Weblog entry #222 for simonw
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#222
Xserve
Posted by simonw on Mon 11 Feb 2008 at 21:21
Had to install a beast of a server at work today, an Apple Xserve.
I'm not a Mac OS user; although I've fiddled a few times I'd never seen the Xserve platform.
The box was well made, and came with rack mounting kit. Rather generous on stray bolts, and bits of plastic in the packaging, but otherwise much like any other rack mountable server. The Apple touches; no regular keyboard or mouse connectors (all USB - which is fair enough), mini-DVI (which means a mini-DVI to VGA connector cluttering up the rack - and mini-DVI has no screws to affix it so let us hope it doesn't fall out). I was also thinking that DELLs covers for the fronts of rack mounted servers looks a sensible design decision, rather than leaving the buttons exposed; Apple ship a huge plastic protector that screws on, which protects it in shipping, a little thought might make this a part that you don't throw away after unpacking.
Set-up was pretty straight forward, although there is this weird division between what "Server Admin" will do for you, and what you have to do in "System Preferences".
Couple of rough points on the install. When it asked me to identify keyboard, it didn't do the whole job, so it fires up a keyboard disambiguation window behind the window I'm using later on. Even when I find it and disambiguate my keyboard, it still has '@' and '"' mixed up (that gets old quick for UK based system admins). The software update program hung, requiring a reboot to get it working again, and it still failed to fetch and install all the updates, with no errors and no indication of progress, nothing of use in the log files ("unknown" may be an honest statement for the status of a software package, but it isn't terribly helpful!). When asked to list DNS servers, it doesn't say anywhere that it is a comma separated list it is after. It doesn't say the TimeZone map is clickable, the clue is your timezone isn't listed. Similarly I booted into a lab DHCP, and then configured a static address for deployment, every GUI tools then feels like a pain in the butt, as they can't handle this common use case gracefully (I'm sure I can "vi" the regular files underneath somewhere if I try hard enough - but if I wanted that I'd have installed BSD). Server Admin being the worst, as it is designed to admin servers over the network and isn't sensible enough to connect to the local server via 127.0.0.1 by default (although you can of course change it to do that), so when the IP address changes it says the local server isn't there any more.
All I had to do was basic config, nothing clever the client gets to do that. But given I ran into bugs in basic configuration software, had trouble with keyboard configuration, and found bits of the GUI inconsistent, and unduely delaying, I think we can safely conclude Apple has a way to go.
Being non-free software (in parts!) I'm stopped half way and invited to give away all my personal data, and delayed further with demands for a serial number. Apparently only organisations can own Xserve boxes if the GUI validation is to be trusted.
Most of the software updates it struggled to download were for components of the GUI (Quicktime, ITunes etc) or desktop software, kind of thing most system admins omit from servers because they prefer their server OS lean and clean.
I can see the appeal for those intimately familiar with Mac OS X, who'll feel right at home. For small organisations I could see them preferring it over a Microsoft Windows server because it is more user friendly, but they might be scared off by servers without a graphical user interfaces. However I don't think we'll lose too many hardened Debian admin to the other evil empire; if it steals market I'd expect it to be from Microsoft in the small business, or departmental, server market. Indeed this one was replacing a Microsoft server.
I'm not a Mac OS user; although I've fiddled a few times I'd never seen the Xserve platform.
The box was well made, and came with rack mounting kit. Rather generous on stray bolts, and bits of plastic in the packaging, but otherwise much like any other rack mountable server. The Apple touches; no regular keyboard or mouse connectors (all USB - which is fair enough), mini-DVI (which means a mini-DVI to VGA connector cluttering up the rack - and mini-DVI has no screws to affix it so let us hope it doesn't fall out). I was also thinking that DELLs covers for the fronts of rack mounted servers looks a sensible design decision, rather than leaving the buttons exposed; Apple ship a huge plastic protector that screws on, which protects it in shipping, a little thought might make this a part that you don't throw away after unpacking.
Set-up was pretty straight forward, although there is this weird division between what "Server Admin" will do for you, and what you have to do in "System Preferences".
Couple of rough points on the install. When it asked me to identify keyboard, it didn't do the whole job, so it fires up a keyboard disambiguation window behind the window I'm using later on. Even when I find it and disambiguate my keyboard, it still has '@' and '"' mixed up (that gets old quick for UK based system admins). The software update program hung, requiring a reboot to get it working again, and it still failed to fetch and install all the updates, with no errors and no indication of progress, nothing of use in the log files ("unknown" may be an honest statement for the status of a software package, but it isn't terribly helpful!). When asked to list DNS servers, it doesn't say anywhere that it is a comma separated list it is after. It doesn't say the TimeZone map is clickable, the clue is your timezone isn't listed. Similarly I booted into a lab DHCP, and then configured a static address for deployment, every GUI tools then feels like a pain in the butt, as they can't handle this common use case gracefully (I'm sure I can "vi" the regular files underneath somewhere if I try hard enough - but if I wanted that I'd have installed BSD). Server Admin being the worst, as it is designed to admin servers over the network and isn't sensible enough to connect to the local server via 127.0.0.1 by default (although you can of course change it to do that), so when the IP address changes it says the local server isn't there any more.
All I had to do was basic config, nothing clever the client gets to do that. But given I ran into bugs in basic configuration software, had trouble with keyboard configuration, and found bits of the GUI inconsistent, and unduely delaying, I think we can safely conclude Apple has a way to go.
Being non-free software (in parts!) I'm stopped half way and invited to give away all my personal data, and delayed further with demands for a serial number. Apparently only organisations can own Xserve boxes if the GUI validation is to be trusted.
Most of the software updates it struggled to download were for components of the GUI (Quicktime, ITunes etc) or desktop software, kind of thing most system admins omit from servers because they prefer their server OS lean and clean.
I can see the appeal for those intimately familiar with Mac OS X, who'll feel right at home. For small organisations I could see them preferring it over a Microsoft Windows server because it is more user friendly, but they might be scared off by servers without a graphical user interfaces. However I don't think we'll lose too many hardened Debian admin to the other evil empire; if it steals market I'd expect it to be from Microsoft in the small business, or departmental, server market. Indeed this one was replacing a Microsoft server.