16 ms·

Prepare for changes to macOS Server 5.7.1

105 points by deng 8y ago

enitihas 8y ago
Does even Apple use macOS server for their own servers?
- jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
  doubtful
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- bookbinder 8y ago
  They haven't used mac servers in more than a decade long before they discontinued Xserve.
  - k__ 8y ago
    How do you CI for iOS apps without a mac server?
    - bunderbunder 8y ago
      I would guess you just use non-rackmount hardware to do it.
      - mrpippy 8y ago
        Or mount Mac Pros in a rack: https://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacpro.html https://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacpro.html
    - alerighi 8y ago
      Nobody will sue them if they install macOS on a standard PC hardware, probably they use standard PC hardware to develop internally
      - saagarjha 8y ago
        > they use standard PC hardware to develop internally For iOS development? Everyone uses Macs.
- mattl 8y ago
  I believe they use a lot of RHEL
- et2o 8y ago
  I had to look for a bit before I found an apple URL that wasn't behind Akamai (Linux), but: https://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=gs.apple.com#last_reboot https://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=gs.apple.com#la... Just says OS is 'unknown', Apache server. So they may possibly be using a version of Mac OS to host at least something.
  - bpye 8y ago
    https://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://radar.apple.com&refresh=1#history_table https://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://radar.ap... This one is just showing up as Apple, definitely used to be Darwin but has also been Linux before.
jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
Why do they even bother making macOS server anymore? They clearly don't care about the corporate enterprise. They keep stripping away features. No DNS, no DHCP, no VPN, what is anyone gaining using macOS server? If you use it you likely are going to have to hack together a bunch of services just to get it functioning.
- mitjak 8y ago
  The enterprise is not the only reason to make a server OS.
- sephware 8y ago
  1) It probably makes them at least a noticeable percentage of revenue, if not much, so that cutting it out completely would maybe cut funding for a dozen employees. They'll need to dwindle sales down first, probably by deprecating it, so that they can justify the cut internally. 2) Even if they're backpedalling on the idea of macOS as a server and pushing for migrating to open source tools, they don't want to openly admit this, that always looks bad and unprofessional. 3) They're probably phasing it out slowly and in the next release or two they will probably deprecate it, and remove it completely from MAS in the next major macOS update. 4) They'll want to wait until they can play up their contribution and downplays that they were on the wrong side of history: "We're deprecating macOS Server, which has been a boon and a huge innovation in this space for 20 years, and helped $N millions of customers, but at this point the open source community has finally caught up to our quality." 5) At that point, the remaining useful features will be integrated into macOS proper for free, and they'll tout how they're benefiting everyone by doing this and simplifying everyone's workflow and saving everyone money.
  - jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
    > ) Even if they're backpedalling on the idea of macOS as a server and pushing for migrating to open source tools, they don't want to openly admit this, that always looks bad and unprofessional. I think it looks way worse to just let it limp along and slowly die. Fail fast, learn your lesson, and move on. >1) It probably makes them at least a noticeable percentage of revenue, if not much, so that cutting it out completely would maybe cut funding for a dozen employees. They are APPLE, they have ridiculous cash. If said employees are of a high quality/standard then I am sure they can figure out something else for them to do at Apple. Even if it means paying them for a few months while they get trained up on a new project/department.
mitjak 8y ago
> Caching Server, File Sharing Server, and Time Machine Server I'd love some confirmation of this but I have a sense macOS server is used primarily in file heavy scenarios like movie and music production.
- okket 8y ago
  These services are not removed, but moved to the main OS -> "Services Migrated from macOS Server to macOS High Sierra".
  - mitjak 8y ago
    Sorry, I didn't claim they were removed, I was curious why these were moved to High Sierra.
    - jakobegger 8y ago
      It's a lot easier to manage now. If you just need those features, you no longer need to install macOS server. Just toggle a switch in the Sharing preferences.
    - bigpicture 8y ago
      As far as content caching goes, making it built in to the operation system is a win-win situation. It lessens load on Apple data centers and speeds up downloads/reduces bandwidth for customers with multiple Apple devices. The current iteration, however, needs some work. On my old Mac Mini, it is constantly complaining that it needs more space. This will become annoying and I'm sure that some people will find this message anxiety-inducing. For me, I have been meaning to find out whether it stops working or if it purges old content when this happens. I hope it is the latter!
- joemaller1 8y ago
  Our SMB design office is media-heavy, with lots of very large raw photo shoots and source video files. We've been using Apple Server for file sharing for a long time (running on Mac minis). All other services have been migrated or abandoned. At some point we need to switch to a Windows or Linux SMB server, cloud storage is still cost-prohibitive with the file sizes we're throwing around. edit: File sharing was on Server.app, now it's just plain macOS-flavored SMB
wlesieutre 8y ago
Not too surprising, they killed their server hardware line (Xserve) in 2004, and the Mac Minis that people were using as substitutes lost their quad-core option in 2012. The number of people hanging on to Macs as servers has to be vanishingly small, and Apple doesn't do small markets anymore. There are currently rumors of a "Pro" focused Mac Mini, yes, but that's going to be comparatively expensive and I doubt it could win back much server market even if Apple wanted to. They'll stick around as servers for iOS builds because there's no other option (and the Pro Mini would be nice for that), but hanging on to Macs for any other sort of server outside of a home file server is a lost cause.
- mikestew 8y ago
  they killed their server hardware line (Xserve) in 2004 Minor nit: 2011 [0] But similar to you, I'm surprised macOS Server is even a thing anymore. What are you supposed to run it on? That six year old quad-core Mac Mini? The oh-so-long-in-the-tooth trash can Pro your department still clings to? Off the top of my head, I'm a little stumped as to what I'd use to best utilize Xcode's distributed build functionality. Apple hasn't made what I feel is an appropriate tool for that job in at least six years. [0] https://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/L422277A_Xserve_Guide.pdf https://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/L422277A_Xserve_Guide.pd...
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    I’ve got a Mid 2010 Mac Mini running regular macOS I use as a light duty home server. Went to update it to Mojave this weekend to find Apple dropped support for it! F-me for having still-working hardware, I guess :(
    - chrisballinger 8y ago
      If you don't mind disabling SIP, you can still run Mojave on a lot of older hardware: http://dosdude1.com/mojave http://dosdude1.com/mojave
      - ryandrake 8y ago
walterbell 8y ago
Does it support MDM and DEP for iOS devices? Is there an iOS MDM provider which will allow you to configure per-app VPNs that connect to an open-source VPN? Microsoft Intune only supports specific corporate VPNs, is that because per-app VPNs require a corporate VPN app that is installed on the phone? Why can't the native IPSEC client perform this function on a per-app basis? It would allow segmentation of Facebook from normal traffic. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/vpn-setting-configure-per-app https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/vpn-setting-configur... Edit: Profile Manager is still supported in 5.7.1 Instructions for MacOS Server setup of Profile Manager without DEP, https://medium.com/@JoshuaAJung/managing-your-mobile-devices-in-the-cloud-using-apples-own-mdm-solution-8a588d9724b6 https://medium.com/@JoshuaAJung/managing-your-mobile-devices...
heavymark 8y ago
Was excited to hear about this since I imagine a very large number of users had to install the server for update caching and time machine server and now they don't how have to. Since the title would probably be better suited to say High Sierra Gains macOS Server Features.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jtbayly 8y ago
  This really changes the tenor of the title. That's actually a big deal for a lot of people. Especially Time Machine sharing.
plg 8y ago
I don't understand ... they've eliminated the Mail server? or you just have to click a button to install it specifically? or you have to manually install one of the open-source mail servers yourself? (in which case why use MacOS server at all, not say, Debian)
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  Entirely gone. Per the table: > Service: Mail Server > Status: Removed in Server 5.7.1 > Alternatives: dovecot/Postfix, Courier, KerioConnect
- kkwtfeliz 8y ago
  My main issue is with Push email. With OSX Server, you could get an APNS certificate that enabled you to have mail instantly delivered to your iPhone, push for Mail.app with one click. Will there be a workaround for this? I know there's a dovecot version for freebsd that can use the push certificate, but the only way to obtain it was using OSX Server's mail server... Does anyone know if a regular, iOS app push certificate works with this?
chmars 8y ago
We wanted to switch to a Linux-based NAS. There was a major issue though: EXT4 does not support long enough directory / file names (or paths). As a result of our extensive folder structure and file naming scheme, we ran into all sorts of issues. In the end, we made the jump to Google Drive where security is probably better anyway in comparison to a local NAS. (Your mileage may vary as usual.)
- e12e 8y ago
  I don't think there's a path limit in ext4, but looks like individual file/folders are limited to 255 bytes, while hfs+ (on Linux) is 255 utf-16 characters, which is potentially longer. The 255 bytes limit seems common (xfs, zfs)-while reiser allows 4kb or so. What kind of naming scheme do you have that you had a problem? Long, multibyte file names?
  - cesarb 8y ago
    IIRC, there's a limit that the whole path passed to system calls has to fit into a single page. For most architectures, that's 4096 bytes including the terminating nul character. (This limit arises because the kernel has to copy the passed path to kernel space before doing any work on it, and allocating more than a single page is costlier.)
    - e12e 8y ago
      Just tried, there's definitely a 255 sigle file/folder name limit with zfs - but I had no problem making very deep folder trees. However 'touch' wouldn't accept a path that was too long - 4kb looks about right. Bash cd wouldn't let mee leap all the way down in one go - but if I got down there (while ls a * ;do cd a * ;done) - I could create a file (ed: view from "top"): find -iname ok|wc 1 1 12805 I guess I've got a hard time imagining 4kb path and 255 byte path segments being a serious issue - but maybe my imagination is the problem?
  - et2o 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems#Limits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems#Lim... For other's reference
bdz 8y ago
On a sidenote I always wanted to buy an old Xserve just because for some reason they look really good. Not sure they are good for anything tho
- jamesfmilne 8y ago
  They do indeed look good, but I wouldn't bother. We have several of them at our company that we keep alive as build servers for our Mac software. They are 4-5x slower than the equivalent contemporary x86 boxes you can run Linux/Windows on. As a modern day server they are fairly rubbish really.
  - bdz 8y ago
    Yeah as I see even the budget Ryzen 3 CPUs are better than those old Xeons
  - nodesocket 8y ago
    There is an eight core 3.0GHz Intel Xeon, 32GB RAM, 2TB drive for $300.00[1] on eBay. Curious if you install SSD disks in RAID? Then it might actually be a pretty decent home server. [1] - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Eight-Core-Apple-Xserve-Server-3-0GHz-Intel-Xeon-32GB-RAM-2TB-WITH-RAILS/322947767053?epid=1901422001&hash=item4b312fdb0d https://www.ebay.com/itm/Eight-Core-Apple-Xserve-Server-3-0G...
    - jamesfmilne 8y ago
      It's a little tricky to upgrade the CPUs in the Xserve as they are special versions with narrower lids. You can't use stock Xeons, you have to delid them yourself. It can be done though. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/xserve-processor-upgrades.1096691/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/xserve-processor-upgrad...
- reaperducer 8y ago
  On a sidenote I always wanted to buy an old Xserve just because for some reason they look really good. Not sure they are good for anything tho I've been tempted, too. Mostly for the nostalgia kick. I've seen them on fleaBay at really reasonable prices. It looks like .edu, .gov, and .orgs are phasing them out and often a listing shows a stack of 20 or 50 of them, and you can pick the one you want.
philipwhiuk 8y ago
5.7.1 shouldn't remove features - it makes a mockery of version numbering.
village-idiot 8y ago
Honestly, I thought they'd killed off macOS Server a while ago. I'm a little surprised to discover that it's still a thing.
liquidise 8y ago
Whether fair or not, i started arguing that apple wasn't a computer company years ago. They are a phone company today and everything that looks or works like a traditional machine, servers included, are a distraction to that enterprise. As a once-proud and fond apple fanboy, i am biased here. I miss having compelling laptop and desktop options in the Mac space. In the same way that i am still using an '09 pro and a '12 air, i bet some IT folks still cling to their server infrastructure hoping that the glory days return. C'est la vie.
- scarface74 8y ago
  It might have been a big hint when they dropped “Computer” from their name. But more importantly, Apple has always been a personal computer company. Not an enterprise computer company. What’s more personal than a phone running a real computer operating system in your pocket? More people (ie the “personal”) buy iPhones + iPads in one year than Apple has sold traditional computers in the last decade. If not, the numbers should be close.
  - baldfat 8y ago
    In the early 2000s they made a HUGE push for enterprise. My company I worked at Part Time went all in. It was a disaster for 3 months. The IT department didn't make the decision but the Executive Board. Just this summer, I now work at another company, and they went 100% Apple (Because students were issued iPads so why not switch everyone over of course). They ended up throwing away all their 1 to 3 year old Mac All in Ones, in all the computer labs, into the garbage (At Apple's Request Around 400 of them) and now students don't have access to a computer and only issued a tablet. So adults have Mac Laptops and kids have iPads (K-12) seems so strange. I think that this is where Apple would love to put Enterprise with everyone without a special case just uses iPads.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      It’s a happy accident that bring your own device bought Apple into the enterprise and now they are able to leverage that and do partnership deals with the likes of IBM and SAP (?)
edhelas 8y ago
Messages Removed in Server 5.7.1 Alternatives: ejabberd, Openfire, Prosody Yes, serious XMPP servers there <3
dejaime 8y ago
MAcos server? Is that even a thing? wow
GeekyBear 8y ago
How about "Apple stops shipping out-of-date versions of open sourced server daemons (for which they had created a minimal GUI)" Not that having a minimal GUI isn't nice for users with minimal technical skills, provided that you keep up with current versions. However, the Server "version" of OSX has long been nothing more than an application that installs a version of several open sourced server daemons along with a enough of a GUI to configure the basics.
willyt 8y ago
I'm really surprised it still exists. I've actually tried to use a few of these services on OS X server at various points in the past. It never worked very well behind NAT; anyone that can afford their own IP space is not going to need hand held through setting up Dovecot or BIND. The GUI is supposed to make it easy to get this kind of stuff set up without really understanding what it does. But, something strange always went wrong which required trying to understand what the hell the open source software was doing at the same time as trying to understand where in the configuration file hierarchy the apple GUI was inserting its config and what this was doing. Having tinkered a bit with various services on Linux since, its much easier to cut out the middle man, install from scratch and configure a vanilla installation using the config files. All the helpful comments on the options in the config files make it much easier to understand what's happening anyway.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  I tried it years ago and it was a terrible product for exactly the reasons you mentioned - one click smiley-GUI setup that consistently failed to work. And lots of stuck-on features that I couldn't imagine anyone using in a small office, like a barebones custom Wiki. I never understood where Apple were going with it. As I understand it, it was a solid product that did what it was supposed to - i.e. help network admins manage a network full of Macs and i-devices. Then those features disappeared, and it turned into My Little Server, but worse. Which is a shame, because there may be a market for a good server product, and Apple could have owned it.
wiredfool 8y ago
I'm curious what Apple uses for datacenter level servers. I know they've got a big footprint (not MS/Amz/Goog/FB level, but big). I can't imagine them wanting to run a commodity OS and standard tooling, given where they were with WebObjects and what they're doing on the client side. I don't think they're running a pile of mac pros. Do they run x86 rackmounts with a custom OS? Linux? Windows on azure?
- majewsky 8y ago
  Who says they can't have x86 servers with macOS? Just because they don't sell anything like that doesn't mean that macOS doesn't support it for internal usecases (possibly via a separate in-house build).
  - 394549 8y ago
    > Who says they can't have x86 servers with macOS? Just because they don't sell anything like that doesn't mean that macOS doesn't support it for internal usecases (possibly via a separate in-house build). Seems insane to spend the money to develop something like that, but not sell it.
    - detaro 8y ago
      It's not that difficult to make MacOS run on selected non-Apple hardware or in VMs for people outside Apple, so it likely has next to no cost for Apple.
- lykr0n 8y ago
  Supermicro, HP, or Dell (most likely) plus a bunch of various cloud providers running Linux.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  For iCloud and stuff? I'm pretty sure that's all Linux, from their job postings.
AdmiralAsshat 8y ago
Looks like the original title was something like "macOS Server gets worse in 5.7.1" but was then changed to the page's official title, "Prepare for changes..." This is a case where I'd argue deviating from the "official" article title is warranted, as it more clearly explains the aim behind the submission, or to what specifically the submitter wishes to draw our attention.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
  In general, I find the way Hacker News titles change over time just really creepy and feels like approved censorship.
  - root_axis 8y ago
    IMO the term "censorship" gets thrown around way too much.
    - drb91 8y ago
      Compared to what? It’s an accurate term. Not all forms of censorship are equivalent to a big brother government.
      - root_axis 8y ago
        > It’s an accurate term. A term cannot be accurate. I understand you're trying to suggest that "censorship" is an accurate way to describe this particular scenario, but that's your own subjective opinion, which IMO, is incorrect. Censorship necessarily implies an intentional effort to squelch a particular person or idea.
        drb91 8y ago
        If changing the title doesn’t result in actively squelching the old title, I’m not sure how to interpret this. There’s fundamentally a silent middleman choosing the content on the site. Is this bad? No. This is the whole positive and negative to active moderation.
exabrial 8y ago
So whats the "correct" way to manage an office full of macs in 2018? * Centralized password management * Preload software (chrome, firefox, java) and settings * Enterprise CA * Schedule OS updates
- brentjanderson 8y ago
  MDM solutions come to mind: * https://jamfcloud.com https://jamfcloud.com * https://meraki.cisco.com/solutions/mobile-device-management https://meraki.cisco.com/solutions/mobile-device-management I've used these two before and they work quite well.
  - vesak 8y ago
    Working URL for Jamfcloud: https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-cloud/ https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-cloud/
- tracker1 8y ago
  Most of my own experience with this has been as a developer/user. The user management is addon software tethered to ActiveDirectory. I've worked in one environment where it worked pretty well, and another where it sucked. As to pre-installed software, not sure. I always just installed brew, and did what I needed myself. CA was already on the box and scheduled OS updates were, lets just say very rare. (don't do it yourself, it can break the authentication software integration).
- josteink 8y ago
  > So whats the "correct" way to manage an office full of macs in 2018? Not using Macs, it would seem. Pretty much every other option looks better.
- hjuutilainen 8y ago
  First of all you get an MDM service. Doesn’t matter which one but these days this is essentially a requirement. Some MDM’s with good reputation in macadmins community are AirWatch, Jamf, SimpleMDM, MicroMDM (open source). You then add a couple of more components to get some more enterprise features: Munki for software distribution (free and open source), Chef or Puppet for configuration management (both free and open source) and osquery for monitoring and visibility (free and open source).
slededit 8y ago
A DNS server is table stakes at this point. The removal of these is really strange.
tambourine_man 8y ago
Basically, you are on your own (install open source packages yourself). And that’s supposed to be a good thing, because… you get to install and test the latest stuff yourself. Because Apple can’t and won’t. OK.
xoa 8y ago
It's a bummer, at one point Server was actually a pretty cool product, Network Homes and such were a great feature for Macs and it was approachable for a lot SMB applications. A nice GUI on some good open source features isn't a bad thing. I feel that Apple missed a bit of an opportunity there by being stuck in the 90s and early 00s mold where Macs weren't really considered at all, and thus of course businesses weren't so interested either very often. But times changed and if Apple had kept with it they could have both capitalized that and potentially carved out a profitable niche, it would have lined up well with current worries about over centralization and dependence on the cloud and services if Apple had a friendly product that let people do stuff at home. There were a lot more interesting possible features there that never got and now will probably never be explored in the same way. Granted, the same can be said about a lot of Apple product possibilities, including desktop Macs period. And there are always tradeoffs: Apple's startup-type organizational structure makes multi-tasking hard, but also makes for fantastic focused products. If they were more traditionally structured they probably would have maintained the Mac a lot better, but would the iPhone have come to be in the same way? At any rate it leaves a small hole for me at least, I don't mind handling things normally at work but I enjoyed playing with a nice GUI at home, and some small business I know still use Server. I asked for some suggestions on the Ars forums, and for anyone else wondering, one I was given that now looks really promising after first tests is Synology's DiskStation Manager, run standalone if you buy their equipment but also possibly under ESXi vis Xpenology (alongside macOS if that's still desirable for some of the remaining MDM functionality and such). I haven't dug deep into it yet but the GUI and power looks pretty nice, and ESXi will even run on Mac Pros in which case a macOS guest shouldn't even be a license violation. Something to consider anyway as a replacement. For simple network needs those running UniFi kit might find the controller is also enough, though right now it's a little shallow on some core features. Might still be good enough and again a decent GUI. Anyone on HN have any other ideas for equivalents, with sane GUI defaults even if some CLI usage is needed as well? Are some free general distros these days fine for that, or have popular GUI managers that can go on top? I could see more specific distributions like FreeNAS being good for some applications depending on what exactly Server was being used for. Another storage focused option might be NexentaStor CE, though that is limited to 10TB.
cjohansson 8y ago
From my personal experience macOS Server is not a serious product, nothing works out of the box and everything requires serious terminal tweaking. Will not give it another try
nottorp 8y ago
Hmm Time Machine Server. That would come in handy for backing up my laptop automatically to my desktop instead of plugging in a usb hard drive once in a while. Anyone has experience with that? Can I trust it?
- Aloha 8y ago
  Yes, but you no longer need server for it. I've been using it with netatalk for a while, recently migrated it to a 2012 MacPro running 10.14. Seems to work about as well as it did on my linux box.
  - nottorp 8y ago
    Yes, it's new to me because I never bothered to check out Mac OS server. Now that they moved it into the main Mac OS, I've set it up for one of my laptops and it seems to back up invisibly... except for the first backup where I had to leave the laptop on overnight because it took 7 hours ;)
- inspector-g 8y ago
  I have been using it for years with great success. I've only had a couple minor problems, which were small in nature and more due to Time Machine itself rather than the fact a server is hosting the service. (Unfortunately I no longer remember the exact problems, but they were not nearly bad enough to deter me from continuing to use it. I have about half a dozen Mac devices in my home, so the net positive of continuous wireless Time Machine backups has far outweighed said small issues.)
Fnoord 8y ago
"Services Migrated from macOS Server to macOS High Sierra" So I guess High Sierra and Mojave? Though I don't see the Time Machine Server feature on 10.14.0 at System Preferences > Sharing. I'm using a Time Machine server on Linux (Netatalk), but I suffer from an infinite loop somehow. It never finishes the upload for some reason, and keeps incrementing the amount of MB backed up and still needed to back up.
- cprecioso 8y ago
  You have to add the disk as a shared folder in the File Sharing section, then right-click and in Options there's a checkbox to make it a Time Machine share.
ken 8y ago
> As hosted services have become widespread ... This makes it sound to me like we should acquiesce with "cloud" services, but that seems like a very different perspective than their recent privacy note: > We design our products to limit the collection and use of data, use on-device processing whenever possible, and provide transparency and control over how information is shared. I never ran Mac Server (at least, not for anything real) but it was always a selling point to me that I could easily run these services myself if I wanted. Including more features in vanilla macOS is great, while dropping other significant features sours the whole platform for me a tiny bit. People (and companies) always want extra power, just in case, even if 99% of them never use it.
- 8fingerlouie 8y ago
  >> As hosted services have become widespread ... >This makes it sound to me like we should acquiesce with "cloud" services, but that seems like a very different perspective than their recent privacy note Apple is all about the cloud these days. Their privacy efforts are about keeping your data safe, be it in the (their) cloud or on your device. Sadly trust is not a renewable resource, and i lost mine years ago in cloud providers ability to keep data safe.

105 points by deng 8y ago

enitihas 8y ago

Does even Apple use macOS server for their own servers?

jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
doubtful
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
bookbinder 8y ago
They haven't used mac servers in more than a decade long before they discontinued Xserve.
- k__ 8y ago
  How do you CI for iOS apps without a mac server?
  - bunderbunder 8y ago
    I would guess you just use non-rackmount hardware to do it.
    - mrpippy 8y ago
      Or mount Mac Pros in a rack: https://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacpro.html https://www.sonnettech.com/product/rackmacpro.html
  - alerighi 8y ago
    Nobody will sue them if they install macOS on a standard PC hardware, probably they use standard PC hardware to develop internally
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      > they use standard PC hardware to develop internally For iOS development? Everyone uses Macs.
mattl 8y ago
I believe they use a lot of RHEL
et2o 8y ago
I had to look for a bit before I found an apple URL that wasn't behind Akamai (Linux), but: https://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=gs.apple.com#last_reboot https://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=gs.apple.com#la... Just says OS is 'unknown', Apache server. So they may possibly be using a version of Mac OS to host at least something.
- bpye 8y ago
  https://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://radar.apple.com&refresh=1#history_table https://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://radar.ap... This one is just showing up as Apple, definitely used to be Darwin but has also been Linux before.

jaxtellerSoA 8y ago

Why do they even bother making macOS server anymore? They clearly don't care about the corporate enterprise. They keep stripping away features. No DNS, no DHCP, no VPN, what is anyone gaining using macOS server? If you use it you likely are going to have to hack together a bunch of services just to get it functioning.

mitjak 8y ago
The enterprise is not the only reason to make a server OS.
sephware 8y ago
1) It probably makes them at least a noticeable percentage of revenue, if not much, so that cutting it out completely would maybe cut funding for a dozen employees. They'll need to dwindle sales down first, probably by deprecating it, so that they can justify the cut internally. 2) Even if they're backpedalling on the idea of macOS as a server and pushing for migrating to open source tools, they don't want to openly admit this, that always looks bad and unprofessional. 3) They're probably phasing it out slowly and in the next release or two they will probably deprecate it, and remove it completely from MAS in the next major macOS update. 4) They'll want to wait until they can play up their contribution and downplays that they were on the wrong side of history: "We're deprecating macOS Server, which has been a boon and a huge innovation in this space for 20 years, and helped $N millions of customers, but at this point the open source community has finally caught up to our quality." 5) At that point, the remaining useful features will be integrated into macOS proper for free, and they'll tout how they're benefiting everyone by doing this and simplifying everyone's workflow and saving everyone money.
- jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
  > ) Even if they're backpedalling on the idea of macOS as a server and pushing for migrating to open source tools, they don't want to openly admit this, that always looks bad and unprofessional. I think it looks way worse to just let it limp along and slowly die. Fail fast, learn your lesson, and move on. >1) It probably makes them at least a noticeable percentage of revenue, if not much, so that cutting it out completely would maybe cut funding for a dozen employees. They are APPLE, they have ridiculous cash. If said employees are of a high quality/standard then I am sure they can figure out something else for them to do at Apple. Even if it means paying them for a few months while they get trained up on a new project/department.

mitjak 8y ago

> Caching Server, File Sharing Server, and Time Machine Server I'd love some confirmation of this but I have a sense macOS server is used primarily in file heavy scenarios like movie and music production.

okket 8y ago
These services are not removed, but moved to the main OS -> "Services Migrated from macOS Server to macOS High Sierra".
- mitjak 8y ago
  Sorry, I didn't claim they were removed, I was curious why these were moved to High Sierra.
  - jakobegger 8y ago
    It's a lot easier to manage now. If you just need those features, you no longer need to install macOS server. Just toggle a switch in the Sharing preferences.
  - bigpicture 8y ago
    As far as content caching goes, making it built in to the operation system is a win-win situation. It lessens load on Apple data centers and speeds up downloads/reduces bandwidth for customers with multiple Apple devices. The current iteration, however, needs some work. On my old Mac Mini, it is constantly complaining that it needs more space. This will become annoying and I'm sure that some people will find this message anxiety-inducing. For me, I have been meaning to find out whether it stops working or if it purges old content when this happens. I hope it is the latter!
joemaller1 8y ago
Our SMB design office is media-heavy, with lots of very large raw photo shoots and source video files. We've been using Apple Server for file sharing for a long time (running on Mac minis). All other services have been migrated or abandoned. At some point we need to switch to a Windows or Linux SMB server, cloud storage is still cost-prohibitive with the file sizes we're throwing around. edit: File sharing was on Server.app, now it's just plain macOS-flavored SMB

wlesieutre 8y ago

Not too surprising, they killed their server hardware line (Xserve) in 2004, and the Mac Minis that people were using as substitutes lost their quad-core option in 2012. The number of people hanging on to Macs as servers has to be vanishingly small, and Apple doesn't do small markets anymore. There are currently rumors of a "Pro" focused Mac Mini, yes, but that's going to be comparatively expensive and I doubt it could win back much server market even if Apple wanted to. They'll stick around as servers for iOS builds because there's no other option (and the Pro Mini would be nice for that), but hanging on to Macs for any other sort of server outside of a home file server is a lost cause.

mikestew 8y ago
they killed their server hardware line (Xserve) in 2004 Minor nit: 2011 [0] But similar to you, I'm surprised macOS Server is even a thing anymore. What are you supposed to run it on? That six year old quad-core Mac Mini? The oh-so-long-in-the-tooth trash can Pro your department still clings to? Off the top of my head, I'm a little stumped as to what I'd use to best utilize Xcode's distributed build functionality. Apple hasn't made what I feel is an appropriate tool for that job in at least six years. [0] https://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/L422277A_Xserve_Guide.pdf https://images.apple.com/xserve/pdf/L422277A_Xserve_Guide.pd...
- ryandrake 8y ago
  I’ve got a Mid 2010 Mac Mini running regular macOS I use as a light duty home server. Went to update it to Mojave this weekend to find Apple dropped support for it! F-me for having still-working hardware, I guess :(
  - chrisballinger 8y ago
    If you don't mind disabling SIP, you can still run Mojave on a lot of older hardware: http://dosdude1.com/mojave http://dosdude1.com/mojave
    - ryandrake 8y ago

walterbell 8y ago

Does it support MDM and DEP for iOS devices? Is there an iOS MDM provider which will allow you to configure per-app VPNs that connect to an open-source VPN? Microsoft Intune only supports specific corporate VPNs, is that because per-app VPNs require a corporate VPN app that is installed on the phone? Why can't the native IPSEC client perform this function on a per-app basis? It would allow segmentation of Facebook from normal traffic. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/vpn-setting-configure-per-app https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/intune/vpn-setting-configur... Edit: Profile Manager is still supported in 5.7.1 Instructions for MacOS Server setup of Profile Manager without DEP, https://medium.com/@JoshuaAJung/managing-your-mobile-devices-in-the-cloud-using-apples-own-mdm-solution-8a588d9724b6 https://medium.com/@JoshuaAJung/managing-your-mobile-devices...

heavymark 8y ago

Was excited to hear about this since I imagine a very large number of users had to install the server for update caching and time machine server and now they don't how have to. Since the title would probably be better suited to say High Sierra Gains macOS Server Features.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jtbayly 8y ago
This really changes the tenor of the title. That's actually a big deal for a lot of people. Especially Time Machine sharing.

plg 8y ago

I don't understand ... they've eliminated the Mail server? or you just have to click a button to install it specifically? or you have to manually install one of the open-source mail servers yourself? (in which case why use MacOS server at all, not say, Debian)

wlesieutre 8y ago
Entirely gone. Per the table: > Service: Mail Server > Status: Removed in Server 5.7.1 > Alternatives: dovecot/Postfix, Courier, KerioConnect
kkwtfeliz 8y ago
My main issue is with Push email. With OSX Server, you could get an APNS certificate that enabled you to have mail instantly delivered to your iPhone, push for Mail.app with one click. Will there be a workaround for this? I know there's a dovecot version for freebsd that can use the push certificate, but the only way to obtain it was using OSX Server's mail server... Does anyone know if a regular, iOS app push certificate works with this?

chmars 8y ago

We wanted to switch to a Linux-based NAS. There was a major issue though: EXT4 does not support long enough directory / file names (or paths). As a result of our extensive folder structure and file naming scheme, we ran into all sorts of issues. In the end, we made the jump to Google Drive where security is probably better anyway in comparison to a local NAS. (Your mileage may vary as usual.)

e12e 8y ago
I don't think there's a path limit in ext4, but looks like individual file/folders are limited to 255 bytes, while hfs+ (on Linux) is 255 utf-16 characters, which is potentially longer. The 255 bytes limit seems common (xfs, zfs)-while reiser allows 4kb or so. What kind of naming scheme do you have that you had a problem? Long, multibyte file names?
- cesarb 8y ago
  IIRC, there's a limit that the whole path passed to system calls has to fit into a single page. For most architectures, that's 4096 bytes including the terminating nul character. (This limit arises because the kernel has to copy the passed path to kernel space before doing any work on it, and allocating more than a single page is costlier.)
  - e12e 8y ago
    Just tried, there's definitely a 255 sigle file/folder name limit with zfs - but I had no problem making very deep folder trees. However 'touch' wouldn't accept a path that was too long - 4kb looks about right. Bash cd wouldn't let mee leap all the way down in one go - but if I got down there (while ls a * ;do cd a * ;done) - I could create a file (ed: view from "top"): find -iname ok|wc 1 1 12805 I guess I've got a hard time imagining 4kb path and 255 byte path segments being a serious issue - but maybe my imagination is the problem?
- et2o 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems#Limits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems#Lim... For other's reference

bdz 8y ago

On a sidenote I always wanted to buy an old Xserve just because for some reason they look really good. Not sure they are good for anything tho

jamesfmilne 8y ago
They do indeed look good, but I wouldn't bother. We have several of them at our company that we keep alive as build servers for our Mac software. They are 4-5x slower than the equivalent contemporary x86 boxes you can run Linux/Windows on. As a modern day server they are fairly rubbish really.
- bdz 8y ago
  Yeah as I see even the budget Ryzen 3 CPUs are better than those old Xeons
- nodesocket 8y ago
  There is an eight core 3.0GHz Intel Xeon, 32GB RAM, 2TB drive for $300.00[1] on eBay. Curious if you install SSD disks in RAID? Then it might actually be a pretty decent home server. [1] - https://www.ebay.com/itm/Eight-Core-Apple-Xserve-Server-3-0GHz-Intel-Xeon-32GB-RAM-2TB-WITH-RAILS/322947767053?epid=1901422001&hash=item4b312fdb0d https://www.ebay.com/itm/Eight-Core-Apple-Xserve-Server-3-0G...
  - jamesfmilne 8y ago
    It's a little tricky to upgrade the CPUs in the Xserve as they are special versions with narrower lids. You can't use stock Xeons, you have to delid them yourself. It can be done though. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/xserve-processor-upgrades.1096691/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/xserve-processor-upgrad...
reaperducer 8y ago
On a sidenote I always wanted to buy an old Xserve just because for some reason they look really good. Not sure they are good for anything tho I've been tempted, too. Mostly for the nostalgia kick. I've seen them on fleaBay at really reasonable prices. It looks like .edu, .gov, and .orgs are phasing them out and often a listing shows a stack of 20 or 50 of them, and you can pick the one you want.

philipwhiuk 8y ago

5.7.1 shouldn't remove features - it makes a mockery of version numbering.

village-idiot 8y ago

Honestly, I thought they'd killed off macOS Server a while ago. I'm a little surprised to discover that it's still a thing.

liquidise 8y ago

Whether fair or not, i started arguing that apple wasn't a computer company years ago. They are a phone company today and everything that looks or works like a traditional machine, servers included, are a distraction to that enterprise. As a once-proud and fond apple fanboy, i am biased here. I miss having compelling laptop and desktop options in the Mac space. In the same way that i am still using an '09 pro and a '12 air, i bet some IT folks still cling to their server infrastructure hoping that the glory days return. C'est la vie.

scarface74 8y ago
It might have been a big hint when they dropped “Computer” from their name. But more importantly, Apple has always been a personal computer company. Not an enterprise computer company. What’s more personal than a phone running a real computer operating system in your pocket? More people (ie the “personal”) buy iPhones + iPads in one year than Apple has sold traditional computers in the last decade. If not, the numbers should be close.
- baldfat 8y ago
  In the early 2000s they made a HUGE push for enterprise. My company I worked at Part Time went all in. It was a disaster for 3 months. The IT department didn't make the decision but the Executive Board. Just this summer, I now work at another company, and they went 100% Apple (Because students were issued iPads so why not switch everyone over of course). They ended up throwing away all their 1 to 3 year old Mac All in Ones, in all the computer labs, into the garbage (At Apple's Request Around 400 of them) and now students don't have access to a computer and only issued a tablet. So adults have Mac Laptops and kids have iPads (K-12) seems so strange. I think that this is where Apple would love to put Enterprise with everyone without a special case just uses iPads.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    It’s a happy accident that bring your own device bought Apple into the enterprise and now they are able to leverage that and do partnership deals with the likes of IBM and SAP (?)

edhelas 8y ago

Messages Removed in Server 5.7.1 Alternatives: ejabberd, Openfire, Prosody Yes, serious XMPP servers there <3

dejaime 8y ago

MAcos server? Is that even a thing? wow

GeekyBear 8y ago

How about "Apple stops shipping out-of-date versions of open sourced server daemons (for which they had created a minimal GUI)" Not that having a minimal GUI isn't nice for users with minimal technical skills, provided that you keep up with current versions. However, the Server "version" of OSX has long been nothing more than an application that installs a version of several open sourced server daemons along with a enough of a GUI to configure the basics.

willyt 8y ago

I'm really surprised it still exists. I've actually tried to use a few of these services on OS X server at various points in the past. It never worked very well behind NAT; anyone that can afford their own IP space is not going to need hand held through setting up Dovecot or BIND. The GUI is supposed to make it easy to get this kind of stuff set up without really understanding what it does. But, something strange always went wrong which required trying to understand what the hell the open source software was doing at the same time as trying to understand where in the configuration file hierarchy the apple GUI was inserting its config and what this was doing. Having tinkered a bit with various services on Linux since, its much easier to cut out the middle man, install from scratch and configure a vanilla installation using the config files. All the helpful comments on the options in the config files make it much easier to understand what's happening anyway.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
I tried it years ago and it was a terrible product for exactly the reasons you mentioned - one click smiley-GUI setup that consistently failed to work. And lots of stuck-on features that I couldn't imagine anyone using in a small office, like a barebones custom Wiki. I never understood where Apple were going with it. As I understand it, it was a solid product that did what it was supposed to - i.e. help network admins manage a network full of Macs and i-devices. Then those features disappeared, and it turned into My Little Server, but worse. Which is a shame, because there may be a market for a good server product, and Apple could have owned it.

wiredfool 8y ago

I'm curious what Apple uses for datacenter level servers. I know they've got a big footprint (not MS/Amz/Goog/FB level, but big). I can't imagine them wanting to run a commodity OS and standard tooling, given where they were with WebObjects and what they're doing on the client side. I don't think they're running a pile of mac pros. Do they run x86 rackmounts with a custom OS? Linux? Windows on azure?

majewsky 8y ago
Who says they can't have x86 servers with macOS? Just because they don't sell anything like that doesn't mean that macOS doesn't support it for internal usecases (possibly via a separate in-house build).
- 394549 8y ago
  > Who says they can't have x86 servers with macOS? Just because they don't sell anything like that doesn't mean that macOS doesn't support it for internal usecases (possibly via a separate in-house build). Seems insane to spend the money to develop something like that, but not sell it.
  - detaro 8y ago
    It's not that difficult to make MacOS run on selected non-Apple hardware or in VMs for people outside Apple, so it likely has next to no cost for Apple.
lykr0n 8y ago
Supermicro, HP, or Dell (most likely) plus a bunch of various cloud providers running Linux.
saagarjha 8y ago
For iCloud and stuff? I'm pretty sure that's all Linux, from their job postings.

AdmiralAsshat 8y ago

Looks like the original title was something like "macOS Server gets worse in 5.7.1" but was then changed to the page's official title, "Prepare for changes..." This is a case where I'd argue deviating from the "official" article title is warranted, as it more clearly explains the aim behind the submission, or to what specifically the submitter wishes to draw our attention.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
In general, I find the way Hacker News titles change over time just really creepy and feels like approved censorship.
- root_axis 8y ago
  IMO the term "censorship" gets thrown around way too much.
  - drb91 8y ago
    Compared to what? It’s an accurate term. Not all forms of censorship are equivalent to a big brother government.
    - root_axis 8y ago
      > It’s an accurate term. A term cannot be accurate. I understand you're trying to suggest that "censorship" is an accurate way to describe this particular scenario, but that's your own subjective opinion, which IMO, is incorrect. Censorship necessarily implies an intentional effort to squelch a particular person or idea.
      - drb91 8y ago
        If changing the title doesn’t result in actively squelching the old title, I’m not sure how to interpret this. There’s fundamentally a silent middleman choosing the content on the site. Is this bad? No. This is the whole positive and negative to active moderation.

exabrial 8y ago

So whats the "correct" way to manage an office full of macs in 2018? * Centralized password management * Preload software (chrome, firefox, java) and settings * Enterprise CA * Schedule OS updates

brentjanderson 8y ago
MDM solutions come to mind: * https://jamfcloud.com https://jamfcloud.com * https://meraki.cisco.com/solutions/mobile-device-management https://meraki.cisco.com/solutions/mobile-device-management I've used these two before and they work quite well.
- vesak 8y ago
  Working URL for Jamfcloud: https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-cloud/ https://www.jamf.com/products/jamf-cloud/
tracker1 8y ago
Most of my own experience with this has been as a developer/user. The user management is addon software tethered to ActiveDirectory. I've worked in one environment where it worked pretty well, and another where it sucked. As to pre-installed software, not sure. I always just installed brew, and did what I needed myself. CA was already on the box and scheduled OS updates were, lets just say very rare. (don't do it yourself, it can break the authentication software integration).
josteink 8y ago
> So whats the "correct" way to manage an office full of macs in 2018? Not using Macs, it would seem. Pretty much every other option looks better.
hjuutilainen 8y ago
First of all you get an MDM service. Doesn’t matter which one but these days this is essentially a requirement. Some MDM’s with good reputation in macadmins community are AirWatch, Jamf, SimpleMDM, MicroMDM (open source). You then add a couple of more components to get some more enterprise features: Munki for software distribution (free and open source), Chef or Puppet for configuration management (both free and open source) and osquery for monitoring and visibility (free and open source).

slededit 8y ago

A DNS server is table stakes at this point. The removal of these is really strange.

tambourine_man 8y ago

Basically, you are on your own (install open source packages yourself). And that’s supposed to be a good thing, because… you get to install and test the latest stuff yourself. Because Apple can’t and won’t. OK.

xoa 8y ago

It's a bummer, at one point Server was actually a pretty cool product, Network Homes and such were a great feature for Macs and it was approachable for a lot SMB applications. A nice GUI on some good open source features isn't a bad thing. I feel that Apple missed a bit of an opportunity there by being stuck in the 90s and early 00s mold where Macs weren't really considered at all, and thus of course businesses weren't so interested either very often. But times changed and if Apple had kept with it they could have both capitalized that and potentially carved out a profitable niche, it would have lined up well with current worries about over centralization and dependence on the cloud and services if Apple had a friendly product that let people do stuff at home. There were a lot more interesting possible features there that never got and now will probably never be explored in the same way. Granted, the same can be said about a lot of Apple product possibilities, including desktop Macs period. And there are always tradeoffs: Apple's startup-type organizational structure makes multi-tasking hard, but also makes for fantastic focused products. If they were more traditionally structured they probably would have maintained the Mac a lot better, but would the iPhone have come to be in the same way? At any rate it leaves a small hole for me at least, I don't mind handling things normally at work but I enjoyed playing with a nice GUI at home, and some small business I know still use Server. I asked for some suggestions on the Ars forums, and for anyone else wondering, one I was given that now looks really promising after first tests is Synology's DiskStation Manager, run standalone if you buy their equipment but also possibly under ESXi vis Xpenology (alongside macOS if that's still desirable for some of the remaining MDM functionality and such). I haven't dug deep into it yet but the GUI and power looks pretty nice, and ESXi will even run on Mac Pros in which case a macOS guest shouldn't even be a license violation. Something to consider anyway as a replacement. For simple network needs those running UniFi kit might find the controller is also enough, though right now it's a little shallow on some core features. Might still be good enough and again a decent GUI. Anyone on HN have any other ideas for equivalents, with sane GUI defaults even if some CLI usage is needed as well? Are some free general distros these days fine for that, or have popular GUI managers that can go on top? I could see more specific distributions like FreeNAS being good for some applications depending on what exactly Server was being used for. Another storage focused option might be NexentaStor CE, though that is limited to 10TB.

cjohansson 8y ago

From my personal experience macOS Server is not a serious product, nothing works out of the box and everything requires serious terminal tweaking. Will not give it another try

nottorp 8y ago

Hmm Time Machine Server. That would come in handy for backing up my laptop automatically to my desktop instead of plugging in a usb hard drive once in a while. Anyone has experience with that? Can I trust it?

Aloha 8y ago
Yes, but you no longer need server for it. I've been using it with netatalk for a while, recently migrated it to a 2012 MacPro running 10.14. Seems to work about as well as it did on my linux box.
- nottorp 8y ago
  Yes, it's new to me because I never bothered to check out Mac OS server. Now that they moved it into the main Mac OS, I've set it up for one of my laptops and it seems to back up invisibly... except for the first backup where I had to leave the laptop on overnight because it took 7 hours ;)
inspector-g 8y ago
I have been using it for years with great success. I've only had a couple minor problems, which were small in nature and more due to Time Machine itself rather than the fact a server is hosting the service. (Unfortunately I no longer remember the exact problems, but they were not nearly bad enough to deter me from continuing to use it. I have about half a dozen Mac devices in my home, so the net positive of continuous wireless Time Machine backups has far outweighed said small issues.)

Fnoord 8y ago

"Services Migrated from macOS Server to macOS High Sierra" So I guess High Sierra and Mojave? Though I don't see the Time Machine Server feature on 10.14.0 at System Preferences > Sharing. I'm using a Time Machine server on Linux (Netatalk), but I suffer from an infinite loop somehow. It never finishes the upload for some reason, and keeps incrementing the amount of MB backed up and still needed to back up.

cprecioso 8y ago
You have to add the disk as a shared folder in the File Sharing section, then right-click and in Options there's a checkbox to make it a Time Machine share.

ken 8y ago

> As hosted services have become widespread ... This makes it sound to me like we should acquiesce with "cloud" services, but that seems like a very different perspective than their recent privacy note: > We design our products to limit the collection and use of data, use on-device processing whenever possible, and provide transparency and control over how information is shared. I never ran Mac Server (at least, not for anything real) but it was always a selling point to me that I could easily run these services myself if I wanted. Including more features in vanilla macOS is great, while dropping other significant features sours the whole platform for me a tiny bit. People (and companies) always want extra power, just in case, even if 99% of them never use it.

8fingerlouie 8y ago
>> As hosted services have become widespread ... >This makes it sound to me like we should acquiesce with "cloud" services, but that seems like a very different perspective than their recent privacy note Apple is all about the cloud these days. Their privacy efforts are about keeping your data safe, be it in the (their) cloud or on your device. Sadly trust is not a renewable resource, and i lost mine years ago in cloud providers ability to keep data safe.