Apple Mac OS X Server 10.6 Snow Leopard (Unlimited Clients)

Adding clients to the network is quick and easy. In fact, it requires almost no effort. When you connect your Mac to the business network, it automatically detects and signs on to the server. After authenticating, the new computer is configured to use the services offered by your server, and your applications, such as Mail, iChat, and iCal, are configured and ready to use

To help you keep an eye on things, a Server Status Dashboard widget provides a fast and easy way to monitor your server. You'll get at-a-glance information on the status of essential services such as mail, file and printer sharing, iChat, and more

Running out of disk space can reduce the reliability of your server. Mac OS X Server includes tools that monitor disk space and proactively free up space by deleting or backing up noncritical logs and utilities

Does it sometimes seem like scheduling a meeting is harder than actually getting through the meeting? Using iCal Server, colleagues can propose and set up meetings, book conference rooms, and more, quickly and easily. iCal Server is a full-featured, standards-based calendaring solution designed to make your life easier.

Think of it as a one-stop shop for setting up calendar activities. Will everyone be free for a Monday morning meeting? Search for attendee availability and see just who is booked up. Need to reserve a projector, a particular conference room, or even a car? iCal Server can take care of that as well. Once the location and the time are set, iCal Server invites the right people and lets you include information such as agendas or to-do lists with the invitation

iCal Server 2 provides access to calendars from anywhere. iPhone users can securely access their calendar over the air, see calendar events, view notes, and see who has accepted or declined invitations. No syncing required

iCal Server 2 includes a new web-based calendar client, allowing users to view their schedule, set up meetings, and view the availability of others in their organization. The web-based calendar can be used with modern web browsers including Safari 3 and 4, Firefox 3, and Internet Explorer 7 and 8. In addition, iCal Server 2 offers push notifications, so you and your colleagues will know immediately when there's a new invitation or a change to an existing invitation

iCal Server uses open calendaring protocols for integrating with leading calendar programs, including iCal in Mac OS X and popular CalDAV clients from Mozilla, Open Source Application Foundation, and others. These open standard protocols include CalDAV -- a set of extensions to WebDAV -- and interchange formats such as iCalendar, iMIP, and iTIP. For colleagues outside your organization who don't use iCal, you can now invite them to meetings over e-mail. They'll receive a message with an attachment that, when opened, will add the meeting to their calendar, whether they use a Mac or a PC.

Apple is a member of the CalConnect Consortium and is committed to open, standards-based calendaring and scheduling protocols. To further the widespread adoption and deployment of these standards, Apple has made the complete source code for iCal Server 2 available through the macosforge.org website

While most companies store contact information in centralized LDAP directories, IT administrators usually prevent users from modifying or adding their own contacts to the directory. This makes it hard for users to maintain a centralized list of contacts and access those contacts on multiple computers and devices they own.

The new Address Book Server in Snow Leopard Server solves this problem. Not only does it store contacts on the server, but it allows you to access and use those contacts on each of your Mac computers. With Address Book, you can even synchronize contacts to your iPhone for accessing your contacts on the go

Address Book Server uses CardDAV -- the new protocol standard for exchange of contact information. With Address Book Server, contacts are stored as standard vCard files on the server, outside the LDAP directory. This allows users to easily modify contact information and add new contact fields, such as URLs for Twitter or Facebook accounts, without having to modify LDAP schema or get write access to the corporate directory server.

Users can access contacts directly in the Address Book application in Snow Leopard. To add a new contact, simply open Address Book and add a new card to the Address Book Server group. New contacts are accessible on all of your Mac computers and are immediately available to applications such as Mail, iChat, and more

Address Book Server not only lets users search their personal contacts but acts as a gateway to let them search for contacts within the organization's directory service (sometimes called a Global Address List). When searched, Address Book Server delivers real-time results from personal address books as well as contacts stored in LDAP directories

Podcasts are ideal for distributing university lectures, training a sales force, delivering product demos, or simply keeping employees, students, and customers up to date. Podcast Producer 2 simplifies the process of capturing, editing, and publishing them, letting your organization produce more podcasts with less work while maintaining a high degree of standardization among them. It's a workflow-based solution that automates the details, such as encoding content into specific file formats or adding standard title frames and opening videos. So the podcasts from your group will always have a consistent look and feel, and you'll never have to worry about missing an important step

Once recording is completed, the file is automatically uploaded to Podcast Producer 2 for processing. Podcast Producer 2 leverages the power of QuickTime X to encode content into standard formats such as H.264 and MPEG-4

Podcast Producer 2 includes the new Podcast Composer, an easy-to-use application that lets you create your own workflows to automate the completion and publishing of podcasts. It offers an intuitive interface that groups the process of building a workflow into seven stages and guides you through the steps required to create a workflow. You specify everything from import to notification, including details about which titles, transitions, and effects to use; what output format is used; where the podcast is published; and more

Setting up Podcast Producer 2 is now easier than ever with a new setup assistant in Server Admin. It provides an express mode that can configure Podcast Producer and all its related services in a matter of minutes, whether you're setting up a single Podcast Producer server or a cluster of servers

A podcast starts with the Podcast Capture application in Mac OS X. This innovative tool makes it easy for users to capture high-quality audio and video from local and remote cameras, record screen captures, and upload existing content into Podcast Producer 2 for encoding and distribution. Podcast Capture records audio and video from a wide range of devices, including digital video cameras connected via FireWire, USB microphones, and iSight cameras

Recording a podcast is a snap. Simply open Podcast Capture, log in, and select the type of podcast you would like to record -- then click Start. When finished recording, click Stop. Give your podcast a title, add a description, and pick the appropriate workflow. It's that simple.

Snow Leopard Server adds new video capture features. The new dual-source video capture enables you to create picture-in-picture podcasts. For instance, one video source can record a presenter and the other source can record a slideshow. Podcast Producer 2 can even detect inactivity in one of the video sources and automatically switch video sources so that the active source is displayed in the larger frame. Your video can use one of several Apple-designed templates, or you can design your own layout using Quartz Composer.

To convert a slideshow or other document into a video, you can use the new "documents to movie capture" mode. It renders any Quick Look-compatible file into a movie with transitions between images or pages.

And the new web podcast capture allows you to remotely capture and upload audio and video movies to a Podcast Producer server for encoding and publishing using any modern web browser on your Mac, PC, or iPhone

Once the podcast is complete, Podcast Producer 2 makes it easy and automatic to publish it to the right location -- whether to a blog, to iTunes or iTunes U, to multimedia-enabled cell phones using QuickTime Streaming Server, or to the new Podcast Library. Podcast Library provides long-term storage and organization for submitted and generated media files. Podcasts are delivered using automatically generated RSS feeds or with Atom feeds, which allows each feed to contain multiple versions or formats of the podcast for different devices

Whether it's a small business or a workgroup inside a large corporation, all members need access to the same materials in order to work effectively. Wikis assist users in the clear exchange of information, eliminating confusion and ensuring that all members of a project have access to the resources they need.

The wiki blog is the perfect place for sharing team news and status reports or encouraging brainstorming. For shorter comments, there's a space at the bottom of the wiki page where users can share their thoughts or provide feedback. You have the ability to control who can add comments -- nobody, only authenticated users, or anyone who has access to the wiki. Teams can also use the wiki for file exchange -- uploading shared documents, images, or movies for distribution; even tracking revisions to documents. And shared calendars help users stay on track by ensuring that everyone can see meeting schedules and milestones

Wikis allow you to create custom, project-specific websites. Select from 20 built-in themes with different colors, fonts, and layout styles. You can customize these templates with your own banner image and a custom sidebar title that displays pages with a user-defined tag at initial login. Once the wiki is set up, it's easy to add, delete, and edit content in whatever way makes sense. No syntax or markup knowledge is required -- what you see on the page is exactly what you get

You can insert hyperlinks, link between pages, add images, attach files, and change formatting -- all with a few clicks. Because wikis feature RSS support, team members can easily track changes and be notified when new content is added, edited, or tagged

You can subscribe to RSS feeds for the entire wiki site, any individual page, or any tag or search results. And you'll never have to worry about making mistakes. Since the wiki maintains a complete history, you can always revert to a previous version of your document.

Once you create a wiki website and give access to members of the workgroup, everyone has the same capability to contribute to the site. It's not limited to text and images -- users can access a group calendar to track meetings and deadlines or send messages to a mailing list to keep others informed. The blog feature is perfect for brainstorming or commenting on work. And there's an option for subscribing to a podcast -- so anyone who missed that important conference call can catch up on the news

Wiki Server 2 now includes one of the most useful features in Mac OS X: Quick Look. Just click the Quick Look icon next to an uploaded document and you can view it without downloading the file. Quick Look supports all standard file formats including text documents, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, QuickTime, and PDF

Also new in Snow Leopard Server is QuickSearch, which lets you search and find information in multiple wikis, blogs, mailing lists, calendars, and podcasts

Wiki Server 2 brings business collaboration to the iPhone. You can securely log in to view confidential wikis and content, view your My Page for tracking content updates, and even tag pages, view comments, and review document changes -- all from your iPhone

To access secure files remotely, most servers require you to use VPN services, which involve special configuration and an extra layer of authentication. You get security at the expense of convenience and, in some cases, extra cost. Snow Leopard Server offers an alternative that provides all of the security with none of the hassle. Ideal for Mac and iPhone users, the new Mobile Access Server provides always-on, always-secure access to firewall-protected services from virtually anywhere in the world. As long as you have an Internet connection, you can access corporate websites, online business applications, e-mail, calendars, and contacts, all without having to use VPN

Mobile Access Server integrates into your organization's existing directory service for authentication and single sign-on, so it doesn't require the installation or configuration of client software. Not only does this mean much less hassle for users, it also means many fewer support calls for your IT staff -- and no extra charges for client software licenses

To keep data secure as it travels across the public Internet, Mobile Access Server uses Transport Layer Security (TLS) to provide strong encryption and authentication of communication between your iPhone or Mac and the private network. To reduce unnecessary traffic, only information accessed and destined for the corporate network is sent through Mobile Access Server. IT administrators can even restrict access through Mobile Access Server to a select set of users and groups in your organization

iChat Server is the ideal solution for providing users a secure channel for confidential communications. It now works with Open Directory and Active Directory to provide single sign-on authentication and ensure that whoever is using an instant messaging name is really that person. And since all text messages and file transfers are encrypted, information sent through your server is kept secure and confidential

iChat Server is based on Jabber, the industry-standard IM protocol also known as XMPP. This enables support for Mac computers using iChat, as well as for other Jabber clients running on Windows PCs and iPhone

iChat users can request iChat Server to create and host a persistent chat room. Perfect for virtual team scenarios, project-specific discussions, and real-time blow-by-blow updates, the chat room allows individuals to join at any time, leave when they need to -- even log out and shut down -- and come back to review all communications since the chat room opened

Thanks to store-and-forward functionality in iChat Server, users can send messages to people who are offline, combining the advantages of IM with the advantages of e-mail

iChat Server federates with other iChat Server systems and XMPP-compliant systems, such as Google Talk, using the server-to-server capabilities of the XMPP protocol. This allows users on iChat Server to exchange secure IMs with users on another network as long as both servers are accessible via the Internet. These server-to-server communication sessions can be encrypted using SSL/TLS with public key certificates, and you can configure iChat Server to block communication with servers that don't support encryption

Whether you're supporting a creative team, a distributed sales force, a class of multimedia students, or just about any small business or workgroup, you know your users need to share information to work effectively. Mac OS X Server makes it easy to share folders and exchange files between Mac and PC systems without the installation of additional software

Productivity is greatly enhanced when users store work in centralized folders rather than on individual computers. With centralized file storage, all users have access to the same up-to-the-minute file. Since a single version resides on the server, there won't be any confusion about multiple versions of the same document. And users won't need to worry about losing important data in the event of a system failure or a lost or stolen laptop. The file is always safe on the server

It's easy to share hard drives or individual folders and assign custom access permissions with Mac OS X Server. To facilitate collaboration, each group has its own shared folder on the server. Whether they're using Mac or PC systems, all group members can read and write to files in the shared folder, just as if they were using their own hard drive

Many businesses purchase network-attached storage (NAS) appliances to avoid client-access licenses. However, NAS appliances are slow, limit your storage expansion options, and provide little or no control over access controls or directory integration. With Mac OS X Server as your file server, you won't have these limitations. Users can share files between Mac, Windows, UNIX, and Linux systems while taking advantage of rich file system access controls, directory integration, and more. Best of all, Mac OS X Server scales to meet your future needs

The Time Machine feature in Mac OS X enables users to go back in time and revisit their Mac as it appeared on a given day. By making a copy of everything on the system -- digital photos, music, movies, TV shows, and documents -- Time Machine makes it easy for users to recover their data and undo their mistakes.

Mac OS X Server can automatically back up your users' previous versions to the server or another designated hard drive on the network, protecting valuable data and freeing up disk space on individual hard drives -- or eliminating the need for backup drives altogether.

Built-in file-level locking keeps any Mac or PC from overwriting changes when a file is opened by more than one user at a time; only the user who unlocked the file can make changes

Mac OS X Server makes it easy for you to set up central network storage that's accessible to clients throughout your organization. Using native protocols, it delivers file services to all the clients on your network: AFP, SMB/CIFS, NFS, and FTP. These flexible cross-platform file services enable groups to work more efficiently, share resources, archive projects, and back up important documents. Mac OS X Server even works in organizations with an existing directory service, allowing you to provide lower-cost file services while still integrating with a directory -- such as Open Directory or Active Directory -- for user and group account information, permissions, and authentication

Mac OS X Server supports both traditional UNIX file permissions and access control lists, giving administrators an unprecedented level of control over file and folder permissions. With access control lists, any file object can be assigned multiple users and groups, including groups within groups. Each file object can also be assigned to allow and deny permissions, as well as assign a granular set of permissions for administrative control, read, write, and delete operations. Mac OS X Server supports a file permission inheritance model, ensuring that user permissions are inherited when files are moved to the server and rewritten when files are copied to the server

The ideal solution for small businesses or companies without an existing mail server, Mac OS X Server allows you to bring e-mail in-house, using your own domain name rather than relying on an ISP to host your e-mail. And Mail Server in Snow Leopard Server includes a new engine that not only outperforms the previous version but also outperforms high-end, enterprise-class mail servers.

If your organization already has a mail server, you'll appreciate how seamlessly Mac OS X Server integrates into your network, ensuring that all outbound e-mail is forwarded -- or relayed -- through your company's mail servers

Mac OS X Server includes a powerful junk mail filter that analyzes the text of each e-mail and assigns it a probability rating for being junk mail -- and then marks the mail as potential junk. The filter is adaptive, always learning to distinguish between what is good and what is junk

E-mail is the primary mechanism viruses use to spread and propagate from one computer to another. That's why Mac OS X Server includes an antivirus engine to scan mail messages and attachments for viruses, automatically deleting or quarantining any offending files

Snow Leopard Server now includes support for vacation messages, which automatically notify people when a user is out of the office. It also supports server-side mail rules, an ideal feature for people who receive lots of e-mail or who access their e-mail from multiple locations. Mac OS X Server can filter e-mail messages based on criteria the user defines and automatically place the message in the appropriate mailbox

Mac OS X Server makes it easy for people to communicate using group mailing lists. Any group on the server can be assigned its own mailing list by an administrator using Server Preferences. Or users can create their own group mailing lists using a simple web interface in their browser

With SSL/TLS encryption for SMTP, POP, and IMAP, Mac OS X Server can encrypt the data sent between the server and the mail client. This allows secure and confidential transport of mail messages and attachments within a network, and it's ideal for providing secure over-the-air e-mail access for iPhone users

With Mac OS X Server, you can keep users up to date wherever they go with push e-mail. Users can receive immediate notification of and access to new e-mail messages when they arrive. It's no longer necessary to constantly check for new mail messages

You can cluster multiple mail servers using Xsan as the back-end data store, ensuring reliable data access for all servers in the cluster and making it easy to scale your mail server infrastructure to handle increasing loads. Mail server clustering allows a large number of mail service connections to be spread across multiple servers and provides automatic failover from one server to another. Using Xsan with Mac OS X Server, each IMAP, POP, and SMTP server has direct block-level access to the same data. If a server goes offline, another node in the cluster takes over processing of the failed server's spool file, and affected mail clients automatically reestablish connections to another server in the cluster

Mac OS X Server takes the complexity out of configuring, hosting, and managing websites. An intuitive administration interface makes it easy to get started with a static website, while providing advanced capabilities for professional webmasters responsible for deploying sophisticated services. It includes tools for serving dynamic content, CGI scripting, enterprise applications, encryption, and database integration

Included in Mac OS X Server is Apache, the most widely used HTTP server on the Internet. Apache is preconfigured with default settings, so deployment is as simple as starting the Web service. Any HTML content saved to the server's default web folder will be served over the Internet automatically. Mac OS X Server offers experienced webmasters support for using Apache 2.2 from within the Server Admin application

Mac OS X Server comes with everything you need for flexible and scalable web hosting, including the Apache web server; WebDAV for content publishing; CGI support; SSL support for encryption and authentication; and dynamic content hosting with server-side includes, Perl, Ruby on Rails, Tomcat, and Python. For hosting enterprise-class applications, Mac OS X Server includes a 64-bit Java VM optimized for the latest generation of Intel multicore processors

Support for virtual hosting in Mac OS X Server allows you to host multiple websites on a single server. You can configure each website on your server to have a different domain name (using virtual domains) and even a different IP address. In addition, each website can be configured with unique security options and separate log files for tracking and reporting

Mac OS X Server integrates OpenSSL with the Apache web server, providing support for strong 128-bit encryption and public key infrastructure (PKI) authentication using X.509 digital certificates. This high-grade security architecture protects credit card information and other confidential personal and business data transmitted during web transactions

QuickTime X, included with Snow Leopard Server, takes Internet video streaming to new levels with support for HTTP live streaming. Unlike other streaming technologies, HTTP live streaming uses the HTTP protocol -- the same network technology that powers the web. That means QuickTime X streams audio and video using your web server instead of a special streaming server, and it works reliably with common firewall and wireless router settings. HTTP live streaming is designed for mobility and can dynamically adjust movie playback quality to match the available speed of wired or wireless networks

Mac OS X Server includes support for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, or WebDAV. This enhancement to the HTTP protocol turns a website into a document database that enables collaborative creation, editing, and searching from remote locations -- particularly useful for updating content on a website. WebDAV works with popular web publishing applications, allowing web content creators on any Internet-connected computer to open files, make changes or additions, and save those revisions to the web server, even while it's still running

The rich Spotlight vocabulary in Mac OS X lets you search for exactly what you want. Options include Boolean logic, quoted phrase searching, category labels, and range support. Use search terms and search logic to create project-specific Smart Folders, so workgroups can always find their shared work, no matter where the files were saved on your server

Finding your digital assets no longer needs to be a complex and expensive proposition. By combining the power of Spotlight Server with Cover Flow and Quick Look in Mac OS X, your users have a straightforward way to scan through thousands of files and preview items in Spotlight search results without opening them.

To safeguard your organization's data, Spotlight Server works with the file access controls in Mac OS X Server -- users only see search results that they have permission to see. If they don't have access to a file, it never appears in their results. This makes it easy for everyone in a group to store files in a single shared location, while protecting confidential information from unauthorized viewing

Workgroup Manager simplifies system administration by providing centralized directory-based management of users, groups, and computers across your organization. For example, you can create standardized desktop configurations, set preferences, and establish password policies, as well as control access to hardware, software, and network resources.

For security-conscious environments, you can use Workgroup Manager to prevent users from burning media, mounting external hard drives, or running unauthorized applications. It also works with portable computers, ensuring that settings, configurations, and policies are maintained even when users are disconnected from the network

By deploying a software update server, administrators can control how and when client computers download new software, enabling access to approved software updates only. As the administrator, you now have time to evaluate and test software updates before deploying them throughout your organization. Snow Leopard Server even lets you save past versions of software updates, so you can revert to them if you discover an incompatibility in a new version.

At the same time, having a local caching software update server streamlines network use, saving the costs of multiple downloads of the same update and reducing unnecessary bandwidth consumption. By eliminating the need for each Mac OS X system to engage in multiple separate downloads for each software update, bandwidth charges (which add up quickly in large organizations) are reduced

Deploying iPhone across an organization is easy with the new iPhone Configuration Utility. An IT administrator can create Configuration Profiles that include corporate passcode policies and distribute them on Mac OS X Server. Configuration Profiles can also remotely create your company's VPN, e-mail, and wireless network settings, making each iPhone secure and ready for business. And Configuration Profiles can be used to install certificates on iPhone for authentication to VPN servers, 802.1X-based wireless networks, and other corporate services. For iPhone users, installing a Configuration Profile is as easy as tapping a secure web link or receiving an e-mail with the Configuration Profile attached

System Image Utility leverages the power of Automator, giving you an intuitive interface for creating NetBoot, NetInstall, and NetRestore disk images. Choose from a preloaded library of actions that allows you to specify settings, additional software packages, and installation procedures -- then save them as a workflow that builds the installation image

The NetBoot service in Mac OS X Server enables multiple Mac systems to boot from a single server-based disk image, instead of from their internal hard drive. This allows you to create a standard configuration and use it on all the desktop systems in a department or classroom -- or host multiple images customized for different workgroups. You can even create server configurations and run all your servers from one image. Updating the disk image on the NetBoot server updates all of these systems automatically the next time they restart. In addition, you can copy a directory server configuration to all clients using the same system image. For security-conscious organizations, NetBoot permits Mac computers to boot "disklessly" -- without having to read from or write to the computer's local drive

NetInstall gives administrators control over the software installed in their organizations. Perfect for upgrading all your Mac clients to a standard or customized installation of Mac OS X Snow Leopard, NetInstall provides an easy method for standardized deployment. By creating server-based disk images with custom configurations, you can easily upgrade or restore Mac clients anywhere on your network -- saving time and eliminating the expense of distributing software on DVD or external drives

Snow Leopard Server adds a new feature called NetRestore. It lets administrators build a disk image based on a drive that includes all their customizations -- or based on a stock Mac OS X installation DVD. Then, using NetRestore, you can restore a Mac over the network using either the custom volume or the stock DVD

A firewall is built into Mac OS X Server, making it easy to restrict access and block unwanted communications to your server. With just a few clicks, you can prevent connections outside your network from accessing services on your server. The enterprise-class firewall scans incoming IP packets and rejects or accepts them based on filters. You can turn off all access outside your network or customize the firewall to perform stateful packet inspection to determine whether an incoming packet is a legitimate response to an outgoing request or part of an ongoing session

Virtual private network (VPN) access enables your users to take advantage of network services while they're offsite and simultaneously prevent access by unauthorized individuals. Mac OS X Server supports standards-based L2TP/IPSec and PPTP tunneling protocols to provide encrypted VPN connections for Mac and Windows systems -- and even iPhone. These VPN services use secure authentication methods, including MS-CHAP and network-layer IPSec

Mac OS X Server takes the complexity out of configuring Internet settings. If you are using an AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n) as an Internet router, Mac OS X Server can automatically configure AirPort Extreme to make services such as iChat, Mail, Web, and VPN accessible on the Internet. If you don't have an Internet router, Mac OS X Server can set up your dual-Ethernet equipped Mac Pro or Xserve as a gateway between your local network and the Internet