[matx]

Seeing something similar with a new Mac OS X 10.5.6 server which can bind once or twice, then suddenly can’t bind and the OD Master reports that it is standalone and the LDAP/PD db is wiped. Really weird. And Kerberos stops. Fun.

[matx]

Well, lots of sysadmins did meet up at Dave’s on the usual Tuesday… some showed up after the official MacWorld party. New this year, was a huge group of “Genius” at the bar. A good time was had by all. See you all there again soon.

[matx]

So there will be no OFFICIAL afp548 party… but it doesn’t mean we cant rally the troops and drink some beer in a bar somewhere (hmmm, Dave’s?).

If anyone has a preference to what night and what venue then let me know.

Thanks
Mat X

[matx]

As long as one of the two network interfaces is working on your Xserve RAID you will be able to monitor and configure it. If that’s all that is wrong with this unit.

[matx]

Putting all your settings in /etc/profile is best way to go, as far as I know.

It works well for shake environment variables, defining unix binary paths, aliases and umask settings.

Using ARD to manage the /etc/profile file is quick and easy.

While explicitly setting Shake environment variables in /etc/profile seems onerous, the idea of using this local file is usually to tell Shake to use a network path for its include folder, etc. For example:

export NR_INCLUDE_PATH=”/Volumes/XSAN/Stuff/Misc/Shake/nreal/include/”
export NR_ICON_PATH=”/Volumes/XSAN/Stuff/Misc/Shake/nreal/icons/”
export NR_FONT_PATH=”/Volumes/XSAN/Stuff/Misc/Shake/nreal/fonts/”

The other option to have users launch Shake, in this case, from a custom script which defines the environment variables for you. I have used this method to define separate Shake instances. For example, “shakehd” would be a script/icon/app to launch Shake with HD settings, or “shake2k” would have 2K settings.

You’d still need to distribute this custom script or app to all your client machines, but it beats copying a custom nreal folder to each user profile.

Perhaps your other alternative is to netboot.

Good luck.

Mat X
macvfx AT mac com

[matx]

What does creating a new user have to do with the Sharing tab in WGM? Cause and effect?

[matx]

It has been suggested on the osx-server list and elsewhere that one strategy would be to 1) clone the server HD, and use this drive to boot another Mac, upgrade that Mac to server 10.4, and export the LDAP info and other stuff out. 2) Then install a fresh 10.4 server and import the info YMMV

[matx]

What kind of HD are you going to work with?

According to Apple’s Xsan workflow page: http://www.apple.com/xsan/videoworkflow.html

There’s quite a range of HD, from Compressed High Definition: DVCPRO HD = 5.8MBps to 14MBps, to Uncompressed High Definition, which ranges from 720p 24fps = 46MBps to 1080i (10-bit) = 165MBps.

Which is also reflected on Xsanity’s page: http://www.xsanity.com/staticpages/index.php/faq/

and from Peachit’s reference: http://safari.peachpit.com/0321369009/ch04

So, 4 streams of 1080 24p (10-bit) 110MBps is 440MBps required per station. And requires 3 RAIDs to be safe.

Does that sound right?

-x

[matx]

Forgive mr. troll, he means well…

I think perhaps two things would influence to a new user to OSX Server, whether it can do what I need, and is there a community of people that I can turn to ask questions and get some help when I need it. You can answer the first one, but the second one is easy: hell ya! Thanks to afp548.com and the apple mail lists I have been given the chance to do more with osx server then I ever thought possible. It’s just that fantastic. And yes, I gush like that all the time 😉

-x

[matx]

Or wait until Xsan 1.3?

[matx]

As long as the clients are bound thru Directory Access to both servers (AD and OD) and the prefs are managed on the OD server then it should work. Try a restart on clients to make sure they get the mcx managed prefs. Also, are you managing prefs by computer, user or group? Try some tests of all three, and see what sticks.

[matx]

I’ll just add that yes, DNS should be setup correctly. But I have setup fully functioning Xsan without it. Of course, I used hosts files on all clients instead. A proper DNS server is better, but not necessary. All clients should have (must have!) static IPs, but everyone just has to know who and where everyone else is (hence the host files). Just adding my real world experience (DNS works and hosts files do too).

[matx]

I can’t count all the times my neck was saved by having a dedicated Xserve for my MD backup. Especially when we switched to tiger, and we used xsan tiger beta in a production environment (crazy!). The MD master and backup kept passing control back and forth every minute sometimes.

Nice to know about cvgather, and maybe I’ll set up an OD replica too (i have a seperate xsserve OD master now).

-x

[matx]

I tested it with a premade NetRestore image… And I had to use imagescan to read my disk image, then it accepted the multicast server mode of asr to launch, once those settings were in the plist.

here’s the output of the steps…

matx$ defaults write /tmp/streamconfig “Data Rate” -int 6000000

matx$ defaults write /tmp/streamconfig “Multicast Address” 192.168.1.54

matx$ sudo asr -source cg005.dmg -server /tmp/streamconfig.plist

Multicast server configuration:
Data Rate: 6000000
Multicast Address: 192.168.1.54
asr: Image is not ordered
asr: Could not usage image for multicast operation. Please use “asr -imagescan”
Multicast server operation failed

matx$ asr -imagescan cg005.dmg
Checksumming partition of size 63 blocks…done
Block checksum: ….10….20….30….40….50….60….70….80….90….100
Reordering: ….10….20….30….40….50….60….70….80….90….100
asr: successfully scanned image “cg005.dmg”

matx$ sudo asr -source cg005.dmg -server /tmp/streamconfig.plist
Password:
Multicast server configuration:
Data Rate: 6000000
Multicast Address: 192.168.1.54
Ready to start accepting clients

[matx]

haven’t tried it, but reading the man page is informative…. two interesting new asr variations:

asr -source source -server configuration [options]
asr -source asr://source -file file [options]

Multicast server:
asr -source -server

Will start up a multicast server for the specified image, using the
parameters in the configuration.plist. The image will not start multicas-
ting on the network until a client attempts to start a restore. The
server will continue to multicast the image until the process is termi-
nated.

An example multicast configuration file:
defaults write /tmp/streamconfig “Data Rate” -int 6000000
defaults write /tmp/streamconfig “Multicast Address” 224.0.0.123
(will create the file /tmp/streamconfig.plist)

Multicast client
sudo asr -source asr:// -target -erase

Multicast client restoring to a file
sudo asr -source asr:// -file -erase
Will receive the multicast stream from and save it to a file.
If is a directory, the image of the streamed disk image will be
used the save the file. -erase causes any existing file with the same

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