2008-05-17

Mac OS X 10.5 Server

Well, I've finally brought the ThinkPad and the Pismo to the new room, and started playing with Mac OS X 10.5 Server on the iMac.

I started out with "simple" mode -- because I was under the impression that in Simple mode, everything "just works." And for the most part, this is true. Although for whatever reason, I ended up switching to Advanced Mode. There were a few quirks with that switch-over, but new accounts worked just fine in OpenDirectory. I was able to get Mac OS X 10.4 running on the Pismo authenticating against the 10.5 server, with networked home directories and some group policies quite easily.

The real challenge will be to make sure that the knowledge I've gained from my tiny setup here in this dorm room will apply at KHSPhoto. I'm pretty excited about it all, of course, and I bet that everything will work just fine in the KHSPhoto installation. That'll be a big project blog post with pictures, diagrams, tables, and everything. It'll be great.

One of the biggest disappointments about the project so far though, is that I haven't got a sufficient number of Macs here at home to really try out some of the things OpenDirectory can do. I think it's reason enough to impulse-buy a few G4 iBooks/PowerBooks, so I can have a few machines to authenticate against the controller.
(I have actually been eyeing one of the G4 PowerMacs at Surplus Sales as a secondary machine for Leopard/LeopardServer, I may grab one later on in the summer, if I haven't decided to try out a Psystar, or my own hacked Mac or building a "gaming computer.")

No comments: