New to Mac Server

[stevenwba]

Hi,

 

Ive just had a shiney new mac server land on my desk to help control the growing number of macs in school, which we have only had over the past 12 months, currently upto 20 but this is expected to keep on growing so, a great time to introduce a mac server, like a lot of people here, im only learning mac myself since we had those first macs 12 months ago. Although i have managed to manage the macs locally and learn a fair bit during this year, when it comes to the server side, i have no experience what so ever, the most technical thing i have done with the standalone macs, was to bind them to AD to allow windows users to be able to logon.

 

Now my questions and need for advice come, because i have read about all the things i can now achieve with the mac server, but how i learnt mac, was to first find the mac alternative to how i was trying to do something it windows, like system preferences to control panel etc.

 

So i have been looking for computers and users alternative in mac, although i can see where to add users, i dont know how i connect my mac clients to the server.

 

How help on this would be great, first changes i should make to the server, and just where i can find everything.

 

My goal is to be able to lock the macs down, have a mapped drive from the mac server on the clients, share printers, and push applications and updates out using the server.

 

Regards

[SC92]

Just off the top of my head here are 3 things that we heavily rely on with our server.

 

Workgroup Manager

ARD (Apple Remote Desktop)

Deploystudio - for imaging and rebuilding

 

I'd say that the most important one there would be WGM for you. Manages permissions, drives, printers, user access etc.

[stevenwba]

Just off the top of my head here are 3 things that we heavily rely on with our server.

 

Workgroup Manager

ARD (Apple Remote Desktop)

Deploystudio - for imaging and rebuilding

 

I'd say that the most important one there would be WGM for you. Manages permissions, drives, printers, user access etc.

 

Is workgroup manager included in lion because i cant seem to find it, i know the other two are addons

 

Regards

[Greenbeast]

Is there a seperate version of Mac OSX Server still? if so it's probably included with that.

[SC92]

I think you can download it from here:

 

Server Admin Tools 10.5.7

 

It's an outdated version but either software update will pick it up and update automatically or there is probably a newer version on the apple site somewhere, I just haven't the time to look at the mo.

[stevenwba]

I think you can download it from here:

 

Server Admin Tools 10.5.7

 

It's an outdated version but either software update will pick it up and update automatically or there is probably a newer version on the apple site somewhere, I just haven't the time to look at the mo.

 

So thats what i needed!! thanks alot for that, downloading in

[3s-gtech]

Workgroup Manager - then you can set up a 'magic Triangle' where you bind the Macs to the server (within the Users settings in System Preferences), and within WM you can manage the machines.

[Sean-OC04]

So thats what i needed!! thanks alot for that, downloading in

 

The newer version is here, I take it it's Lion Server?

 

Server Admin Tools 10.7

[stevenwba]

Workgroup Manager - then you can set up a 'magic Triangle' where you bind the Macs to the server (within the Users settings in System Preferences), and within WM you can manage the machines.

Right, so ive managed to get everything listed above and have been taking a good luck around admin tools, the mac clients are bound to AD and not open directory, so now i just want to connect the macs to the server so they appear in workgroup manager, but cant see how to do that, i do i need to have them bound to open directory and they appear automatically?

 

Also ive checked the option to run the software update service, but again, where do i configure what updates it pushes down to the macs clients, and on the clients how to i configure them to download updates from the server and not from apple via internet?

 

Many Thanks!

[Greenbeast]

once they are bound to OD you can add them into WGM

[stevenwba]

Have now found where you configure the macs to use the server for software updates, im guessing now, when the servers downloads the updates for itself, it uses them to give out to the clients as well, as i can only configure where the clients point to and not actually what they download.

 

Steep learning curve, but enjoying it! (:

 

EDIT: Again found the answer to my own question!!

Edited September 21, 2011 by stevenwba

[SC92]

A steep learning curve it is, but a fantastic one! We've only had our suite of 25 imacs for just over a year now and i've been responsible for them. It's quite amazing what you can teach yourself/work out and once it's all up and running, OSX is possibly the simplest thing to manage - although can't say the same for Lion as we haven't tried that one out yet, will have fun upgrading at some point..

 

Anyway, best of luck!

[mellowip1983]

We had RM come and install our iMacs this summer, they shipped with Lion on but the engineer couldnt get the domain to work right with lion so has rolled us back to 10.6 for now under the plan of when they have sorted the little niggles out with it they will come and upgrade us. I had a small experience of apple server a couple of years ago, and just like the macs themselves the software just does what it needs to easily.

[SC92]

We also had RM install our mac network on 10.6. From what i've heard, it's not worth even considering upgrading to Lion until at least 10.7.4+ as most of the main issues are then sorted by either Apple/RM. Ever since it's been working great although they did supply us with a Mac Mini XServe which im not too sure is supposed to be able to handle 25 imacs, but there we go.

[mellowip1983]

Our server is a mac pro, with the way Lion works, we should have ordered the highest spec 27" imac for the server room and used that. My network manager is totally anti mac so would have wound him up even more. And as mentioned before, the main tools that are recommended are DeployStudio and WGM. Next lesson to learn is building mpkg files that we can use to install apps over ARD

[SC92]

Coincidentally the teaching staff that use our imac suite are also highly anti-mac. I'm not exactly a mac fan-boy but I can't really see why they can't see macs for what they are - a huge step above any Windows based pc. I've managed to install packages out to clients like OSX Security Updates and things from ARD on our server and have to say it was extremely simple, but have never tried programs or apps. We will probably have to do that at some point but i'm hoping that the programs actually install and not just copy themselves to the HDD or anything.

[mellowip1983]

This is the point we are at, our HoD who teaches in the room turned round and said, I want : VLC Media Player, Google Earth, Stykz installing on all the macs, none of these are available for download in the correct format. as part of xCode tools (free download from app store) you can make your own MPKG files but i havent sussed it out yet, so far they just send dmg files to the machines.

[stevenwba]

Just setup software updates, and now im thinking, how easy it was, once you actually find what you need mac is pretty easy, seems to me the only problem i have is exactually finding what i need in the first place, or the mac alternative of something i know how to do in windows, my next task is to setup the network library, so i can share all license information for some software.

 

Then my last job is to setup deplystudio and take an image of a complete mac.

 

All in all and pretty useful day today (:

[stevenwba]

p.s this is lion osx server 10.7.1 but as ive never used the server edition of snow leopard i couldnt really say what is different??!!

[stevenwba]

Coincidentally the teaching staff that use our imac suite are also highly anti-mac. I'm not exactly a mac fan-boy but I can't really see why they can't see macs for what they are - a huge step above any Windows based pc. I've managed to install packages out to clients like OSX Security Updates and things from ARD on our server and have to say it was extremely simple, but have never tried programs or apps. We will probably have to do that at some point but i'm hoping that the programs actually install and not just copy themselves to the HDD or anything.

 

Im pretty sure they do just copy themselves across, but im not sure how registering and licenses work, maybe someone here will shed some light on the whole process, all i know is we have comic life and to register the whole network in one go, you have to setup a resource library in shared items, where all licenses goes, and it replicates across all bound macs into the same folder locally

[mellowip1983]

from what i know, there are new versions of mail, wiki, ical the addition of profile manager and just a change from completely separate os.

[3s-gtech]

although they did supply us with a Mac Mini XServe which im not too sure is supposed to be able to handle 25 imacs, but there we go.

 

The spec of the Mini is more than up to doing a bit of management - it's not a heavy task for the hardware (which is pretty good anyway). Only fail is the non-RAIDed HDDs by default, but there are how-tos on fixing this.

[HodgeHi]

Copying apps over is really as simple as installing the MPKGs. If any apps downloaded just need to be placed in the applications folder, this can be done simply enough with ARD. You just choose the copy command and then pick what you want to copy and Choose the Applications location from the list. You can also specify full paths which is handy.

 

I have deployed Comic life like this:

 

Copy the Comic Life application into the Applications folder.

Copy the Plasq license file into /Library/Application Support/

 

This works fine.

 

Just work out where the files need to go and then use ARD to copy them into place.

[stevenwba]

Copying apps over is really as simple as installing the MPKGs. If any apps downloaded just need to be placed in the applications folder, this can be done simply enough with ARD. You just choose the copy command and then pick what you want to copy and Choose the Applications location from the list. You can also specify full paths which is handy.

 

I have deployed Comic life like this:

 

Copy the Comic Life application into the Applications folder.

Copy the Plasq license file into /Library/Application Support/

 

This works fine.

 

Just work out where the files need to go and then use ARD to copy them into place.

 

Thanks for that Hodge, nice to know the whole process if just as easy as intended for standalone macs

[mellowip1983]

Hodge, you are a saviour!!!!!!

 

just deployed the three apps required in minutes thanks to your advice!

 

I had looked far and wide through google and hadn't found a solution but thats spot on.

 

Thank You!