Schoun Regan | Kevin White
1 A welcome addition to an OS X Server library
I've been waiting for a solid introduction to OS X Server book for some time and have long thought that the lack of such a book was a significant gap in many publishers' stables. Happily, this book filled that gap for me.
As is the style of the other Visual QuickPro Guides, the book is filled with very clear, step-by-step instructions. These lead you through the configuration of each service and are accompanied by a huge number of screen shots so that you can see where you are and easily match up what's happening on your screen. It could be argued, however, that this approach is too repetitive at times, with all the detailed steps and screenshots of getting to a certain point before moving into the meat of how to do a new topic. I suppose this is valuable if you use Server infrequently and pick up the book as a reference text the odd time that you need to make a change, but if you read multiple sections as an intro to what's possible then you'll probably want to skip the first few steps of each new section you get to.
As far as content goes, the book covers essentially every topic you can think of, and also provides many useful tips sprinkled throughout to help you configure and manage your server. The downside of this breadth of coverage is that many topics seem to provide just enough information to be dangerous, but not enough to really "teach" you about what everything means. I was hoping that the book would provide more explanation as to what each of the different options means and does, and provide more recommendations as to why I might choose one option over another. In the DNS chapter, for example, it mentions "A records" and "PTR records," but doesn't explain what these are or how to choose which records you need (yes, there is a valid counterpoint to this, see the next paragraph). Another example is the choice of logging options - it would be helpful to more clearly indicate this process and why I might want to choose one level of logging versus another. A brief primer on how to read the logs would also be valuable.
In the book's defense on the breadth issue, the title is "QuickPro Guide," suggesting that it'll be enough to get you going, while spending relatively little time on detailed explanation. The book does fulfill this objective, but I just think that
additional explanation would make the book even more valuable and reduce the need to reference other networking and server books to get a basic background. In those cases where there is a call for more detail than "should" be provided in this particular book, quite possibly such as my DNS example above, the book should provide a weblink or two or recommended reading suggestions for more information. Perhaps it's a matter of focus and the book should choose to either be oriented to beginners and provide them with enough information to enlighten them or else tell them where to find foundation references first, a set of prerequisites say, and then concentrate on a more experienced audience.
A couple of final thoughts includes a caveat that the structure seems a bit disorganized, with some key topics being put off. For example, security is pushed to the end of the book, as many other books do as well, although at least parts of the chapter would be useful closer to the front, such as the creation of private keys, which is relevant to securing Web services, sending and receiving email, etc. Another suggestion for a future edition would be the inclusion of a flowchart of the key tasks that you need to do when setting up a new server from scratch. The book gives good advice in this regard, but it's all text-based. A graphic to lead off the Intro or first chapter as a jumping off point would be great.
Overall, I did find the book very helpful, but more as a reference tool than a learning guide. If that's what you're after then look no further, but otherwise be prepared to do some additional reading - of course, it's unrealistic to expect one book to do it all anyway. I am looking forward to O'Reilly's soon-to-be-released Essential Mac OS X Server Administration book.
NB. I accessed the book via safari.oreilly.com - an excellent service I might add (if you're not the type of person who needs to feel the paper).
2 Content good, but too late and disorganized.
The book is not bad, but it only handles "simple" stuff, if I dare call any computer administration simple.
People entering server administration should, first off, be those that are already considered power users or geeks by the majority of their coworkers. Such a person will already know the truly simple stuff, have acquired bits and pieces of more advanced knowledge, but need considerable direction on the concepts and issues of server administration. On this latter point the book is, unfortunately, far too sketchy, and some things are, I feel, a bit too sketchy for this sort of audience.
I should point out, too, that the famed Macintosh ease of use is here somewhat of a hindrance. I.e., the Xserve and Mac OS X Server setup is deceptively easy, to the point that bad setups are easy to do. Was Unix administration always intentionally hard, in order to "idiot-proof" it? One has to wonder... Given this problem, the book screams out for an introductory chapter on what issues there are in setting up a server, what possible solutions are, what the implications pro and con of each of these choices are, what setups are prerequisites for others, and so forth. The wet-behind-the-ears administrator could then create a flowchart of needed tasks, which this proposed introductory chapter could then reference for details.
Furthermore, the book's organization leaves much to be desired. I should think that security issues should be set up first, not relegated to a late chapter as in this book. DNS is handled in Chapter 3 I believe, yet there are items with dependencies on DNS that are described in earlier chapters. It would make sense to describe setting up user templates before users are actually set up.
For my part, I've already read the book twice and am now proceeding with my 3rd read-through, taking notes as I'm going as to what I need to do and in what order. I'm also taking notes on the files that will be modified as I'm doing this, so that I can take care to back up their original versions. This kind of information is thankfully in the book but unfortunately not stated up front in each section. This (i.e. "read the book through before starting any work") should appear as an instruction in the first chapter.
As to detail, one example relevant to our own situation (and likely many others') should suffice. Having already set up a web site, we wanted to set up the Xserve so that web requests go to the off-site web service while email is sent to the Xserve. The basics can be accomplished with Apple's GUI tools, but the details have to be done by hand in the text-based configuration files. Granted, books can be bought on DNS and BIND; but I don't really want or need a library of 10-12 books on all aspects of Unix administration.
3 One Great Book!
After reading through this book, I had no trouble at all setting up a small office server with mail & web services. Schoun Regan has written a book that is easy to read and easy to follow. I hope that an update to this book is written right after Tiger is released.
4 Rotten shame!
Content: Excellent! Information in this book seems well researched and accurate.
Unfortunately this title utterly fails on context- it arrived about many months after it would have been much use.
Honestly, if we'd gotten half of this book 6 months ago, it would have been worth twice what we paid.
To clarify- this is a great book, but I'll never consider preordering another title from this author or publisher. One, the other or both really botched this release.
5 A Step by Step Explanation
If you're migrating from Appleshare 6.3 and OS 9 in general, this is the book for you. Apple's Xserve guide spends too much time discussing concepts. This book contains clear, concise chapters on LDAP and Directory Services, which are totally new technologies for ASIP users. The plethora of screen shots throughout the book really clears up the mystery behind this advanced piece of software. After reading this book, I finally know what I'm doing.
6 Awesome book!
This is the first book released for Mac OS X Server. It is written so that a novice can understand, yet detailed enough for the intermediate user. Also makes a good source for documentation for when you are on vacation and a Windows admin needs to do something for you.
7 Very Useful Format
The Visual QuickPro Guides have an interesting design philosophy that is a cross between a tutorial and a reference book. I guess I'd call it tutorial based, but organized so that you can look up what you need and then get straight to what you are looking for without having to go one step at a time through a tutorial. They claim that this offers the fastest way to learn tasks and concepts. I find it hard to dissagree with this view.
Let's say you want to set up Mail Services. You can turn to Chapter 8 and go through the whole thing page by page. But, if you just want to set up mailing lists, the index will send to you to page 277 within Chapter 8 that tells you just exactly how to do this. The mailing list section is set aside so that while it logically flows through Chapter 8, you can also jump to just that section and not have to read about other parts of the mailing list program.
8 One of the best OS X Server books out there
Covering Mac OS X Server in a single book is a hard, hard thing to do. You certainly can't get everything in there; there's just too much. But for all those limitations, the authors certainly manage to do an awesome job.
The fact is that the documentation included with Mac OS X Server - and the stuff available online at Apple's website - is woefully inadequate. This book fills that void and does it really well. From start to finish, the authors seem to have made every effort to avoid a situation where the reader looks at a section and goes "huh?" The section on Mail services is pretty cool, as is the stuff on Web Services and Open Directory.
This is a definite must-have for anyone working on or thinking about deploying Mac OS X Server, be it in an SMB setting or in larger-scale enterprise scenarios. Schoun Regan has a well-deserved reputation as one of Apple's finest Certified Trainers and his shows at Macworld are consistently packed. This book represents a healthy chunk of his knowledge and experience.
