Mac OS X Lion Server For Dummies®

The Servers in Lion Server

Lion Server isn't one server, but more than two dozen servers and tools for managing the Mac clients. Figure 1-1 lists the services available to you, as you see them in the Server Admin and the Server utilities. You turn many of them on and off with a few mouse clicks. Here's a quick look at what services you get, and what you can do with them.

Figure 1-1 Lion Server is actually a set of servers.

File server

The bread and butter of a server, the file server may be all that some people need from Lion Server. File servers provide folders that everyone on the network can see. You can also limit access so that some people can't get into certain folders. Mac OS X Server provides file sharing via the Mac-native Apple Filing Protocol (AFP), which is Mac only, and Microsoft's Server Message Block (SMB), which Windows and Linux clients use. Lion Server also provides the WebDAV protocol for iPads. It's also used by Time Machine to back up Macs. (Flip to Chapter 9 for more on this topic.)

Directory services

Mac OS X Server uses the standards-based Open Directory to store and manage the user account info and other user data that's used for all the services. You can connect the server to other directory services on the network, including Microsoft Active Directory. To keep the network secure, directory services authenticates clients that log in with the LDAP, Kerberos, ...