mhcg.co.uk

Nothing really exciting to report here, add a queue for a network printer (LPR), enabled all the protocols as will need SMB for Windows clients and LPR with Bonjour enabled as I've found from experience it's easier just to let the users install whatever printers they want and Bonjour makes this a breeze.

Only things that stumped me a little was the 'kind' or printer model, by default Server Admin decided my printer was a Generic PostScript printer, which is probably can be but PostScript can be very slow to print, the way to set the real model is after adding the print queue, on the server it's self go into Preferences -> Print & Fax and you'll find your printer in there, set the type in the options and that's it.

Found out the URL wasn't valid for Snow Leopard, so wasn't working.  The correct URL should be ....

http://hostname.yourdomain.private:8088/index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog

Just quickly enabled backup on the server both for the server it's self and for client computers.  Very simple, usual place for the server side, i.e. System Preferences on the server it's self and select the relevant disk.

User backups not much different, I'd already deleted the default Share Points in the AFP service, one of which is 'Backups'.  Note the Share Point can be called anything really but if you want Server Preferences to work properly, it seems to need to be called Backups.

Whatever name you call it, make sure the 'Enable as Time Machine backup destination' checkbox is checked and that's it, the disk will then appear to any Mac on your network when on the client computer you do Select Disk in the Time Machine preference.

Fairly easy to set this up, basically just turned the service on using Server Admin and set the options to auto copy All New updates and remove expired.  Main config issue was to configure the clients.

Firstly, I created a Computer Group in Workgroup Manager called 'Desktop', click on the icon on the right with the dots on it which seems to browse the network and allowed me to add my clients to the newly created group as below.

Also created a 'Mobile' group for MacBooks as you can see.  I then created the 'Client Computers' group and added the 'Desktop' group and 'Mobile' group to the Client Computers group, this will allow me to set preferences to my desktops and macbooks while excluding the server it's self.

Finally, clicked on the 'Client Computers' group and picked Preferences from the toolbar and set the Software Update as follows.

I know that update 10.6.2 came out on the 9th Nov that my clients don't have yet, so will wait a couple of days and see what happens, hopefully it will just 'work' and I won't have the hair pulling out sessions I've had in the past with Microsoft WSUS and Configuration Manager !

Default install seemed to only create a primary DNS zone for the server hostname only, i.e. hostname.mhcg.private in my case.  As I want to use this server as my main DNS server, I changed the zone to mhcg.private, not forgetting to change the Zone under Nameservers too.

From reading the Getting Started guide, it seems to suggest that had I not had a DNS server already, which I do as I'm currently using a Windows 2003 DC for this, then the Setup Assistant might have done this for me automatically.

Well I said I didn't get the DNS details and I was right, as I used my internet domain name, things weren't all good with the server.  For a start as I don't have that zone in my current DNS server and as Setup Assistant setup Open Directory, it used that as the realm which I really didn't want.  I came to the conclusion that I really wanted to use mhcg.private as my DNS zone, I did try to change this myself in the DNS settings but from various Googling on the point seems the general feeling on chaining the DNS name after running Setup Assistant is a bad idea and I think after the 6 hours of hair pulling I've just been through, I'd agree so rebuild time.

No CD/DVD drive of course in the mac mini server, I was just about to plan a visit to my nearest Apple Store for an external SuperDrive when I remembered how I've installed beta versions of Snow Leopard from the Apple Developer Connection, namely by 'restoring' a disk image to an external USB drive, then booting the mac mini while pressing the option key and selecting the USB drive as the boot device, so I made an image using Disk Utility of the supplied Mac mini server CD and restored to a spare USB drive.

As I'd had to physical move the mac mini into another room with a monitor, keyboard and mouse I ran the installation through until the Setup Assistant appeared, at which point I powered off the box and re-sited it back with my other boxes without monitor etc.  Back to remote config as originally then, you can do a remote install apparently but I couldn't work out how to get that working especially as it was asking for the first 8 characters of my serial number, which I was entering correctly, but Setup Assistant was adamant it was invalid.  Ran Setup Assistant exactly as before but with 'hostname.mhcg.private' for the DNS name this time.  For the record I used Disk Utility within the installation routine (first screen in fact) to erase the 'Server HD' volume before attempting reinstall.

New Mac mini server arrived, no monitor, keyboard or mouse so sited with my other server(ish) type boxes, time to try out the Remote Setup, first time I've tried this and all I can say is FANTASTIC !  Surely it wouldn't be out of the bounds of possibility for Microsoft or Ubuntu to implement something like this, or maybe even HP for use with SmartStart??? Certainly beats stood around in a freezing cold server room.  Yes I know HP have ILO for remote management, but you still generally have to swap disks and things, none of that with the Apple solution.

If you've never used remote setup on Mac OS X, in a nut shell you plug the new box into the network, switch it on then goto another mac, install the Server Admin tools from the included CD and run Server Admin.  New machine is identified as 'Ready for Setup' (so long as DHCP is enabled on your network) and you run through the Setup Assistant just as you would if you were using the new box locally.

I ran through the Setup Assistant and picked 'Administrator' for the user it wants to create as it creates this as a local users so wouldn't really want to use my own name for that as I indent to use Open Directory.  Used my internet domain name (mhcg.co.uk) for Primary DNS and enabled all servers (Mail Server, Address Book Server, iChat Server, some other services that can't remember right now) and used the second disk 'Macintosh HD2' for the services data store.  As a side note, the main/first disk is called 'Server HD' and is where Mac OS X Server is pre-installed.  You don't need to enable all the services but as I'm going to be trying them all out over the coming weeks, thought it be easier to turn them all on now.  One of the questions is around user names, I picked the option to create users and groups which enabled Open Directory as a Master server.

Once the setup is complete, server is then up and running and appeared in the Shared area of Finder on the remote mac I was using.  Everything is configured from what I can see using Server Admin, seems fairly straight forward although I'm a bit confused over the DNS details right now, I'm sure it'll make sense over the next few days.

New blog now available using the WordPress platform, all existing content has been moved.  New location is http://blogs.mhcg.co.uk/company.

I've recently found myself investigating and analysing a number of new systems and ideas which got me thinking just how useful blogs really are for that kind of thing.  I'm a bit to the 'blog' party but better late than never I guess.

Also I've recently started on an Open University writing course as I've always been a bit rubbish at essays and the likes, so seemed like a good way to put my new skills into practice, as I develop them, as well as provide me with a way to document my journey with new things.

I've just ordered a new Apple Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server, so I'll start with that.

Hopefully somebody somewhere will find my ramblings of some use !