TOPIC
A plethora of online resources exist for Mac OS X Server. In particular, a number of files exist on the Mac OS X Server CD and on the hard drive of a machine on which Mac OS X Server has been installed. This article documents some areas where information on configuring and running Mac OS X Server can be found.
DISCUSSION The installation documentation comes with retail versions of Mac OS X Server. There is also electronic documentation in Adobe PDF and SimpleText format on the CD. This consists of an installation manual and several Read Me files detailing various aspects of installation and packaged tools, such as the System Disk control panel. Context-sensitive help is available during the Setup Assistant process, which is part of the install process. The Setup Assistant can be invoked at any time (much like the Mac OS Setup Assistant) by selecting it from the Assistants folder. A link to this is provided within the Apple Menu in Workspace Manager (Server Administration -> Assistant). Context-sensitive help is also available through the Help button or Help menu for applications and tools within the Mac OS X Server environment. Once Mac OS X Server has been installed and you have logged in for the first time, you may notice a multitude of documents in the /System/Documentation folder. Some of the help files for GUI tools are stored in /System/Documentation/Help and can be invoked by double-clicking their names within the Workspace Manager. These help files also appear when you choose Help from the Menu bar or press Command(Apple)-? when using the referenced tool or application. Information on services available within Mac OS X Server is contained in /System/Documentation/Administration/Services, in several formats. Information on the Kerberos authentication system is contained within /System/Documentation/Administration/Services/Kerberos in HTML format. There are several HTML files containing the letters „tocŸ, which stands for Table of Contents; these are the starting points for various manuals on the subject. Information on the QuickTime Streaming Server is included within the /System/Documentation/Administration/Services/QuickTimeStreaming in Rich Text Format. This can be read using the Text Editor. In order to produce "hinted" (streamable) movies, you need QuickTime 4 Pro. Instructions on using QuickTime are on the QuickTime Web site at http://www.apple.com/quicktime in the authoring section. There are tutorials available at this location. There have been posts on the subject of using the QuickTime Streaming Server on third party as well as Apple mailing lists and discussion forums. The entire manual for the Apache Web Server is contained within the /System/Documentation/Administration/Services/apache folder. Start by double-clicking /System/Documentation/Administration/Services/apache/index.html. If you leave the Web folder location at default when setting the server up, you will find a link to this manual on the default Web page for Mac OS X Server. Further information on Apache is available through the Apache Group site at http://www.apache.org . Information on the Network Time Protocol and associated servers is contained within /System/Documentation/Administration/Services/ntp in HTML format. Again, start with the index.html file. The sendmail server documentation is located in /System/Documentation/Administration/Services/sendmail. Sendmail is a mail server used in a variety of environments; documentation can be found at the Sendmail, Inc.'s site http://www.sendmail.com , and also through the man (manual) pages. The man (manual) pages may be found in a series of directories within /System/Documentation/ManPages. The ManPages directory is a Link (similar to an alias, see Tech Info Library article # 60029 ) to the actual location of the manual page documents in /usr/share/man. You can click on each document in turn to view them in TextEdit. However, the more traditional way to view them is through the man command in a terminal window (type man man in a terminal to find out more). Man is a command-line utility that has been the traditional method for documenting commands in Unix-style operating systems. Pages are displayed for most commands which detail their use and all applicable arguments. There are many more interesting documents contained within the documentation folder. In particular, there are release notes and other Read Me documents available for various aspects of OS X Server in the /System/Documentation/ReadMe folder. These are mirrored in the Technical Information Library. See TIL article #30925: " Mac OS X Server: Release Notes " At the Mac OS X Server support site, http://www.info.apple.com/support/macosxserver/ , one may find links to articles explaining several aspects of Mac OS X Server. In addition, the Technical Information Library at, http://til.info.apple.com , contains hundreds of articles on Mac OS X Server, with more being created on a continuous basis. You may wish to consult TIL article #22104: " Tech Info Library: How to Search for Articles " for help in finding Mac OS X Server articles. Apple maintains a listserver to which you can subscribe at the main mailing lists page at http://lists.apple.com . A listserver is a special e-mail list service, which allows users to form an online community, in which the posts of everyone on the list can be viewed and responded to by everyone else on the list. Mac OS X users and experts post questions and suggestions to the e-mail list, as well as answers. There is a direct link to the subscription page for the Mac OS X on the aforementioned support page. Past posts to the Apple mailing lists can be accessed from ftp://ftp.apple.com/lists or http://webx.lists.apple.com or searched from http://public.lists.apple.com/search.html , and will be useful for finding answers to common questions. There is also a forum for discussion of Mac OS X Server on the Tech Exchange. The Tech Exchange is a Web-based online forum, similar to Usenet news, which allows users to post questions and answers. The additional strength of this format lies in the fact that past posts can be browsed as well as searched. The Tech Exchange forum can be reached at: http://discuss.info.apple.com/boards/osxservr.nsf/by+Topic In addition, third parties have provided areas for discussion, posting of instructions, and software downloads for Mac OS X Server. Some examples are http://www.stepwise.com and http://www.omnigroup.com , but there are many more linked to the support site for Mac OS X Server under the "Connect to:" pull-down menu. Because of the BSD 4.4 environment contained within Mac OS X Server, and the fact that most of the command line utilities within Mac OS X Server are shared by all UNIX-style operating systems, there are a variety of books which can be of help. Books on UNIX commands and OS structure as well as administration can be of great help to the Mac OS X Server administrator. As with any server or networking product, a variety of standard protocols (such as TCP/IP) are utilized in Mac OS X Server. Knowledge of these protocols is helpful to the administrator, as is any good book on networking in general or the associated protocols such as TCP/IP and AppleTalk. Consult Web search sites, the Technical Information Library, and local or online bookstores for details and sources of information. |
| Document Information | |
| Product Area: | Mac OS System Software |
| Category: | Mac OS X Server |
| Sub Category: | General Topics |
Copyright © 2000 Apple Computer, Inc. All rights reserved.