InformationWeek.com

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

April 26, 1999

Print this story

Mac Transition System

Mac OS X Server can help sites move to Internet protocols

By Jason Levitt

Related links:

Networking Resource Center

And from our sister publications:

Computer Reseller News Rhapsody In Blue: Apple OS X Delivers

InternetWeek Apple OS Could Win Some IT Hearts

pple Computer spent more than a year reworking the operating system formerly known as Rhapsody, a hybrid of OpenStep and Mac OS. The result is the new Mac OS X Server.

Apple hopes to sell Mac OS X Server as an Internet Web server, competing in the same space as Windows NT. While it is likely that Mac OS X Server can outperform Windows NT head-to-head in some scenarios (Apple even offers up benchmarks to prove it), Mac OS X Server runs only on PowerPC G3 hardware, for which there aren't even multiprocessor CPUs available. Additionally, there are many more third-party developer choices for Windows NT compared with those for Mac OS X Server. Still, Mac OS X Server should be attractive for Mac sites wanting to migrate to Internet protocols.

Apple is making a big deal about open source because it's releasing the source code for the base components, which are the Mach kernel and 4.4 Berkeley Unix. It comprises a minimal bootable Unix system that Apple has named Darwin (see www.publicsource.apple.com for details). Apple, like Netscape and others, hopes to reap the benefits of the combined eyeballs of the Internet and then fold code contributed and enhanced by open-source code fans into future Mac OS X Server releases. Unfortunately, none of the graphical user interface or higher-level Mac OS source code will be released.

The Macintosh product is an administrator-friendly server operating system with potential, but also a few identity disorders. While system administrators will likely be pleased that Mac OS X Server can provide network services for all of Apple's customer base, they'll also be confounded by the complex array of administrative options, and they may wonder how this server offering will fit into their enterprises.

To be fair, Apple put itself in the position of supporting not just the traditional Apple base, but also the OpenStep customers who came with its acquisition of Next Software. Most of the confusion stems from the disparate administrative interfaces for OpenStep's Netinfo (including NFS services), Apple's new Netboot Server, and other administrative tasks. This isn't an easy set of interfaces to unite, and Apple has at least provided usable GUI tools for some of it.

Apple built Mac OS X Server starting with the former OpenStep code base, which uses the Mach 2.5 kernel, version 4.4 Berkeley Unix, and the OpenStep GUI. For all practical purposes, Mac OS X Server is just another Unix derivative, though it doesn't quite qualify for the Unix brand because it doesn't support all of the necessary Posix and X/Open APIs. Nevertheless, most GNU and mainstream Unix open-source software will compile and run on it, though there is no bundled X Window implementation nor are there X libraries.

What is Mac OS X Server? It's not quite Unix, but it's definitely still close to OpenStep--it runs properly tweaked OpenStep applications and supports OpenStep clients as a Netinfo Server, offering file and print services. It's not as full-featured as AppleShare IP 6.x Server, Apple's current server offering, but it does offer AppleShare file services and lets you maintain centrally large groups of Mac clients with the new Netboot Server 1.0 and its Netboot administration tools.

The new blue-and-white Macintosh G3 clients as well as the iMacs can boot diskless from the Mac OS X Server, and other Macs can get their applications and file services from the server. Mac OS X Server does not yet support managing AppleTalk printers, but it includes the usual Unix LPR management tools. Apple has also ported the open-source Apache Web server to Mac OS X Server, and it includes the usual Unix FTP, Telnet, and NFS servers.

Mac OS X Server isn't all OpenStep and Unix. There's also the "Blue Box," a virtual Mac OS 8.5.1 environment that can be launched on top of Mac OS X Server and runs many Mac applications, such as Microsoft Office 98. There are, however, several Mac OS APIs that aren't implemented yet, and though many TCP/IP client applications run adequately, most server applications won't run on it. For example, I was unable to get Network Telesystems' excellent LAN TunnelBuilder virtual private network client software to work. Sound and video input, as well as serial ports, are not supported. This isn't a big issue, since the Blue Box is not critical for a server operating system and mainly exists as a convenience tool for system administrators.