Schoun: Thanks for offering to answer my OS X Server questions. Let's keep this on-list unless it gets too technical or lengthy, as others might find it useful.
As I said in a previous message, up to now we've been using OS 9's built-in file sharing capabilities to manage our rudimentary network file sharing, which consists of little more than one computer with file-sharing turned on that has "drop folders" set up for all staff members, with privileges, log-ins and passwords defined in the "Users & Groups" control panel. We are beginning to store files on that computer -- mainly Filemaker 6 databases -- that are intended to be accessible to various defined groups of users. All applications run on local computers; under our current setup we don't even use Filemaker's file-sharing features -- if one user has a particular file open, everyone else is locked out. Question #1: If I upgrade the "server" computer to OS X (non-server version), will I be able to accomplish all of the same things that we are doing now: drop folders, assigning of user and group privileges, etc.? It is my understanding that those features are not built into OS X regular version, but that I could accomplish much the same thing using a shareware program called SharePoints. Is that accurate (assuming you're familiar with SharePoints)? Question #2: I would like to have _somewhat_ more robust server capabilities than we currently have -- thus my interest in exploring OS X Server -- but first I want to make sure that I can do just the simple things that we are doing now. Assuming I did install OS X Server on one computer, would it then be able to serve local network computers that are still running OS 9 or would all computers have to be upgraded to X? We currently have about 15 computers on OS 9 and four or five on OS X. Question #3: One of the Apple technotes I read seemed to imply that the OS X Server software would have to be installed on all machines that were on the network (that wanted to use the network's full features). Is that the case? Question #4: Is the license limit truly a limit? That is, if I bought the 10-user OS X Server package, would that mean that only 10 users could be connected to the server at any one time? If I have 20 computers on the network, will I need to purchase two 10-user license packs? I'll stop here for now, just to see if my questions are even making sense . . . Dan | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be June 22. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
