Mike Wuerthele
A support document published by Apple sheds light on what services macOS Server is leaving behind soon, and provides possible options for those needing replacements.
The support document, dated Jan. 24, 2018, was released one day after the latest macOS Server beta. In the notification, Apple says:
BlockquotemacOS Server is changing to focus more on management of computers, devices, and storage on your network. As a result, some changes are coming in how Server works. A number of services will be deprecated, and will be hidden on new installations of an update to macOS Server coming in spring 2018. If you've already configured one of these services, you'll still be able to use it in the spring 2018 macOS Server update.
Features listed as being purged from basic installs of macOS Server soon are Calendar, Contacts, DHCP, DNS, Mail, Messages, NetInstall, VPN, Websites, and Wiki. On the document, Apple lists three possible replacements for each, such as the open source Apache HTTP server that its own Websites functionality was based on.
AppleInsider discussed the matter with our own sources not authorized to speak on behalf of the company, with them saying that in many cases, the Apple-mandated service wasn't as up-to-date as the open source version. As a result, users were replacing sometimes deprecated versions with newer ones. Further questions involving additional reasoning behind the move were not answered.
The move will make macOS Server less of a "plug and play" solution than it is at present. Instead of users setting up a service and figuring out how to deal with it through use, the installation process will basically demand at least a bare-bones level of knowledge from the administrator to get it to work right in the first place.
Christine McKee
Sponsored Content
William Gallagher
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
Wesley Hilliard
41 Comments
"
being stripped out in spring, including Calendar, Websites, Mai..."
I'm trying to work out what's actually left! Oh I know, FTP!
So here we go guys time for some one to come along and write a front end for all the open source replacements that exist in unix. I mean there is no need to pay apple 20 bucks for something that is now worthless. Lets pay some one 9.99 to make the work of all the config files and setting and install packages of say Bind easy for the moderate admin
Basically macOs server is being killed. I moved my server infrastructure to the cloud on Linux servers 5 years ago. And I am not the only one
This doesn't surprise me especially since Apple is pushing for more use of iCloud services making the deprecated server services redundant. This is especially true in educational and government installations.
On the brighter side, putting (more?) resources into creating a better low-cost MDM service might be the hidden gem in this announcement. Server software is $20 without any client license fees making it a huge bargain compared to MDM systems like jamf and Blackberry's offering. Grab a Mac mini and it might be enough to manage a large number of Apple devices. Of course, having MDM on your main server that does everything else would be preferable but in this case it might be more cost effective to run it on a small, dedicated server.
Anyone want to compare Apple Server's MDM to jamf and others?