Under the hood, OS X Server has a number of substantial changes; however, at first the Server app appears to have had very few changes. The changes in the Server app were far more substantial in the Yosemite version of OS X Server. All of the options from Yosemite are still there and using the new command line interface for managing the service, there are far more options than ever before. The DNS service in OS X Server, as with previous versions, is based on bind 9 (BIND 9.9.2-P2 to be exact). This is very much compatible with practically every DNS server in the world, including those hosted on Windows,…
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Find The Search Base In OS X Server
Once upon a time, Server Admin was a tool that allowed Admins of OS X Server to look at settings for an OS X Server using a graphical tool. As Server Admin is no longer being used, we frequently find there are certain settings we need to find in the replacement Server app that just aren’t in graphical tools any longer. One of the settings that you need when integrating other systems is the search base. This defines the location that searches start when queries against the directory tree are run. When other systems are integrated into Open Directory they need to use this to be able to enumerate information…
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Server Admin Web Modules, curl & You
Since the early days, OS X Server has supported performing the serveradmin commands through a web interface. This interface was accessible at the address of the server followed by a colon and then 311 in a web browser. This feature was disabled by default in Mountain Lion. But fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true, so we’re going to turn it back on. To enable, use the following command: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.servermgrd requireUserAgent -bool false Once done, open https://127.0.0.1:311 in a web browser, or replace 127.0.0.1 with the address of the server if accessing from another location. This is stimulating, but we’re out of…
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Using Wikis & WebDAV in OS X Mountain Lion
A wiki is a repository of dynamically created and managed content, or content created or edited by multiple users collaboratively. This article is about using the wiki service in Mountain Lion. I reference file services with WebDAV because it is a very nice integration piece that I think a lot of people will find pretty beneficial. To get started with the Wiki service, first turn it on. This one isn’t heavily dependent on host names (other than being able to access the server from a browser) or directory services (other than being able to authenticate users, but local accounts are perfectly functional) and it doesn’t require the Websites service to…
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Big Changes in Lion Server
OK, by now I’m sure everyone has heard that OS X Server is a download off the App Store. For a whoppin’ $50 you get the OS that was once called “Open Source Made Easy” until someone at Apple realized that GPLv3 might mean that Open Source doesn’t always mean “free as in beer”. Wait, did I say that out loud? Point is, there are bigger changes here than just moving the server to the App Store. There are also some pretty big changes to the GUI of OS X Server. The first and most obvious is the LoginWindow, which is different in OS X in general. It obviously looks…
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When Zones Just Won't Die
At times, you may find that information gets stuck in Server Admin and can’t be removed. For example, you see a Zone in Server Admin, and it doesn’t have a Name Server record attached to it. You can’t delete it but every time you add a Name Server it just disappears. This is often caused when you remove or change something and it gets dumped from the zone files in /var/named but not from the BIND view. Running serveradmin will show the data but as it’s serialized it can’t be removed: serveradmin settings dns Without a Name Server record, the zone is unresponsive to queries. Removing the zone can delete the…
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Server Admin on Linux
Apple recently announced the end of the Apple Xserve. The data center is a funny thing, and being such rack space is critical to most who spend a lot of time there. Many of the previous Xserve customers will continue to buy Mac Pro’s and use them in racks as tall Xserves. Others will purchase Mac Mini’s and use them for certain situations. But many will move on to using the same iron in the data center that they use for everything else, finding a way to duplicate or replace the functionality that was previously in the Xserve with something else. Server Admin is not going to run on Linux.…