
The required setting (if controlled via serveradmin) is MaxClients= followed by the number of clients that you want to be the max:
serveradmin settings smb:MaxClients=10
This is pretty easy stuff, but I have a point that goes beyond limiting the number of users. Not all of the settings that can be run through serveradmin are actually in the preferences any more. You can add more. Not that all of the ones from the developer documentation for the old smb code are still around, but a lot are. Another that a lot of people would want to use is to set the SMB Workgroup name in Lion Server:
serveradmin settings smb:Workgroup=SMBLOWS
You can also disable guest access by setting AllowGuestAccess to FALSE:
serveradmin settings smb:AllowGuestAccess=FALSE
Now, just because the option isn’t obvious doesn’t mean the server hasn’t already got a preconfigured setting. Running the AllowGuestAccess as follows will actually just show you that it defaults to on and most options, when specifically invoked, should provide the setting if it still exists:
serveradmin settings smb:AllowGuestAccess
Overall, there’s a lot you can do with a number of services. The options for many of these used to be a little easier to find, if you to see what some option from 10.6 allowed you to do that isn’t in the GUI in Lion or subsequent OSes that you miss, just look to the serveradmin command, make the change and see what preference changed. Who knows, that option might be available in Lion, even if it wasn’t available in the GUI…
