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.
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.
I suspect many people (myself included) were using Server.app solely for one of the services (File Server, Caching Server, Time Machine Server) they since moved into the standard macOS install.
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.
The announcement sounded to me like they're refocusing Server.app for Profile Manager / MDM than one-application-do-it-all approach like they did previously. I think this benefit even more for enterprise users, because they're likely not going to use the bundled Apache/Dovecot/etc. that came with Server.app, but rather using existing infrastructure they already had in place anyway.
Edit: one thing to note: macOS Server is not an entire OS, but rather a Server.app application running on top of existing macOS installation that you can download from Mac App Store.
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.
> No DNS, no DHCP, no VPN, what is anyone gaining using macOS server
Probably because the big enterprise go for Microsoft and Active Directory, and the small ones go for nothing, just a "home" router, and iCloud/GApps/O365. Or you can spin up a Linux box and do most of this if you start getting bigger. The only place I can see this is large Mac heavy shops like designers etc. But even then, most of the MDM stuff can be hosted outside.
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.
I agree that at times it might be slightly counterproductive but then again if you start making exceptions it's going to be a mess every time as we always argue back and forth whether a particular submission is acceptable or not.
I would also argue that hiding "the aim behind the submission" is soft of the point, submissions should be able to stand on their own. If more context is required then a better link should be found IMO, a HN submission title is not the place for an opinion piece. Worst case scenario add a comment in your submission explaining your rationale.
> This is a case where I'd argue deviating from the "official" article title is warranted
Not really. "macOS Server gets worse in 5.7.1" is a purely subjective opinion and there's no reason this personal opinion should override the actual article's title.
I personally have never used macOS server and from that context, the actual title ("Prepare for changes to macOS Server 5.7.1") makes a lot more sense.
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.
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.
I know that you're underscoring that the iPhone is their primary product. However, even though "phone" is in its name and was it's primarily replaced device, the iPhone to me has long since passed being a phone. Comparing time spent on device to the amount of minutes used as a phone, the "dialer" app is one of the least used apps on my phone. Essentially, it's a computer that fits in a pocket to the point we've been seeing designs to power a laptop by sliding a smartphone into a laptop style chassis (maybe not from Apple).
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?
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).
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.
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
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.
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)
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?
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.
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).
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).
Jumpcloud can help with those things, we're an entirely cloud based directory and our system agent is OS agnostic. We also integrate with Jamf and other MDM solutions if you need more complexity.
Disclosure: Jumpcloud employee. My email is in my profile if you want to get in touch.
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.
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.
>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.
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
"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.
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.
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.
[+] [-] wlesieutre|7 years ago|reply
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|7 years ago|reply
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.pd...
[+] [-] bhj|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaxtellerSoA|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sirn|7 years ago|reply
Edit: one thing to note: macOS Server is not an entire OS, but rather a Server.app application running on top of existing macOS installation that you can download from Mac App Store.
[+] [-] sephware|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] mitjak|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amaccuish|7 years ago|reply
Probably because the big enterprise go for Microsoft and Active Directory, and the small ones go for nothing, just a "home" router, and iCloud/GApps/O365. Or you can spin up a Linux box and do most of this if you start getting bigger. The only place I can see this is large Mac heavy shops like designers etc. But even then, most of the MDM stuff can be hosted outside.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] enitihas|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] simias|7 years ago|reply
I would also argue that hiding "the aim behind the submission" is soft of the point, submissions should be able to stand on their own. If more context is required then a better link should be found IMO, a HN submission title is not the place for an opinion piece. Worst case scenario add a comment in your submission explaining your rationale.
[+] [-] gouggoug|7 years ago|reply
Not really. "macOS Server gets worse in 5.7.1" is a purely subjective opinion and there's no reason this personal opinion should override the actual article's title.
I personally have never used macOS server and from that context, the actual title ("Prepare for changes to macOS Server 5.7.1") makes a lot more sense.
[+] [-] JohnJamesRambo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] liquidise|7 years ago|reply
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|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dylan604|7 years ago|reply
I know that you're underscoring that the iPhone is their primary product. However, even though "phone" is in its name and was it's primarily replaced device, the iPhone to me has long since passed being a phone. Comparing time spent on device to the amount of minutes used as a phone, the "dialer" app is one of the least used apps on my phone. Essentially, it's a computer that fits in a pocket to the point we've been seeing designs to power a laptop by sliding a smartphone into a laptop style chassis (maybe not from Apple).
[+] [-] wiredfool|7 years ago|reply
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|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saagarjha|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lykr0n|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesfmilne|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] philipwhiuk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willyt|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] cjohansson|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heavymark|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtbayly|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] plg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kkwtfeliz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wlesieutre|7 years ago|reply
> Service: Mail Server
> Status: Removed in Server 5.7.1
> Alternatives: dovecot/Postfix, Courier, KerioConnect
[+] [-] GeekyBear|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] village-idiot|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|7 years ago|reply
* Centralized password management
* Preload software (chrome, firefox, java) and settings
* Enterprise CA
* Schedule OS updates
[+] [-] tracker1|7 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] hjuutilainen|7 years ago|reply
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).
[+] [-] brentjanderson|7 years ago|reply
* https://jamfcloud.com
* https://meraki.cisco.com/solutions/mobile-device-management
I've used these two before and they work quite well.
[+] [-] josteink|7 years ago|reply
Not using Macs, it would seem.
Pretty much every other option looks better.
[+] [-] pdeuchler|7 years ago|reply
Disclosure: Jumpcloud employee. My email is in my profile if you want to get in touch.
[+] [-] walterbell|7 years ago|reply
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-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...
[+] [-] ken|7 years ago|reply
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|7 years ago|reply
>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.
[+] [-] mitjak|7 years ago|reply
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|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joemaller1|7 years ago|reply
edit: File sharing was on Server.app, now it's just plain macOS-flavored SMB
[+] [-] Fnoord|7 years ago|reply
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|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xoa|7 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] slededit|7 years ago|reply