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Mac OS X Server

mac os x serverMac OS X Server, developed by Apple Inc., is a UNIX server operating system for Apple’s computers. It is architecturally identical to its desktop counterpart; except that it includes administration software tools and work group management. It provides simplified access to several important network services, including a domain name server, an LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) server, a Samba server, a mail transfer agent and others. It is optionally pre-installed on the Mac Pro and Mac mini and is sold individually on the Mac computers.

Mac OS X Server is based on an open source foundation called as Darwin and uses open industry protocols and standards. This server enables you to share, collaborate and communicate information. It includes applications and services to create websites, produce and distribute podcasts, publish a companywide blog, contribute to and comment in wikis, send and receive emails, conduct live video conferences, schedule events, sharing calendars and contact information, and file sharing.

Server Admin Tools

  1. Server Admin – It is one of the remote configuration/administration tools for MAC OS X Server.
  2. Server Assistant – It is capable of executing remote installation of software onto the server.
  3. Server Monitor – It is Apple’s IPMI-based tool for communicating with a remote BMC (baseboard management controller), which implements their LOM (Lights-out management) system.
  4. System Image Utility – It is an application for making NetBoot and other image sets on Mac OS X Server.
  5. Workgroup Manager – It is used for directory-based management of groups, users and computer across a network.
  6. Xgrid – Apple’s Xgrid technology makes it easy to turn an ad hoc group of Mac systems into low-cost supercomputers.

System Requirements

  1. Processors – Power PC G5, G4, or G3 processors and Mac computer with Intel.
  2. Memory – minimum of 1GB RAM.
  3. Hard drive – 10GB – 20GB.

Versions

  1. Mac OS X Server 1.0 (Rhapsody) – It was released on March 16, 1999, which included NetBoot, WebObjects, QuickTime Streaming Server, Macintosh Manager and Apple File Services.
  2. Mac OS X Server 10.0 (Cheetah Server) – It was released on May 21, 2001, which included the new NetBoot, Macintosh Manger, WebDAV support, Tomcat, MySQL, PHP, Apache and Aqua user interface.
  3. Mac OS X Server 10.1 (Puma Server) – It was released on September 25, 2001with few enhanced features over its predecessor, Cheetah Server.
  4. Mac OS X Server 10.2 (Jaguar Server) – It was released on August 23, 2002 with updated Open Directory user and file management, NetBoot and NetInstall. It also provides common networking services like print server, AFP, OpenLDAP, mail server (Cyrus and Postfix), web server (Apache), SNMP and NTP.
  5. Mac OS X Server 10.3 (Panther Server) – It was launched on October 24, 2003 with some enhancement over its predecessor, Jaguar Server.
  6. Mac OS X Server 10.4 (Tiger Server) – It was launched on April 29, 2005. In this version, 64-bit application support was added, plus e-mail span filtering, link aggregations, Xgrid, Access Control Lists, etc.
  7. Mac OS X Server 10.5 (Leopard Server) – It is the latest version Mac OS X server family and was released on October 26, 2007. This version included several new features.

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