Leopard Server

I have been approached several times last year from individuals, friends and former colleagues of which would be the best server solution to implement in their small office. Of course every situation is different depending upon their needs. Some would require more storage because they are primarily interested in file sharing, where others would like to have remote access through a VPN. The common denominator among the several people I spoke to last year is that they all wanted something that was easy to manage, protects their data and has a good entry price point.

I look at several factors when considering a workgroup design; The general requirements it is needed for, the amount of users it is serving, its ability to scale, interoperability with other vendors, data protection, ease of management, vendor supportability and cost.

There are several options that are available to people who are looking to set up a small workgroup solution at their office. I see that you can do 4 things.

Windows 200X Server. All bias aside, I see a problem with this. First of all, the end user license is around $800. Secondly, you will need to pay someone to manage it on a regular basis. And finally, its just over complicated. I think that people have this misconception that Windows is an industry standard. I’m not sure what this means, exactly, unless we are talking about Exchange. There are certainly a large group of Windows users, however today’s vendors have done an excellent job ensuring interoperability between operating system boundaries, such as file sharing, document compatibility and user management. The benefit to a Windows server is the ability to run Exchange. Again, this requires an individual who has experience setting up and managing the mail stores. I am not sure for a small office, this would be the be the ideal solution.
LINUX Server. For the price point, this is a better answer. There are many free open source software available that will definitely drive the cost down. Linux is growing in popularity. There are less hardware requirements you need to throw at it to achieve the same level of performance gain as compared to a Windows server. In addition, you have much more control over system processes and general management of the operating system. The only drawback that I see with a Linux server is that is not user friendly for the average person. Most of it is command line, with some web front end. You will need to identify someone to maintain it on a regular basis.
Leopard Server. I have had the opportunity to work with this release of 10.5 server for a couple of months now and I will have to say that I am very impressed so far for a couple of reasons. For a 10 user license, it comes in at only $499.00. The user interface is beautiful. There are two management consoles, one for the server and one for managing user accounts. The server console, called Server Admin is very simple to work with. For example, if I wanted to configure a VPN, it is literally point and click. I think I clicked the mouse button 4 times and entered the VPN IP Address range. The user management console, called the Workgroup Manager is also a snap. It is very straightforward and easy to add/delete/lock/modify user profiles and accounts. Unless you know otherwise, most of the services offered in Leopard Server is open source software that is freely available, such as the web server for instance, is Apache, the directory server is Open Directory and so forth. However, Apple does such an excellent job of putting a graphical all in one wrapper around it that the overall administration is simply amazing. and amazingly simple. I also want to mention, that OS X is built upon the Darwin UNIX kernel. Which, like Linux is very robust and stable. No worries about viruses, worms, etc. The built in backup solution, Time Machine is awesome. The ideal configuration for a small office would be to have a Mac Mini with 2 drives hanging off of it one for backups and the other for user data with the Mac Mini loaded up with the operating system and applications. Read my blog on The way I do backups. The best benefits I see from running Leopard Server in the office is that you can run it. You really do not need to have an outside resource come in on a regular basis to perform simple tasks, such as setting up a new share, adding or modifying a user account or even restore a file. It is a great solution that any office could get in under $2000.00.

As for website, calender and email, Leopard server does an excellent job of that too. However, unless you have a big enough pipe to the internet, redundant power, etc, I recommend just to out source this to a third party ISP. If you are looking for some good recommendations from me, here are a few:

If you need an Exchange service, try Mailstreet. They are very good and offer excellent service.
As for Web Hosting, I really like Bluehost. They have a very cool user control panel with a ton of features and configurable options. They also do a great job at POP and IMAP service. In addition, you get 300GB of disk space which is perfect if you wanted to replicate too.

I have worked with many operating systems in my career, Windows, OSX, Linux (Redhat, SUSE), SunOS, Solaris, AIX, HPUX to name a few. Each operating system has its strengths given a particular requirement. In a small office setting when you want to have a mesh of features such as file-sharing, remote access, data protection and user management, I strongly recommend Leopard Server.

OS X Tip – Hide or Unhide Directories

With in the OS X Operating System, there are many hidden directories. OS X is a UNIX Operating System based upon the Darwin Kernel. These include the traditional /etc, /usr, /sbin, /var directories and so forth. Since Apple does not want users to access these folders and underlying files, they hide them from the Finder.

I was thinking the other day that it would be nice to hide some directories in my Documents folder that I do not need to access or even want to see for that matter. For example, Microsoft Office makes a directory called Microsoft User Data in which it stores information for the application and user, such as my Entourage email database. I will never have a need to access this content. In addition, nor do I want to accidently delete it. At the same time, I still want the application to write and read to it. The solution is simple, I can use the same method to hide that folder Apple uses to hide the UNIX filesystem directories.

In Finder, open the the window where the directory is you want to hide. For example, if I want to hide the ‘Microsoft User Data’ folder, then I would open a window to my Documents folder where I can see the ‘Microsoft User Data’ directory.

The next step is to open a Terminal window in the Utilities directory under Applications. Once the Terminal Window opens, type:

sudo chflags hidden (then drag the folder into the terminal window, and press RETRUN)

This will hide the directory from Finder. To unhide a folder do the same thing, except replace hidden to nohidden.

Boot from a Thumb Drive

Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to have a portable mini operating system you can boot from in case of an emergency? Let’s assume you are out of town and your computer crashed and the only way you could get to your hard drive was to be able to boot from the OS CD? If you are like me, you do not carry an Operating Install CD everywhere you go. However, most of us carry a USB Thumb Drive around. Here is a simple solution if you wanted to use your Thumb drive for a portable OS.

Here are some sites you can download an OS Client from:

Macintosh OS X: http://portableosx.netsons.org/
Windows: http://www.mojopac.com/portal/content/products/index.jsp
Linux: http://damnsmalllinux.org
For Mac Users, there are a ton of lite-applications you can install in addition to the mini OS image on your thumb drive. Here is a cool link from Source Forge: http://osxportableapps.sourceforge.net/

The way I do backups

For those of you that know me, you already know that I am huge on data protection. I always backup. I have to admit, there has been times where I have been better at it than others, but suffice it to say, I have always had backups. During the last 10 years, I have used several methods that came and went (out the door) to perform my backups. Some of these included complex solutions with a tape library, Veritas (Symantec) NetBackup, or a korn shell rsync script to an offline disk. These all seemed to work for me, but never had the user friendly interface I really wanted in case someone else, other than myself had to recover a lost file.

I am really pleased with Apple’s Time Machine in Leopard. Time Machine offers a very friendly, easy to use interface to recover your lost data. That is why I like it.

HOW TIME MACHINE WORKS

I am very particular about what I backup, where, when and how long I want to keep it. By default, Time Machine will backup everything, including the Operating System files. The first time you run Time Machine, it performs a full backup to an external disk of all your data including the Operating System, then every hour perform an incremental backup of any file or directory that was modified. It will keep backups every day for a week, then keeps a weekly backups for a month and then continue backing up until your external disk is full. Since there are a lot of logs files, and other directories that are modified all the time at the Operating System level, I feel that it is not necessary to have Time Machine back these files up. I limit Time Machine to only backup the users home directory, basically their data only. This frees up a lot of disk space on the external drive and in time, saves money.

MY SETUP

As for the Operating System, I take a different approach. I have a Mac Mini that has two 1 TB Western Digital MyBook External Hard Drives connected via FireWire. I loaded the Mac Mini with Leopard Server, all the applications and patched it. I then connected one of the external 1TB drives and partitioned it into two GUID partitions, a 60GB and a 940 GB (roughly). Once the Mac Mini was set up the way I wanted it, (Apps, Apple Patches, etc) I cloned the Mac Mini to the 60 GB partition on the External Drive using the asr command in a Terminal Window and made it bootable. (/usr/sbin/asr –source / –target /Volumes/device –erase). I wanted to make sure that I was able to boot up off this drive, so I did so by shutting the computer completely down, powering it up while holding the option key and then selecting the external drive to boot from. Works like a champ, as expected. The idea is to have a perfect snapshot of the Mac Mini with the OS, patches and Applications. At anytime, I can literally take that external drive, hook it up to any Intel Mac and boot from it. This is great planning for upgrades and disaster recovery in the future. The other partition on that drive is for Time Machine Backups, which again is only backing up user data.

The other 1TB drive I have is used for user data only which obviously, goes with out saying gets backed up with Time Machine to the other external drive. Just to clarify, by default, the Mac will point the users home directory to the /Users folder. I point the users home directory to a folder called ‘Home’ on the external drive. In Leopard, it is easy to specify an alternate location. Simply go to System Preferences –> User Accounts and right click on the username and select ‘Advanced Options’. In there you can specify the path to the users home directory.

From time to time, I will be working with a file or directory I do not want to have backed up, such a big Movie files I am rendering or images I am working with in Photoshop. A good workaround I found is that I created a folder called Scratch. I exclude this folder in the Time Machine preferences as well as:

The System Files and Directories.
The users downloads folder
The Parallels Image
Microsoft Users Folder that contains my Entourage DB
Applications Directory
The users Trash Can

IN SUMMARY

I know it may seem like it may take a lot of work to get set up at first, and it does take some time, especially when initially building your system, creating the clone image and then selecting what you want to exclude from your backups. However, its really not that bad. In fact, its much easier than it may seem, just takes some time. What ever your method is to backup, I recommend the following:

Keep it simple, know where your data is being backup, when and what is being excluded.
Use the same hardware. I use the same drives for data and backups. Keep things simple to manage.
Think of the end in mind. If you had to perform a complete restore of all your data, think of what will you need, or wish you did, then work backwards.

Regardless of your methodology of backing up, at least backup. You will not believe how may times friends and family have called me in my life in panic because their computer crashed and they lost all their data. They hope for a miracle that somehow it can be recovered. Sometimes it works, a lot of the time it does not.

There is a lot of free stuff out there if you search on Google as well.

I hope this helps.

Steve Jobs Introduces Macintosh

Apple announced the new Macintosh 128K! This is an amazing video of Steve Jobs. He had the vision years ago. He knew what the industry needed and developed upon it, then delivered exceptional products. I am certain that Steve Jobs will go down in the history books as the most innovative leader in the technology age.