Psyching myself up for Tiger

B

brucedath

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By default, I am the administrator for my company. I migrated us from ASIP to X Server, and the process was so frustrating and burned up so much time that I have never updated the server since. ASIP was simple, straightforward and sufficiently documented. OS X presented problems as soon as I started the Set Up assistant, and three carefull re-readings of the manual, calls to Apple during the free support period etc. never solved all of them.

I am extremely busy already, and having to screw with things to try to deduce what's wrong or stumble onto a fix drives me up the wall. I also have to do server stuff during off hours, frequently after Apple's support shop has closed, which doesn't help.

In the near future we will start using Tiger, and I'm concerned that having the server running unupdated 10.2 will create even more issues, so I feel I have to bring the server up to the current version.

My single biggest complaint is the breadth of knowledge Apple assumes on the part of whoever installs X Server. For example, in the Setup Assistant, the first task is name the server. The example name in the prompt is something like "server.". Trial, error and two reinstallations demonstrated that the "somename dot" format is vital. Why? What would I have had to have known in order to have realized the importance of the dot?

So this is what I need help with. I need suggestions for references to read in advance of trying to upgrade so I know (sort of know/have some idea) of the consequences of my choices during setup and I have some foundatioin to start from when I try and fix stuff that doesn't work or correct odd behaviors. Any ideas will be gratefuly considered.
 
I went through all the manuals repeatedly. If I can find my notes from that period, I can give you a list of issues that are not addressed. Knowledgebase is another resource which I tried for probably a couple of hours without much success. I talked to support repeatedly and could fix some specific problems, but there are still issues.

The general problem with the documentation is that you need some background in order to make the right choices. That background can't reasonably be part of the documentation, but my experience is that X Server cannot be completely set up without it.

The obvious choices are third party documentation (any recommendations?) or sites similar to this one that are dedicated to server/networking issues. I know there is one - I stumbled across it once.
 
If your just starting out, I would recommend getting Schoun Regan's book, which is a good starter's guide.

Michael Bartosh's book should be out soon and is a great advanced book! :)
(I'm slightly biased in this opinion)
 
No, seriously... if you're in that much 'trouble', would it not be a good corporate decision to hire a 'trained gun' to do it for you under your direction? Just a thought.
 
Clivey said:
No, seriously... if you're in that much 'trouble', would it not be a good corporate decision to hire a 'trained gun' to do it for you under your direction? Just a thought.
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Its those scenarios that keep me in business! :) ::ha::

All joking aside, there's a lesson here from Clivey. There are resons why some folks do what they do. I mean, I wouldn't want someone who wasn't primarily a surgeon to perform surgery and that thought can be applied to any other skilled profession out there.

If your really under the gun and in dire need of help, there are always professionals out there who will be able to help! :)
 
brucedath - I don't want to make you feel that I'm (or any one else in these kind forums) is holier than thou - but a server is a major piece of kit - very often a mulitude of technologies lovingly nailed together by a geek somewhere - but give yourself (and your comapny) a chance - learn the product before launching yourself into getting the kit into production... I was absolutely steadfast on this at my work - 'migrate that Apple kit' they said after a long lunch... sure I said, in 3 months when I learnt how to break it and put it back together. OK it was 5 months - but then they should stop giving me other work (damned Windows servers!!) shouldn't they ;-).
Anyways, consider very seriously WHY you want to go to Tiger... if you're coming from Panther it could be considered a considerable step - and if you're coming from Jaguar - then it's chalk and cheese... What are you're specific problems that you believe will be alleviated if you upgrade?
Please, tell me what your thoughts are, and I will try to help (time allowing) and I'm sure that Go3iverson (correct me if I'm wrong Sir), will as well.
Whatever you decide, good luck.
 
I'm here to help, of course! :)

The real question is Tiger vs Panther. Panther is more polished right now, but Tiger has more bells and whistles. Using Panther would probably meet all of your needs, all things considered, but then comes in the fear of upgrade, meaning, if you were to have a perfectly good Panther Server, there's always the thought of an upgrade gone bad in a few months when you might feel that Tiger is prime and you want those added features and extra granular control over your server.

Once you decide on that, if an upgrade is still what you want, then you can begin worrying about all the service specific configurations! ;)
 
brucedath said:
The obvious choices are third party documentation (any recommendations?) or sites similar to this one that are dedicated to server/networking issues. I know there is one - I stumbled across it once.
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First of all, make sure you have a spare machine and make it working like you want it to be before putting it to work. I upgrade my mailserver and have done a lot of re-install (damn SCP command, which trashed my /var/spool/postfix persmissions).

Als make a list of you problems and post the here. For most problems some people know a solution. I just installed a 10.4.1 machine and i hated it when i started, but now it works fine, that hate has gone ...

BTW - If you buy an xserve, take one with a video-card, makes life a lot easier (if you run into trouble during installation, you lose a lot of time without it, for me no more xerves without video-card. My time (and yours) is money.


Certainly take your time to play around before putting it into business, once up and running, there is no way back.



Good luck, Kees
 
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