[CalendarServer-users] Setup for small group/family

[Chris Cleeland]

Thanks for all the quick replies!

On Apr 7, 2008, at 9:35 AM, Cyrus Daboo wrote:
> --On April 7, 2008 9:20:48 AM -0500 Chris Cleeland <chris at milodesigns.com 
> > wrote:
>
>> I'm finally getting back to something that's been on my to-do list  
>> for
>> awhile--setting up the cal server for my family to use.  I know that
>> there are at least a few others out there who do something similar,  
>> so
>> I'm looking for feedback on how you've set it up.
>
> I think I can fairly lay claim to the fact that my family is the  
> first to use CalDAV on the basis that we have been using it since  
> 2005 in one guise or another. I do actually run OS X server at home  
> with CalDAV enabled. Having shared calendars etc is the big benefit  
> for us.

It seems appropriate that you would have this deployed at home!  It  
also reassures me that it will be able to support the needs of a  
family (as well as an enterprise).

> I have separate accounts for each family member just because that's  
> how the server as a whole is setup for email, ichat etc. My wife and  
> I are read-write proxies for the kids (they are too young to use  
> computers) and we are each read-only proxies of each other. I also  
> set up a family group calendar (that is tied to the wikiserver  
> feature on OS X server too) and that has a calendar for public  
> holidays (one for US, one for UK).

I don't have OS X server, and hence can't run an OpenDirectory (though  
I would dearly like to).  If you could only use the XML directory,  
would you still have a setup like this (per-user calendars)?

Also, in regard to your group calendar, who owns that?  The group (of  
which you are all members)?

Also, I should point out that I actually want my wife and myself to  
have write access on at least some of our calendars.  We often end up  
scheduling things for the other and need to capture that somehow.

> If you have or are going to have separate accounts for other things  
> like email, im etc, then I think it makes sense to stick with that  
> for calendars too - particularly if you can share the same  
> authentication db etc.

Definitely separate accounts for email and the like, although right  
now we do not have a unified open directory type of thing.  In fact,  
all the machines are relatively standalone and I only physically keep  
them semi-sync'd in terms of having accounts.  Most of the machines  
are laptops, and in my past experiences, laptops don't fare well when  
they're tethered to "enterprise" authentication systems.  Perhaps  
leopard (or OS X) is better about that--all my past experience was  
with Windows and its ilk, YP/NIS/NIS+, and NetInfo, all which became  
particularly unhappy when they couldn't find their respective masters,  
and often required administrative trickery to get them to behave away  
from the enterprise.

---
Chris Cleeland