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defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL “http://yourserver:8088/”

You can also add index.sucatalog after the final / but it should work either way.

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The PowerMac isn’t really designed to be used as a server (despite its recent support of ECC memory and dual Gigabit Ethernet). It doesn’t have hot-swap drives that are rated for continuous use, and there’s no hardware monitoring like the Xserve. There’s also the form-factor – the Xserve sits happily in a rack…the PowerMac has to stay upright.

Based upon your uptime requirements and space/form-factor considerations though, it may be just fine. You will need to factor in the cost of OS X Server as mentioned above, as it’s included when you get an Xserve, but an additional purchase with other machines.

~Ian

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Did you run the upgradedb script as listed in the migration pdf?
sudo -u cyrusimap /System/Library/ServerSetup/SetupExtras/upgradedb

~Ian

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changeip doesn’t update any of the config files for Xsan, so if you run it and change the IP address of a machine, you will have to hand-edit all the Xsan config files to reflect the change.

If you miss one out, or mis-type something you could be chasing your tail trying to find it. It really is best to make sure your IPs aren’t going to be changing. To that end, don’t even think about using DHCP 🙂

~Ian

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Which version of Xsan and OS X are you using, and how are you copying?
Xsan 1.2 for Tiger (10.4.3 required) lists a creation date fix

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You’re right, I don’t think this is explicitly posted anywhere, but it is covered as part of the Xsan for Pro Video and Xsan Administration certification courses, as well as in the Peachpit Xsan Reference book.

It’s not only that, but every time a client reboots their machine and drops off the fabric, the switch will rescan to determine the status of each port – this will cause dropped frames in FCP – to prevent this you also need to disable the Device Scan for the same initiator ports (the ones going to hosts).

~Ian

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You do recall correctly, Xsan does not support ACLs so you’ll have to get it done with POSIX.

~Ian

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Yes, Mike is right – cvgather is your friend – run it – run it regularly and keep a copy of the tar file somewhere other than on your MDC.

IP addressing – yes there are several files living in /Libray/Filesystems/Xsan/config with IP addresses in them. Changeip was never designed for an Xsen environment so changing IPs can get messy. Like you say, best to make sure the initial IP is a permanent one.

It’s good practice to use cvgather, along with saving all your configs from serveradmin, and from your FC switch should the worst happen.

The Emulex is not a true Fabric switch and as such won’t give you the same performance and scalability that comes with one.

Three XSRs sounds like overkill for uncompressed 8-bit (AJA reckon 1920 x1080 8-bit @ 29.97 fps to be around 125MB/s and 10-bit to be around the 165MB/s mark) – 3 controllers, maybe; but 3 whole RAIDs will give you (assuming one controller for metadata) 5 controllers – that will give you something in the region of 400-500MB/s. Of course, it all depends on how many workstations you have wanting to work simultaneously.

As Mike said, in an idea setup, you’d have 3 Xserves – 1 Primary MDC. 1 Backup MDC and OD Replica, and 1 OD Master (which can also be another backup MDC). Final Cut can work with network homes (traditional direct-attached RAID, no Xsan in the mix), but it’s not recommended and I’ve not even tried in an Xsan setup. OD with local homes works just fine with Xsan. If you want to have different access rights for different editors, and to enforce quotas for them, you pretty much have to use OD. (To clarify – I’m talking about FC attached clients for a video environment Xsan)

Hopefully that hasn’t confused things any further 🙂

~Ian

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Disk Utility has a command line equivalent, diskutil. You can also enable VNC support and just use any VNC client. Of course you lose all the extra coolness that ARD has to offer, but it’s certainly not mandatory to manage a server.

~Ian

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I wouldn’t go as far as insane…more masochistic 🙂
The Minis are not servers. They don’t have either redundant or Gigabit ethernet, they use laptop hard drives that are not designed to run continuously, they’re hard to secure physically, they have no hardware monitoring capabilities, they can only have 1 GB of RAM, they’re hugely limited in their internal hard drive capacity, they have no (sensible) way of protecting your data via RAID, and they have a single G4 processor.

Finally, and this fairly important if you want to go with OS X Server, the Xserves come with a licensed copy of OSXS, the Minis don’t so you’ll have to buy a copy. With 12 users you’ll need the unlimited version – unless 2 of your users don’t mind not being able to use the server until 2 others disconnect. With that, your Mini, even if you buy the cheapest one, with no extra memory and the smallest HDD is already half the cost of an Xserve.

Having said that; they’re cheap, you can add FireWire drives and you may not need G5 processing power, more than 1GB of RAM or Gigabit ethernet.

It’ll certainly run OS X Server…you won’t get the uptime of an Xserve, and you won’t get the life-span of an Xserve, but you may save money initially. However, will that initial saving offset everything else (performance problems, reliability issues, hardware replacement costs) over the lifetime of its use. You’re the one that will be called upon to fix things, so it’s really your call.

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No problem. Yes, you can either change that file or, if it’s a test server and you don’t mind losing stuff, demote back to a standalone, then re-promote to OD master making sure the Kerberos info that gets automatically entered is correct.

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What’s in the edu.mit.kerberos file on your server? You’ll probably find the wrong name is in there.

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So use scutil –setHostName to set the right name and everything should be good.

~Ian

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What are the results of:
scutil –get HostName
and
hostname

~Ian

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Maybe take a look in /etc/swupd and see if you have any .previous config files you can revert to?

~Ian

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