Abandoned Mac OS Server as PDC

We bought a dual 2.3 XServe in hopes of using it to replace an aging NT PDC and File server. I thought of going a couple different directions (another Windows box, a linux box with Samba,etc.). When I heard Apple had a product that incorporated OpenLDAP and Samba with an elegant gui and ACL support, the idea sounded very appealing. I installed it in a test environment and everything seemed to work nicely. I convinced my boss to fork out the 6 grand+ and we bought one.
Then, after weeks of preparation, we implemented it. What a disaster. We couldn't keep Samba running for more than 30 minutes. I had finally had to setup a cron job to reset the server every 20 minutes (which temporarily disconnected everyone). Our VPN server would no longer authenticate. Our Macs could no longer access our exchange server via IMAP/POP. And our 64 bit PC's could no longer login to the domain due to an RPC error. We also had several accounts that migrated from our PDC that couldn't access their Exchange accounts because their Samba SID's didn't get moved into the LDAP directory.
The most frustrating part about it is that I found threads discussing most of these problems in the Samba groups dating back to 2002 and 2003. All of the fixes were implemented YEARS ago. Samba 3.0.10, which Apple is still using in 10.4.3 was released in December of 2004. That's insane.
http://groups.google.com/group/linux.samba/browse_thread/thread/95ace94e9836595c /0954bd7085ea23ca
http://groups.google.com/group/linux.samba/browse_thread/thread/b4a12428428ef952 /f64777c79fcdbb49
http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2005-June/041397.html
After spending a very long day doing the migration and another 3 painful days trying to make everything work, I finally decided it wasn't worth it. In my office we have about 15 PC's and 3 macs and it was a total disaster. We couldn't keep track of all the complaints. I can't imagine what it would have been like in large corporation or campus.
So I think Apple has a big problem with their OSX Server line (obviously). They've taken these wonderful open-source products, patched on a bunch of nice proprietary stuff that they won't release back into the main fork, and then they have no way of cleanly incorporating the thousands of patches and fixes that are being developed daily by the rest of the world.
I think it's destined to become a perfect example of why open-source projects should refuse to allow their work to be sucked up by commercial companies looking to profit from the hard work of others without giving anything back.

Why Apple continues to let this problem go is beyond me. It has been going on for Months now. I too have abandoned OS X and am going back to Windows. It's a shame that they can't make their Server product on par with their client version. It WILL get a bad reputation in the IT industry if this continues. Specially for people trying to migrate slowly from the Windows Platform to OS X one piece at a time. Such as setup the OS X server as a PDC for your windows clients and then slowly as the Windows clients need replacing, replace them with OS X clients. Too bad Apple doesn't get it.

Similar Messages

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    Take it back for a replacement while you are within 14 days from purchase.

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    Make a "Genius" appointment at an Apple Store.
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    Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

    No, I didn't solve the problem. The monitor still goes to sleep with WIndows but not with my Mac Mini. About 8 months ago I basically wore out the power switch on my monitor so I bought a wireless power switch to shut it off at the outlet. The VX2835wm monitor itself is now starting to fail as well-- a couple of times it's gone through a weird sequence of flashing screen colors on power up and ended up in an overscan mode (that took me for ever to figure out how to fix). I have decided to replace my VX2835wm with a Dell u2412m once it fails for good partly because I really want to keep the 16:10 resolution (very hard to find these days) and partly because I want to see if a different make of monitor will go to sleep properly based upon my Mac Mini power down settings.

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