--- Forwarded Message from Chris Meyer <[log in to unmask]> ---

>Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:36:32 -0400
>From: Chris Meyer <[log in to unmask]>
>User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (Macintosh/20080914)
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum   
<[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #8985 OS-X Server Question
>References: <[log in to unmask]>
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>

We've been using Leopard Server for about six months now and having it 
hooked into Active Directory has been pretty smooth compared to some of 
the other problems we've had. (Leopard's server utilities, unlike their 
consumer-level bretheren, seem to be less than polished. I've had Server 
Admin and Workgroup Manager crashing regularly on me, and the System 
Image Utility goes belly up if the preferences aren't set *exactly* 
right.) The whole "magic triangle" directory binding was a little tricky 
to set up, but at least it's been relatively stable so far (knocking on 
plenty of wood, here). I can certainly understand the trepidation, though.

John's htaccess idea is a good one--I believe it's even possible to set 
up multiple accounts and user groups for authentication, although of 
course that gets pretty clunky pretty quickly. A slightly more advanced 
method that might tie into your campus-wide authentication system while 
keeping you away from AD would be checking if you have any LDAP servers 
you can bind OS X to. The answer may well be "no", but it's worth a shot.

One last thing to try would be using either the firewall or an htaccess 
file to restrict viewership of the copyrighted materials to on-campus 
addresses. Not much good to students living off-campus (unless they use 
an HTTP proxy), but better than leaving the files open for all to see. 
Again, I don't know your particular situation, so I don't know how 
feasible this is.

Good luck, and I hope some of this helped.

-Chris Meyer
Programmer/Analyst
Yale Center for Language Study

LLTI-Editor wrote:
> Greetings one and all!
> 
> Here at Hamilton College, we recently procured a high end XServe for
> use with our language materials. Two quad core processors, 8 GB's of
> Ram, and tons of hard drive space paired with OS X Leopard. The server
> is fully patched.
> 
> There are two issues we're facing. The first one is a web-based one.
> Currently the server operates as a file server, but we want it to do
> more. I'm having an issue getting the web interface to work correctly.
> The control panel that turns on the web services crashes when I
> activate the service. The panel itself is fine - but the web service
> "turn on" sequence crashes & burns and won't turn on.
> 
> The second issue we're having is an issue with permissions. We want to
> be able to share the media files we have on campus, but need them to
> be password protected due to copyright issues. I prefer to keep the
> server away from the "active directory" servers on campus - I've heard
> bad things about it. I'd rather not add to a situation more variables.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> Jeremiah Spoon
> Language Center Coordinator/Technologist
> 315.859.4792
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Return-Path: <[log in to unmask]>
> Received: from mailer.hamilton.edu by listserv.dartmouth.edu (LSMTP for
Windows
> NT v1.1b) with SMTP id <[log in to unmask]>; Wed, 22 Oct 2008
> 11:29:32 -0400
> Received: from pmxchannel-daemon.mail.hamilton.edu by mail.hamilton.edu
>  (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-6.01 (built Apr  3 2006))
>  id <[log in to unmask]> for [log in to unmask]; Wed,
>  22 Oct 2008 11:29:31 -0400 (EDT)
> Received: from cj-150-209-88-96.hamilton.edu
>  (cj-150-209-88-96.hamilton.edu [150.209.88.96])
>  by mail.hamilton.edu (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-6.01 (built Apr  3
>  2006)) with ESMTPA id <[log in to unmask]> for
>  [log in to unmask]; Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:29:29 -0400 (EDT)
> Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:29:29 -0400
> From: Jeremiah Spoon <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Hamilton Language Center XServe Questions
> Sender: [log in to unmask]
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Message-id: <[log in to unmask]>
> MIME-version: 1.0
> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.929.2)
> Content-type: multipart/alternative;
>  boundary="Boundary_(ID_7nQMnaeHWx5h5ZUnHRG7RA)"
> 
> 
> --Boundary_(ID_7nQMnaeHWx5h5ZUnHRG7RA)
> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes
> Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
> 
> Greetings one and all!
> 
> Here at Hamilton College, we recently procured a high end XServe for
> use with our language materials. Two quad core processors, 8 GB's of
> Ram, and tons of hard drive space paired with OS X Leopard. The server
> is fully patched.
> 
> There are two issues we're facing. The first one is a web-based one.
> Currently the server operates as a file server, but we want it to do
> more. I'm having an issue getting the web interface to work correctly.
> The control panel that turns on the web services crashes when I
> activate the service. The panel itself is fine - but the web service
> "turn on" sequence crashes & burns and won't turn on.
> 
> The second issue we're having is an issue with permissions. We want to
> be able to share the media files we have on campus, but need them to
> be password protected due to copyright issues. I prefer to keep the
> server away from the "active directory" servers on campus - I've heard
> bad things about it. I'd rather not add to a situation more variables.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 
> Jeremiah Spoon
> Language Center Coordinator/Technologist
> 315.859.4792
> 
> ***********************************************
> LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for
> Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language
> Teaching
> and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/).
> Join IALLT at http://iallt.org.
> Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask])
> ***********************************************