Re: [CalendarServer-users] Running CalendarServer on Mac OS X 10.8.5
On 07.11.2013, at 22:09, Olivier DUCROT <olivier.ducrot@easymac.fr> wrote:
Why don't you simply install Server 2.2 from AppStore. It's worth the price. $20 and one click install..
Yes, that's certainly a good option. However, I thought, since I do not need any other parts of the server right now and the CalDAV/CardDAC server is probably similar or even identical, I try the open source solution. Thanks for the suggestion. Cheers, Bernhard
Bernard, I strongly suggest sticking with the Calendar Server you have and avoiding MacOS X Server at all expense. At the very least, take a look at some of the critical commentary available for the Server product. I tried that route myself when I became frustrated by some installation issues I was experiencing with CalanderServer and wasted several weeks. I would not recommend attempting to install the Apple Server product; in my experience it does not work at all. Scott. On Nov 8, 2013, at 1:21 PM, Bernhard Spinnler wrote:
On 07.11.2013, at 22:09, Olivier DUCROT <olivier.ducrot@easymac.fr> wrote:
Why don't you simply install Server 2.2 from AppStore. It's worth the price. $20 and one click install..
Yes, that's certainly a good option. However, I thought, since I do not need any other parts of the server right now and the CalDAV/CardDAC server is probably similar or even identical, I try the open source solution. Thanks for the suggestion.
Cheers, Bernhard
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On Nov 29, 2013, at 5:15 AM, Scott Cherf <cherf@ambient-light.com> wrote:
Bernard, I strongly suggest sticking with the Calendar Server you have and avoiding MacOS X Server at all expense. At the very least, take a look at some of the critical commentary available for the Server product. I tried that route myself when I became frustrated by some installation issues I was experiencing with CalanderServer and wasted several weeks. I would not recommend attempting to install the Apple Server product; in my experience it does not work at all.
Hi, It might be useful to qualify this a little. While I don’t doubt your experience, I can’t help but feel like there’s an implied “… for my purposes” at the end of your last sentence. I can confirm that OS X Server and the Calendar & Contacts service therein does actually work for many purposes - but not all purposes :) Based on my fair amount of sysadmin experience, I will assert that running a server ‘for real’ is going to involve some amount work. By ‘for real’, I mean: the service is actually used by real humans other than yourself, whose numbers may be increasing or decreasing, and whose usage patterns may change. those humans use the service to create data which they care about. don’t lose, break, or leak this data. the service needs to be up, always and forever, notwithstanding planned outages for things like upgrades / migrations / end-of-life. I’m not aware of any vendor’s non-hosted solution for any service fitting these criteria that doesn’t require the operator to wear a sysadmin hat, at least sometimes. If any of those criteria don’t fully apply, it gets much, much easier. I assume they must all fully apply. That’s all rather vague, so here are some specific questions I think about when I’m evaluating options for deploying any solution that is at least partially vendor-supplied: What’s the startup cost in time and money? How much needs to be built / configured versus acquired ready-to-use? What are the different high-level components of the service - the moving parts? This is basically the list of things that can break. Where is the demarcation line between things the operator is responsible for fixing and things the vendor is responsible for fixing? What’s the expected level of service for vendor fixes? Who owns the responsibility for monitoring, troubleshooting, maintenance, performance / scalability testing? For things the operator is responsible for, what tools are available? With the answers to the above in-hand, how much operator knowledge is needed to achieve success in a worst / average / best-case scenario, without relying on luck? What are the means for sourcing that knowledge? Do all involved parties understand and agree on all of these points? There are multiple continuums at play, and making a solid decision requires understanding the tradeoffs involved in each. Just my two cents :) -dre
Scott.
On Nov 8, 2013, at 1:21 PM, Bernhard Spinnler wrote:
On 07.11.2013, at 22:09, Olivier DUCROT <olivier.ducrot@easymac.fr> wrote:
Why don't you simply install Server 2.2 from AppStore. It's worth the price. $20 and one click install..
Yes, that's certainly a good option. However, I thought, since I do not need any other parts of the server right now and the CalDAV/CardDAC server is probably similar or even identical, I try the open source solution. Thanks for the suggestion.
Cheers, Bernhard
_______________________________________________ calendarserver-users mailing list calendarserver-users@lists.macosforge.org https://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/calendarserver-users
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On Nov 29, 2013, at 2:52 PM, Andre LaBranche wrote:
On Nov 29, 2013, at 5:15 AM, Scott Cherf <cherf@ambient-light.com> wrote:
Bernard, I strongly suggest sticking with the Calendar Server you have and avoiding MacOS X Server at all expense. At the very least, take a look at some of the critical commentary available for the Server product. I tried that route myself when I became frustrated by some installation issues I was experiencing with CalanderServer and wasted several weeks. I would not recommend attempting to install the Apple Server product; in my experience it does not work at all.
Hi,
It might be useful to qualify this a little. While I don’t doubt your experience, I can’t help but feel like there’s an implied “… for my purposes” at the end of your last sentence. I can confirm that OS X Server and the Calendar & Contacts service therein does actually work for many purposes - but not all purposes :)
Based on my fair amount of sysadmin experience, I will assert that running a server ‘for real’ is going to involve some amount work. By ‘for real’, I mean: the service is actually used by real humans other than yourself, whose numbers may be increasing or decreasing, and whose usage patterns may change. those humans use the service to create data which they care about. don’t lose, break, or leak this data. the service needs to be up, always and forever, notwithstanding planned outages for things like upgrades / migrations / end-of-life. I’m not aware of any vendor’s non-hosted solution for any service fitting these criteria that doesn’t require the operator to wear a sysadmin hat, at least sometimes. If any of those criteria don’t fully apply, it gets much, much easier. I assume they must all fully apply.
That’s all rather vague, so here are some specific questions I think about when I’m evaluating options for deploying any solution that is at least partially vendor-supplied: What’s the startup cost in time and money? How much needs to be built / configured versus acquired ready-to-use? What are the different high-level components of the service - the moving parts? This is basically the list of things that can break. Where is the demarcation line between things the operator is responsible for fixing and things the vendor is responsible for fixing? What’s the expected level of service for vendor fixes? Who owns the responsibility for monitoring, troubleshooting, maintenance, performance / scalability testing? For things the operator is responsible for, what tools are available? With the answers to the above in-hand, how much operator knowledge is needed to achieve success in a worst / average / best-case scenario, without relying on luck? What are the means for sourcing that knowledge? Do all involved parties understand and agree on all of these points? There are multiple continuums at play, and making a solid decision requires understanding the tradeoffs involved in each.
All good tuff Andre, and I expect for very large installations it may be more efficient to work through the installation and configuration issues I've experienced with MacOS X Server over the past 5 years. My experience is based on managing a small business network of 2 servers and 5 client machines running 10.6.8. I began experimenting with the Server product with 10.4 and successively installed and tested versions through 10.6. I have no practical experience using later operating systems. None of my experimental installations were successful and in every case I rolled back to the retail product. My background is in IT and I began my career as a systems administrator using HP 1000 machines running both RTE (4 through 6) and BCS in a research lab environment (NASA's Gerard P. Kuiper Airborne Observatory). Since then I spent 12 years writing OS software for Tandem Computers, then took a position designing and implementing the software development environment for cisco Systems. I retired as Chair of cisco's Reliability, Availability and Serviceability Lab. I consider my IT background extensive. That said, I would rather use open source tools like your Calendar Server without the additional management overhead of MacOS X Server in my environment. I find the lack of documentation and poor user interface to be a drawback, along with some severe shortcomings in basic product functionality. I can't recommend it, and I hope I've at least qualified myself to have an educated opinion on the subject. Regards, Scott.
Just my two cents :) -dre
Scott.
On Nov 8, 2013, at 1:21 PM, Bernhard Spinnler wrote:
On 07.11.2013, at 22:09, Olivier DUCROT <olivier.ducrot@easymac.fr> wrote:
Why don't you simply install Server 2.2 from AppStore. It's worth the price. $20 and one click install..
Yes, that's certainly a good option. However, I thought, since I do not need any other parts of the server right now and the CalDAV/CardDAC server is probably similar or even identical, I try the open source solution. Thanks for the suggestion.
Cheers, Bernhard
_______________________________________________ calendarserver-users mailing list calendarserver-users@lists.macosforge.org https://lists.macosforge.org/mailman/listinfo/calendarserver-users
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There has been a fair amount of discussion regarding using OSX Server vs. Calendar and Contacts Server when the latter is all one really needs. However, know one has really addressed whether there is any significant savings of system resources by installing just Calendar and Contacts Server. I have tried both options on a retired MBP (barely Mavericks ready) but the results are hard to interpret. OSX Server appears to use a good deal more memory; however, with Mavericks' new memory management, the results of Activity Monitor are hard to interpret. Both options seem to require a surprising number of processes. I did not find the cost of OSX Server unreasonable, but the quality of the documentation made it only marginally easier to setup. Among other complaints, there are critical help issues that are not accessible by simply choosing "Server Help" from the Help menu, which was my first impulse as a newbie. Instead these help items are only availabe from inconspicuous links (ie. barely look like links) in the setup panels of the individual servers. Neither option is sufficiently documented for a new user to setup without dredging the net for third-party tips. On the CalendarServer site you can't even determine what the preferred stable release is or whether any release is more appropriate for a particular OS version. Given the above, resource usage is the deciding factor for me. I am hoping to have this question resolved before my long-over-due, new Mac Pro arrives and I am forced by Mavericks to set this up. Thanks, jb
participants (4)
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Andre LaBranche
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Bernhard Spinnler
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Jeff Blume
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Scott Cherf