Mac OS 8.x - Part two
Andrew McNaughton

Apache 1.3.4, The World’s No. 1 Web Server
Mac OS X Server includes a fully native port of the Open Source Apache 1.3.4 web server. Touted as being “A technical marvel that commands more than 50% of the booming market for Web server software.”  It’s designed with single-button setup to get your web server up and running in minutes. 

A Mac OS X Server-based Apache web server provides the fastest performance when compared to the other hardware platforms. 

ON Test
Mac OS X Server scored 740 connections per second on 100Base-T Ethernet compared to a Dell 450MHz Pentium II Red Hat Linux server, which scored 600.
 
WebObjects 4.0.1, The World’s No. 1 Application
Server
WebObjects is, like Apache, the No. 1 product in its 
market. Transaction management, dynamic data access, 
content-generation capabilities and ease-of-use are just 
some of its strengths. Just take a look at the Apple Store 
on-line and you’ll see how Apple put its own product to 
use in the form of on-line shopping. Adobe www.adobe.com 
uses it for on-line product registration. 

Touted as the most flexible and scalable server for deploying network applications for Intranets or the Internet that can connect to multiple databases and generate HTML and Java user-interfaces for standard web browsers. To start you off, Mac OS X Server comes with a 50-transaction-per- minute license which will allow you to evaluate WebObjects applications or deploy them in medium-sized workgroups. Enables you to assemble pre-built components to create powerful reporting, e-commerce solutions and MIS applications. For more info see www.apple.com/webobjects

Macintosh Manager
Macintosh Manager is a technology for storing the user’s computing environment on the server, so that the user can obtain his or her environment from any Macintosh on the network. This can include application preferences, desktop patterns, and fonts, depending on the level of customisation allowed by the administrator. Macintosh Manager is based on, and can be considered as, the replacement for At Ease for Workgroups 5, an earlier Apple product available only to education customers. 

It supports Macintosh clients that have 68040 or PowerPC processors, running System 7.5.1 or later, and have at least 32MB of RAM. This means it can serve just about any Macintosh produced by Apple from 1994 to the present day and beyond.
Macintosh Manager on Mac OS X Server can serve both NetBoot and non-NetBoot clients, and there will be a version of Macintosh Manager for AppleShare IP/Mac OS 8.5-based servers.

What else?
Print spooling is, like Unix, based on LPR and you can print to any Postscript-capable network printer over either AppleTalk or TCP/IP. There are also a number of third-party print spooling products available for the publishing industry.

How many clients can one Mac OS X Server-based Macintosh G3 Server handle?
   Millions of Web transactions a day;
   Approximately 50 NetBoot clients;
   Over a thousand AppleShare clients;
   Thousands of Macintosh Manager clients.

The actual number of clients supported depends on your network environment, usage scenarios, and hardware configuration. A full 100Base-T Ethernet or faster Network is required. A native backup solution is being developed by the Omni Group and will be made available for free at www.omnigroup.com/Software/Backup
Retrospect will also be available in late 1999.

What is the foundation for Mac OS X Server? 
It’s based on the Mach microkernel that roughly corresponds to Mach 2.5. This microkernel is integrated with an implementation of BSD 4.4 to provide a full Unix-style operating environment. Mac OS X Server contains native support for 100% Pure Java (JDK 1.1.6). 

Does Mac OS X Server use a command line interface, at all? 
The primary interface is Mac-like, allowing administration with graphical tools. For administrators who prefer the command line or make use of Telnet/rlogin for remote administration, a Terminal application and several Unix shells are included, as well as standard tools such as NFS, FTP, Perl, Tcl, and Emacs.

Does configuring Mac OS X Server require editing configuration files? 
No. Mac OS X Server provides a friendly Setup Assistant and a rich set of graphical administration tools. Editing configuration files is not required for basic use of any of the core services.

Does Mac OS X Server contain the Carbon API, i.e. is it the same as Mac OS X?
No. The Carbon API will be included in the client-based Mac OS X, which will include an upgraded version of the Mac OS X Server foundation. Mac OS X is scheduled for release in late 1999, and the user experience will be optimised for a desktop operating system and will be more familiar to today’s Mac OS users. Over time, Mac OS X Server will incorporate features currently only available in AppleShare IP. Mac OS X Server will evolve into a bundle of services built on top of Mac OS X, the same way AppleShare IP currently builds services on top of Mac OS 8.5.

How does Mac OS X Server provide greater scalability than AppleShare IP? 
It does so in four key ways :
   The core system supports over 1,000 simultaneous user connections;
   The multithreaded file system can handle over 4,000 open files per process;
   Advanced networking provides support for multiple 100 Mbps network interface    
      cards, allowing simultaneous full-bandwidth file transfers across multiple subnets.

Does Mac OS X Server support SMB or CIFS? 
Mac OS X Server does not ship with support for SMB or CIFS. However Samba, which is freely available under the GNU public license, provides support for these protocols. For general information about Samba go to http://www.samba.org Samba for Mac OS X Server is available from ftp://ftp.next.peak.org/next-ftp/rhapsody/Applications/Network/  Will there be future releases of AppleShare IP? Yes, but Apple is not announcing specific plans at this time.

Apple plans to incorporate identical, or equivalent functionality to AppleShare IP into Mac OS X Server and it will become Apple’s sole server operating system product. Is Mac OS X Server the same as Rhapsody? No. Mac OS X Server leverages a number of the technologies formerly called Rhapsody. In addition, it includes some of the innovative services that were not part of the original Rhapsody project. Rhapsody was an attempt to move away from the Mac OS; whereas Mac OS X Server achieves the opposite, by advancing the Mac OS in time for the demands of the new Millennium, leapfrogging the competition.

Andrew McNaughton
<andrew@1984-online.com>