Question (noob) on Xserve

Hi,
I'd like to know if there is a software for xserve that would have the same function as Dropbox -http://www.dropbox.com/- (remote backup and constant differential backup) for the user connected locally and remotely.
Thanks,
R

Assuming Mac clients you should also look into Portable Home Directories.
They have syncing at login and logout to sync the server-side copy of your account and you could use that to sync multiple computers across the network between places. All this assumes a good connected network, of course.
I would only use Time Machine over the network in someplace with good dependable GigE connections. I think the idea of having your home, work and laptop all back-up across the wire or ether to a central computer is a fantasy if your office is going out over a limited DSL line to your Xserve in another location.
My $.02,
=Tod

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Questions on new XServe

Apologies for the lengthy post.
We're looking to update an older dual G5 XServe to a new Nehalem model. Our current server handles file sharing (AFP & SMB) and is our OD Master (we have 5 other XServes). It's connected via Fibre to an XServe Raid configured with 4 active drives (250 GB each) and a standby backup drive. It total we have @ 700 GB of usable storage. We have a cloned system drive in the machine, and another offsite. We also have extensive Firewire data backups, including offsite.
We're looking to replace this with a Dual Quad core machine but I'm still mulling over configurations. As the XServe RAID has been removed from the support list, I'm considering removing it from the equation and perhaps just use it for some non critical archiving. It has been wonderfully reliable in the 5 odd years we've had it.
For the new server I was thinking 3x 1TB drives (& Raid Card) which I suspect would give @ 2TB of storage (more than enough for us - the 700 GB is already adequate but if we're going to upgrade we may as well expand a bit as well).
And now for the questions...
Would I be correct in assuming I could expect similar/better performance from the new drives as opposed to the old XServe RAID? Will the G5 XServe's Fibre Card fit the new XServe?
Are the Solid State Drives user swappable? I was thinking perhaps a second SS drive with a cloned system as a backup.
Can a boot partition be setup on this RAID setup as a backup to the Solid State Drive? What's the general feeling with regards SS Drives? Are they worth considering or should I just stick to 'conventional' technology?
Will these XServes boot OK from a firewire device?
Any advice, suggestions or personal experiences would be appreciated.
many thanks

Would I be correct in assuming I could expect similar/better performance from the new drives as opposed to the old XServe RAID?
Comparable direct-attached storage (DAS) disk storage tends to be faster than SAN storage, yes.
And you can connect DAS via SAS or SAS RAID PCIe controller, an older PCI-X controller, or via FireWire or USB buses. PCIe disk interconnects will be the fastest path, and USB the slowest.
Here, I'd tend to consider the Apple RAID controller or a PCIe RAID controller if I needed extra bays.
Will the G5 XServe's Fibre Card fit the new XServe?
I don't know. That probably depends on the card, but it's certainly worth a try. Ensure you have the right slot in the new box; you've probably got a PCI-X FC SAN card here, and you'd thus need a PCI-X riser on the new box. Or punt and get a newer PCIe FC SAN card. Put another way, I'd ask Apple to confirm your particular card will work when carried forward, or wait for another responder here.
Are the Solid State Drives user swappable? I was thinking perhaps a second SS drive with a cloned system as a backup.
The Xserve drive bays are user swappable.
Do you need SSD? If you're on your current box and are not already I/O bound, I'd guess not. And the newer HDD drives are faster, too.
Can a boot partition be setup on this RAID setup as a backup to the Solid State Drive? What's the general feeling with regards SS Drives? Are they worth considering or should I just stick to 'conventional' technology?
There is flexibility in what you boot your Xserve box off of, yes.
I've been using SSD off and on for around twenty years in its various incarnations. Back when there was battery-backed DSSI drives (don't ask) and SCSI-1 RAM-based SSD gear.
Whether SSD is appropriate really depends on what you need for I/O rates. An SSD is one piece of a puzzle of gaining faster I/O, and some of the other available pieces can be faster disks, striping (RAID-0), faster controllers, or faster controllers with bigger caches, or more and larger host caches. If your applications are disk-bound, definitely consider it. But if you're not being limited by the disk I/O speeds for your box, then SSD doesn't (usually) make as much sense.
(There are other cases where SSD can be appropriate. SSD is more tolerant of getting bounced around than HDD, which is why you see it in laptops and in rough-service and mil-spec environments such as aircraft-mounted computer servers. With an HDD, one good head-slap can ruin your whole day. But I digress.)
Will these XServes boot OK from a firewire device?
AFAIK, yes. I haven't had to do that, but that's been a longstanding feature of Xserve boxes.
Any advice, suggestions or personal experiences would be appreciated.
I'd relax; the Nehalem-class processors are screaming-fast boxes, and with massively better I/O paths than Intel has had available before.
Ensure your LAN is Gigabit Ethernet or IEEE 802.11n 5 GHz dual-slot, too. Upgrade from any existing 100 Mb LAN and from pre-n WiFi networking.

Grid questions (noob here, so pardon my stupidity)

i am making an RPG game (relly cheap game) and i wanted to know, how do u put images in a grid format, like can u do that with a JPanel? also, in a grid layout in JFrame, can u put images in it? can u overlay the images with a JPanel with a transparent background? my code is going to be similar witht he marine biology case study(i have a locatable class, location class, etc)

what i meant is that for gridlayout to work, u need a component, and can u
make a pic a component? also, can a JPanel have somehting like a
GridLayout? how do u put pictures in a gridlike formation in a JPanel? I still don't understand your question.
Did you read the link on Using Layout managers? Did you read the section on Using Labels?
You create a JPanel and assign it a GridLayout. Then you create a label add a picture to it and then add the label to the panel.
Did you look at the code I gave you for drawing an image on a panel? You specify the x, y coordinates when you draw the image. So there is no reason you couldn't change the code to draw multiple images beside one another. The question is why would you go to all that effort when the LayoutManager does this for you.

Urgent help, Easy question [NOOB QUESTION]

I am new in photoshop, I need a tutorial or some writing on how to do this kind of smudge
if it isn't smudge, What is it ? and how to make it ?
Can you see the background ? It's a kind of smudge, just want the name and tutorial please.
thanks a lot

I suspect the Art History Brush might have been used with a triangular brush tip and the Style Dab over an enlarged copy of the image.
Photoshop Help | Painting stylized strokes with the Art History Brush

Spotlight questions...

I would like to search one of our server drives for all files above a specified size to clean up videos that people have downloaded.
This was easy back on 10.3.9
With spotlight I tell it to search for files more than 15mb on the drive with users folders, and wind up getting 10 results when there should be WAY more.
Is there a way to access the old "find/search" window?
If not, how do I make spotlight actually search the entire disk? It seems like its leaving lots of stuff out.

You wrote: "I'm actually physically on the server (console). Drives are on an Xserve RAID array and I am searching directly from the host server."Sorry, I misunderstood. I've not tested Spotlight in that context.
You wrote: "We'd like to search in a manner similar to the "old" search from 10.3.x"That function no longer really exists. Find is implemented in Spotlight.
Is the disk in question a single volume or multiple volumes?
I've found that if indexing is disabled on a volume using the command
sudo mdutil -i off /pathtovolume
then the Find command behaves like the old Find in earlier versions of Mac OS X when searching for file system metadata. However, in this context you can't use the Spotlight "classifications" of data, nor can you search for content. For example, if indexing has been disabled on a volume, to search for movies, instead of:
Kind: Movie
you have to search for specific extensions representing movie files, using the Name Extension criteria, e.g.
Name Extension: wmv
or
Name Extension: mov
Criteria like Size > Greater than > _ > MB also work in that context. Searches for this kind of file system metadata actually search the disk directory, not the Spotlight index.
Searches for the different "Name Extension" criteria can be saved as Smart Folders.
Note that indexing must be disabled as noted above with the mdutil command. Find will not work as described if the volume has been added to Privacy. This is one of the anomalies in Spotlight between Find and the -i off flag I describe in my "Stop Spotlight Indexing" FAQ.
Again, I've not tested any of this with Xserve RAID, but you can play around with it.
You can look for alternative search utilities by searching MacUpdate or Version Tracker for either search or find. One of the most popular, EasyFind, is not going to help you here since it is based on the UNIX® find command, which does not support operators like ">".
You might also try your question on the XServe RAID Discussion to see what others using that platform have experienced.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

One eight core xserve, will it handle what I need it to do?

My new xserve specs are eight cores @ 2 ghz, 4 gig ram, 2 TB raid 5.
I will have 150 macbook clients, that will not be on netboot. I want to store user home folders, and authenticate. Will this server be able to handle ichat and ical servers for about 20 users? Do I need another server for just ichat and ical or will one handle authentication, home folder storage, ichat(20 users), and ical (20 users)? Apple salesman says that he suggests another just for ichat/ical, but I have been told that I can get away with just one.
I eventually want to get another for backup directory server and can migrate ical/ichat but would like to put it off until later.
Thanks for help on this.

Try posting your question in the Xserve forum (http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=854). Users there will be more knowledgeable about your question.

Power supply question or Firewire issue

Hi
I have a workhorse Dual g4 with three internal video drives, three self powered Firewire drives and an internal Gina audio card. Recently I added a USB2 internal card and swapped my Viewsonic LCD for an Apple where the power is coming off the video cable. For the last 2 days my Firewire drives got balky. They mount but when I try to open them I get the interminable spinning beach ball. So far I am able to connect the FW drives to my G4 laptop and they seem to mount ok.
Am I asking too much from the power supply or is this a fair load?
Could the Firewire have failed.
Last week I had a high whine and lockup (heat related?) It's been funny ever since.
Is there an app that gives the status of the hardware?
Sorry lots of questions
Thanks
Enio

The XServe power supplies (like most modern systems) are rated for 100-240V, so will accept any input voltage in that range.

10.5 Finder search windows no longer find files!!!!

We have a new X Serve with OS 10.5 Server and Three Macs running OS 10.5 Family pack. The X Serve holds all of our work files. The other Macs are simply work stations. Up until recently we have been able to search the X Serve for files by typing in a 5 digit job number. (All of our jobs are saved in this manner) But starting last Thursday, the search windows return no results. We have double checked that the server is checked and that we're searching the right location. We can even go and manually retrieve the file IF we know what it's called and what folder it's in. Even when we are looking at the file, residing in the folder, typing the file's name in the search window results in "0 items". The file is there! I can can find it, why can't Leopard?

I would suggest that you post your question in the [Xserve forum|http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=854].

Dynamic_pager parameters

We're periodically getting "no space in available paging segments" errors on our Xserves (running 10.4.7). But we have 9G free on the root filesystem (where /var/vm resides) and there's never a system.log message about that filesystem running out of space. I noticed that it creates swap files that are 64M, 64M, 128M, 256M, 512M, and 1G, and
that's it. Looking at the comments in the source (ttp://darwinsource.opendarwin.org/Current/systemcmds-336.1.2/dynamic_pager.tproj/dynamicpager.c), it allocates files until it reaches one whose size is min(1/8 of the available free space, system memory, 1G) and that's it. 2G turns out not to be enough for us.
Anyway, I'm going to try directing dynamic_pager to use fixed-length files to see if that helps. I've arbitrarily chosen a size of 512M, high-watermark 128M, low-watermark 1.5G. Is there a way to empirically determine optimal
parameter values for each system? We don't want the root
filesystem to be full, but don't want the system to spend a lot of time allocating and deallocating and rearranging hundreds of MB on disk. I was hoping there's some profiling we could do.
Xserve G5 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Hi, Mark. Welcome to the Discussions.
You may also want to search or post on the XServe Discussion.
I don't mean to send you somewhere else, but that's where questions related to XServe are answered.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X

Server CPU

I was wondering if it was normal in a school environment with about 30 computers for a server's CPU to spike at 100% and stay there untill restarted at which point the memmory usage than goes to 98%
xserver Mac OS X (10.4)

Whoa Barryc2, there are about 40 minutes between your posts... give people a chance to read and respond. Another good practice is to give as much detail about your situation as you can and the steps you have taken so far so people don't waste time suggesting things you've already done.
Some details that are necessary to begin to answer your question:
1) What Xserve model are you running?
2) What version of the of the OS are you running?
3) What services are you offering?
If you're trying to do 30 network home folders under 10.3 on a single processor Xserve with 256MB then I would expect 100% load. If you're running AFP for 30 users on a dual processor Xserve with 4GB under 10.4.8 then even 50% processor load would be unexpected.
Any runaway process can cause 100% processor use. ARD processes will occasionally do this and they can simply be killed off and the load can return to normal. Have you opened Activity Monitor and gotten the name of the process that is taking all the time? This is step 1. If it is so locked up you can't get through the UI try top over SSH to get the same information.
Once you find out exactly what process is actually taking the time the process the you can start to debug the problem. Some processes can simply be killed off and the problem will fix itself but others are more complicated. Checking the logs right before the processor maxed out can also be helpful - but this is easier if the problem is narrowed down a single process or service.
Hope this helps,
=Tod
G5/2.0x2, Dual XServes x2, XRAID, beige G3 501Mhz

Asking about read voltage.vi

i'am pretty confused about reading voltage.vi where i dont know where all numbers come. Can i use it directly for reading stauff or tachometer ? anw, what is board ID and channels ? is there any pictures for both ?
sorry for silly questions noobs here...
thx,
Attachments:
postind di thread labview.JPG ‏32 KB

Hi bangbit,
As Pnt pointed out, the VI for which you posted an image does not acquire any
data. Since you are interested in measuring voltage, I will assume that
you have either an E Series or M Series device. If I am wrong, please
specify what hardware you have and what driver will you use with it (E Series
devices can use either DAQmx or the Tradional DAQ drivers)?
I recommend starting with one of the shipping examples available in
LabVIEW. In LabVIEW, go to the help menu and select Find Examples.
From there, select Hardware Input and Output and depending on whether you are
using DAQmx or Traditional DAQ, you can select the appropriate folder according
to the driver you are using. If you are using DAQmx, you may want to play
with the DAQ Assistant VI to set up some standard tasks.
You can find the device name by opening up Measurement and Automation Explorer
(a program that installs with the device drivers). Your device with the
device name will be listed there.
If you have general questions about how to program in LabVIEW, please refer to LabVIEW Introduction Course
- Six Hours and Getting
Started with NI-DAQmx: Main Page.
Best Regards
Hani R.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

**want to create a user account from "Crypted Password" to "Open Directory"

I have create a user account with "user password type: Crypted Password"
is there any way I can script it to "user password type: open directory"
I've use perl-ldap to create user account but I don't know how to change user password type to open directory,
because my script will add a new node in the directory, I just need a way to make the "user password type" to "Open Directory" AT CREATION TIME, not modifing it after a have a user account, the script below will generate a node in the directory with "Crypted Password" as User Password Type,
is there any attribute I need to add to make it "Open Directory" or perl command, applescript, bash, objective c(hopefully not)....
thank for reading...
$res = $c->add(dn => 'uid=testing,cn=users,dc=microsoft,dc=info',
attr => [
'cn' => 'testing',
'gidNumber' => '20',
'homeDirectory' => '99',
'objectclass' => 'inetOrgPerson', 'posixAccount', 'shadowAccount', 'apple-user', 'extensibleObject','organizationalPerson','top','person',
'sn' => 'testing',
'uid' => 'testing',
'uidNumber' => '5000',
1. 'apple-generateduid' => '27318931-B341-4364-91B4-84E4AAAD1234', #026F",
'givenName' => 'testing',
1. 'loginShell' => '/bin/bash',
'userPassword' => 'testing' ,
1. 'homePhone' => '555-2020',
2. 'mail' => '[email protected]'
die "unable to add, errorcode #".$res->code().$res->error if $res->code( );
thanks

Since this question isn't Xserve specific a better place to get an answer is probably in the Directory Services forum: http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1353
That being said if you are trying to migrate Crypt accounts to OD accounts then the short answer is no. You need an unencrypted password to put the password into OD via a script do short of cracking the encrypted password, inserting it in plain text into the OD user account creation process then I don't think you can.
You should be able to dictate the password (and any other settings you can do from the GUI) but the password is the missing piece. Under really old OS X systems I actually suspect you can get passwords to export (hinted at by an Apple engineer I discussed this with) but there is probably a faster and more straightforward solution.
What I have done is export from NetInfo, clean the accounts via script and then reimport the accounts into the new system. I usually assign a password and dictate "Must change password at next login" and then email people the temporary passwords. It's been a while but I believe you can mass select and then dictate password settings so if that works for you create accounts with all the same password and then you can select by group and make changes - eg Must change password at login.
Good luck,
=Tod

Level 5 RAID Corrupted Config, Need Software Advice.

Hello,
Please excuse the fact that this is not a question about an Xserve RAID.
I have a level 5 RAID, the config table on the controller card has become corrupted. Can anyone here offer any advice on software I could use to rebuild the config and recover the data?
It doesn't matter if it is Windows software, I would prefer software that I can run on my Mac but I am willing to try anything as long as it can handle a HFS+ Level 5 RAID.
Again sorry for posting this question here, but I am desperate, and need advice from other Mac users.
Thanks,
Anil.

If it's not XServe RAID then I don't think anyone here can offer any advice other tan very generic "talk to the manufacturer".
Each vendor's RAID 5 implementation is going to be a little different. Without knowing how they format or layout the disks there is zero chance of recovering the data directly off the disks. That said, even if it WAS an XServe RAID, the same issues would apply - you can't read the disks directly to get the data.
The vendor might be able to provide some clues. It might be possible to swap the drives into another identical chassis, the controller might be field-replaceable, or a professional data recovery company might be able to help ($$$$). But, as I said, these are options that are independent of the vendor.

RAID 5 on a Mac Pro

Before I begin, please go easy on me - I haven't been on a Mac in years (at least 10 but am so very happy to be back) and I am a RAID newbie. I do not have XServe, so I am not even sure if I am posting this in the correct forum, but again ask for leniency in light of my naivete.
I had a Mac RAID card installed by Apple and have since installed 3 new 1 Tb drives in addition to the 1 Tb drive that came with my system. I ran the Mac RAID utility to create RAID 5 and it did its thing. But I am not sure exactly what has happened. For one thing, my total RAID space is no where near the collected 4 Tbs HD space I have, it is something closer to 1.78 Tb. I knew I would lose some space in setting this up but is this normal or did the initialization not work properly?
In addition, the RAID utility operation took several hours to complete during which time I had assumed backup copies of my primary 1 Tb drive was generated. However, when I check my newly created RAID 5 under Devices, there is no content visible (unlike when I check the primary drive that shipped with my system - I can see all the contents of that drive without any problem). So was the initialization just a matter of formatting the new disks? If so, how do I get my data onto all drives? Is there software that came with my Mac that will allow me to do this or will I require software such as Retrospect to accomplish this? And finally, I noticed there are some nice tutorials available on the Apple website (such as for Aperture) but I could not find any wrt setting RAID 5. Is there such a tutorial available?
Thanks in advance for the help.
Regards,
Martin

Hello, Martin 095, and welcome (back) to the Apple boards,
This is actually not the right place for your question. The Xserve RAID is a (now discontinued) mass storage device.
There are a bunch or boards supporting the Mac Pro that I suggest you look into and if you can't find your answer post in whichever board you think is best: http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=194
That aside - if you just created a brand new RAID 5 it is probably sitting as a blank volume. Try opening Disk Utilities > Disk Utility and see if there is a large blank volume waiting for a format. It might be as simple as partitioning and formatting the volume. If this is it and you format it (probably HFS+ journaled) it will probably then appear on your desktop automatically.
Good luck,
=Tod

Another noob question - Sorry; I'm new to this - Windows and Xserve

Are Windows machines supported on networks powered by Xserve? Powered? You know what I mean.

Hi
I think I know what you mean? However:
+"networks powered by Xserve?"+
Makes no real sense? An XServe is dedicated Server hardware. What makes it a server more than anything else is the Software installed - OSX Server. Perhaps your question should be: "Does OSX Server/XServe support PC Clients?" The answer is yes. Samba/CIFS/NT Services have been available on all versions of Apple Server OS going right back to IP Manager. If you want to go beyond this and ask the question: "Does OSX Server behave just like Active Directory?" The answer is not really. It can provide Network based Profiles but that's about it as there is nothing built-in that resembles Global Policy Objects (GPOs). OSX Server can and does provide DHCP and DNS Services along with a host of other Services mostly specific to the Apple platform but not exclusively so.
To begin to understand what OSX Server is capable of:
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/specs.html
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/technology/
http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/features/
You could also have a stab at the host of Admin Manuals that Apple make available:
http://support.apple.com/manuals/#macosxserver
Ultimately a better question might be: "What is OSX Server going to give you that you're not going to get from an equivalent Windows Server?" If your focus is providing/maintaining front-line core services for a pre-dominantly Windows PCs environment then purchasing a platform that is designed to support a different client OS is probably the wrong way to go?
Tony

Question (noob) on Xserve

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