OS X Server unlimited or 10 user?

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If I do not want to use OS X Server as a file server at all, only web services (like www, ftp, mail, dns, firewall, SQL etc) Can I get away with a 10user version?
Can more than 10 FTP clients access FTP and more than 10 people access website and 20 people send mail at the sam time? Where are the limits? I do not care about file server users.
 
The 10 user license is only referring to how many copies of OSX Server you can install on different machine... think of it as shopping at Sam's Club or some other bulk-club.

Addendum- after posting I realized I wasn't -certain- that my interperetation of the 10 user deal was correct, and don't feel like poking around Apple's site to make sure :) However, since my OS X machine can accept a few hundred simulated web users I don't think I'm way off the mark. PLEASE correct me otherwise.

As far as web/e-mail/ftp/etc. users are concerned: practical limits are defined by your hardware. Somewhere someone must have done some stress tests to see how the standard Mac's can stand up to a stiff user-load. Probably the only thing that will happen is that Apache will run out of the connections (which you can bump up in httpd.conf) and users will take a performance hit. Good, fast disk and stable memory will increase the number of users you can support as well. If you're going to build a nice, beefy server machine and max out the ram (which is ENTIRELY feasible given the price of memory) you should consider getting registered ram just for some peace of mind... registered memory holds all instructions for one clock-cycle while it makes sure they're being routed to the correct areas of the chip... which increases stability when you've got enormous half-gig sticks.
 
Well, since I will have a very simple website (info about a commercial printing company) I though G3/300 (beige tower) with 768MB RAM will be enough. It is a 66 Mhz machine only. My main concern is FTP since my clients send me files for output. Right know I have a simple FTP server running Netpresenz on the 7500/200 with 256 MB RAM. I want to move to X so I can learn a bit about UNIX. Do you think a G3/300 is not enough for a simple website, FTP server and mail server with about 20 accounts? Should I use something better? I have G3/350 BW (100MHz) with 512 RAM, G4/466 (133 MHz) with 512 RAM and G4/733 with 512RAM. RAM is not a problem, I can always add more.
 
Well, consider this: my friend runs a relatively busy website that generates tons of traffic, and all he uses is a little Sun IPX. Your G3 outperforms it by about... 20 times... at the very least.

For what you described, I don't think you'd even need MacOSX Server. If all you want to provide are internet standard services (HTTP, FTP, mail, etc.) Then the standard version would probably take care of you. Hardware wise, I'm pretty sure you're all set. You've got enough RAM to take care of a ton of simultaneous users... processing power and bandwidth might be a concern, but you can upgrade those if you feel stifled.
 
I will buy the 10 user version of OS X Server just for the GUI. BTW about e-mail server - I heard that a lot of folks are using Communigate Pro instead of buid-in sendmail. Do you why? no GUI in sendmail?
 
10 user does not refer to machines installed on - it refers to "simultaneous connections" - whatever that means. I'm assuming that does NOT limit www traffic, that would be bizarre. It may limit simultaneous ftp and/or AFP and possibly samba connections. I'm going to ask some questions because I have ~30 accounts I need to sustain, but no more than 3 are connected at any 1 time typically.

old policy dealt with # of user accounts, so this simultaneous policy perplexes me a bit. As for the number of machines you can install on, old policy was that you could split services onto different machines under 1 license, but no 2 machines could be running the same service. Current policy - I have no idea. I'm also real curious about thi limitations of the WO license with each distribution.

Apple sales told me 10 user license was about the # of computers connected te the server at any one time. I got the feeling this was about netboot/AFP/SMB. I guess it would be more clear if I had the product running in front of me.

and WO is deployment only, and I don't think it's limited in any way. Again, I don't have the product in front of me.
 
I talked to Apple tech support (X server group) and the woman did not knowabout a possibility of connecting more than 1 user with same name at the same time, she put me on hold and after a few minutes she told me it is not possible. The second user with the same name will get get "connection in use" error. I asked if they going to fix it and she did not know. I mean this is a serious limitation. Now I have a problem, because even unlimited version does not support "drop box ftp" future like Netpresentz does. Anyone ant suggestions? There is no way that my clients can geet a busy signal, they will not stick around for another time, or try another user - it may be in use also.
Is there any way around it?
 
I don't know what the deal is with this "10 User License". I would have assumed that it meant you could install it on 10 machines, but maybe they're going the M$ route and making you have a license for every damn user that hits your box [technically, with IIS, you have to have one license for every connection to your website...what BS]. I have no idea how you would impose such a limitation using Apache.

For what you are trying to do, standard OSX is more than enough. I have had over 100 simultaneous FTP connections to my G4 with no problems. Same goes for Apache. The configureation is simple enough, I can't see the justification for purchasing OSXS for your type of application [it would be total overkill].

As far as hardware is concerned, I have a 400MHz Pentium II with 512MB of ram and about 70 commercial websites running on it. The load averages are no where near maxed out.

If you want, setup a few FTP clients to download / upload to your machine and watch your system usage with top. You'll be hard pressed to max out the CPU or RAM.
 
Apple's server products have always had a user limit license, this part is not new. In truth, their pricing is getting more reasonable with this release, but the X Server product is AFP/SMB centric. If you're not doing those, skip X server entirely, go with X consumer, and pick and choose your ftp and web server as you please. You just won't have the same ease of use in setup as X server would supply.

In your case, your money would be better spent on a manual or two.

... and if they think they can limit my apache to 10 simultaneos connections - they'll have to figure out my custom apache install first. Mwooohhaahhaahhaah.
 
my stress tests are with X Server 1.0 on a 120MHz 604 (8500) over 10 Mbit ethernet.

you're not going to realistically max out the processor on 10Mbit or less using ftp or plain html provided you have adequate RAM. It's just not going to happen.

But I can not stress the RAM part enough. Each thread of apache will use a few Weg of RAM each, and the more you swap out to VM the horder things get. I don't know what the RAM I/O caching and wiring down policies are with X server 2.0, but I'm gonna stick with my lots O RAM recommendation. other than that, you need crazy bandwidth before CPU or HD become bottlenecks. Think >1000 users on your LAN.
 
I am no UNIX guru, so I have a little choice but go with OS X S. I was thinking to get CommunigatePro as a mail server (beccause of great setup) and use build-in ftp server and build-in apache as a web server. All this on G3/300 beige tower with 640 Ram, I have doing nothing. My company has a lot of clients and sometimes maybe 2 or 3 will try to connect to ftp at the same time. My concern is that this is possible. I do not want to create 3 users, give it to my clients and tell them - if this one is busy, try that one and so on. My boss will be not to happy about that. I have to have anonymous access to ftp as Netpresenz I have now - I setup a user called "client" . When someone connects to it it connects as a "client1", next is "client2" and so on up to 100, than I have to restart Netpresenz, but It does what I want.
 
That setup is halfassed and totally lame.
You really don't need OSXS to do what you want, but if the company is paying for it...hey why not? :)

In OSX client, there is already a GUI tool for creating new users [which in turn, creates an ftp account for them]. Apache is also very simple to setup. Sendmail requires one or two steps, but I have seen explicit instructions on here on how to get it working. I'm not sure what GUI tools OSXS provides for these services, but I know that they are not hard to configure in OSX client...and I'm no UNIX Guru either :)
 
Listen, If you could find the setup instructions anywhere - I would try it now with my OS X consumer. It would give me some time to learn.
 
I love yours. It looks like a brand new one. It is hard to believe it's 93. Well, I never got one, but I am looking for a Passat as my next car. Don't say it, I know it's not the same. Thanks for your help. Have fun and drive safely.
derek
 
Sweet :)
My Corrado is my baby. I only drive it on sunny fridays :)
I've got a fleet of old Diesel VWs with over 200,000 miles on the odos that I split up the rest of the week with.

Anyway, make a quick list of all of the services that you are trying to setup and I'll compile a list of instructions on how to setup each thing. Are you planning on hosting a domain on this machine? Do you need to setup incoming unix mail accounts? I know you want FTP accounts for your users...what kind of system do you want for this? When you add a new user with the Users control panel, each one gets a home directory where they could upload to. More config file editing is required if you want to change from this. MySQL is a piece of cake to setup, as is PHP [don't know if you need this or not]. The firewall is also very straight forward if you get a program like Brickhouse.

Let me specific questions and I'll try and come up with a good set of directions. Hopefully others will contribute and more people can benefit from the same instructions.
 
Originally posted by Fahrvergnuugen
... MySQL is a piece of cake to setup, as is PHP [don't know if you need this or not]. The firewall is also very straight forward if you get a program like Brickhouse....
Click to expand...

I've been setting up services on my OS X machine as well. Having had some *nix / Linux experience... most of it was totally simple. I've got a mail server set up, an IMAP->Web gateway, PHP, 5 web domains, etc. all set up and running. -- No problems.

But, when I try to set up MySQL, it keeps barfing on me. I don't know why. It compiles and installs properly (so it says, at least), but it won't work.

Any thoughts as to what I could have done wrong? Common mistakes in setting it up, etc.? Thanks!

-jab
 
The first time I installed it, I compiled it myself. You have to change part of the code to get it to compile right. Don't bother with that...download a precompiled binary to install it. Makes life way easier.
http://www.entropy.ch/software/macosx/

I got my server back up and running after I formated last month in no time with those packages.
 
This is a great idea. It should help a lot of people to make lives easier.
My setup will be as follows:
G3/300 beige tower, 640 MB RAM with internal IDE HD as a system drive and external SCSI as a data/ftp/www drive. I have a consumer X 10.0.4 on a CD (got it with my Quicksilver 867 - I am using 9.2 system there because I work for a printeshop in DTP dept. and I have no use for X there (need Photoshop, quark, illustrator and so on on X first). What I want to do is setup a server running X (I was thinking X server 10-user (GUI), but I am willing to try on standard X. On this machine I would like to setup a FTP with ONE user and password, that I will give to our clients and they will send files for output. It may happen that two or three of my clients will try to access the ftp at the same time. Also www server with simple website (nothing fancy) and a mail server with 20-30 accounts. I have to have FTP with ONE user (kind of guest access with password, I do not need to know who is sending stuff as long as IP is logged that is enough. If I cannot use build-in ftp for that I will use some other ftp server on X (even If I have to pay for it ) I am looking for easy setup because I will have to supprt it myself. I heard that sendmail is a pain to setup, If it is I do not care for it. I am willing to use Communigate Pro. I would like to use X as a platform and as much GUI as possible. For firewall I was thinking Firewalk or Brickhouse. All of this will be on full T1. I am using Netpresentz now as a ftp server on 7500/200 and it's great. I created one user "client" and a password. I see IP numbers of customers and they are logged as "client1", "client2" and so on. What is important, that MORE THAN ONE client can log at THE SAME TIME. I would like to have similar setup on X.
I hope some other gurus will contribute to this setup. Thanks.
 
Go for it. Simply enabling file sharing and creating this magical user will set you up with ftp. As for mail, I'm a big fan of netwin's dmail. Go there, download it, try it for free, if you don't like it - no loss. It is a bit command liney to set up, but there instructions and tech support kick ass.

I think you're on the right track now.
 
Dear All

For those who are confused on the user licensing of MacOS X Server, I am here to explain.
Take the 10-user license, this only means that you are allow only 10 Apple Macs to connect to the server using the AppleTalk protocol. Unlimited means unlimited Apple Macs allowed to connect.
The user license does not include Windows PC, Unix machines or Linux boxes. You can buy the 10 user license if you know for a fact that you want excel 10 Apple Macs. Neither one of the licenses exclude the amount of traffic your server will receive.

Hope that explains it all.

From the man who actually rang Apple UK to find out.

CockneyGeezer
 
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