Novell Administration on a Mac Suggestions by Johnnie Odom Macs on Novell Networks? • I appreciate fine products, obviously. • Great servers (Novell) and great clients (Apple) • Also, like my machine to Just Work • Servers give me more than enough challenge without wrestling with sound card drivers. • And I think Macs now have the advantage when administering Attachmate products. Cheats: Web Interfaces • What's Hot? Mobile • What Powers Most Mobile Browsers? • WebKit! • Chrome, Safari, Opera, Konqueror all use WebKit. The world is no longer IE and Firefox. • GroupWise Windermere web administration officially supported on iPad • WebKit! • ZENworks Configuration Console complains in Safari, but works. Firefox is fine. • iManager, Remote Manager, iMonitor, Kanaka Admin work fine • Jury still out on File Reporter 2.0 Cheats: Windows Virtualization • VMWare Fusion runs Windows very nicely. • ZENworks Windows Policy Editor • But then, policies are always edited on the platform to which they apply • ZAV • ConsoleOne • Storage Manager and Legacy File Reporter • Designer with JClient (“Live” Button) • Full Mac support coming to Designer • And to run test eDir you will need to virtualize Windows or Linux. OS X as Unix • OS X certified Unix by the Open Group • Ironically Linux is not • OS X has a Unix layer, but most of its characteristic properties do not come from Unix. • Different networking, directory services, file system, windowing etc. • Also, many POSIX calls get translated as Mach kernel calls. • But enough Linux compatibility is present to make an OS X machine an attractive alternative to a SLED station. • Less screaming at workstation than most Linux distros. SSH and X-Windows • OS X has full SSH support in Terminal and OS • With XQuartz, supports remotely running X-Windows applications via tunnel • + "ssh -X user@servername" • + YaST works very well this way. • For SSH Transfers: • Can use scp etc. • Fetch (Free for Edu and Charities) : fetchsoftworks.com • Transmit : Panic.com • Filezilla (For interface compatibility) : filezilla-project.org Programming / Unix Admin • All the Unix goodies come installed • Standard Unix tools: vi, host, scp, expect, bash & tcsh etc. • Apache with lots of PHP extensions • Perl, Python • OSS Databases including mysql, postgre-sql, sqllite, etc. • XCode is a great IDE for C • Mono / Xamarin allows creation of extremely cross-platform tools. • Premier platform for Ruby • And Cocoa is a very nice framework for overall programming OS X as Mainstream Desktop • Microsoft Office (including Outlook!) • Official Windows Remote Desktop Client (mactopia.com) • Many applications support OS X before Linux Java Tools • Java No longer ships with OS X, but easily installable. • In theory, any Java tool will run. • 3rd Party Java utils usually available (LDAP Browser, LDAP Studio, etc.) • Novell specific tools like Java DNS / DHCP Console, Designer, and RConsoleJ have been "ported" by Cool Solutions contributors. • Trick is to find a good Java decompiler (JD-GUI at http://java.decompiler.free.fr ) and find out where code makes Windows or Linux assumptions, correct, and recompile. • Good instructions of this process can be found with the port of the Java / DHCP Console: http://www.novell.com/communities/de/node/13297 • Repackage into an OS X application package using Jar Bundler / AppBundler. http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jweb/ packagingAppsForMac.html • Adding Retina support fairly easy. See example here: http://www.novell.com/communities/node/13927/modifying-groupwise-retina-macs OS-X Specific Advantages • Entire display layer is PDF • Network Utility provides GUI to standard network tools. • Great 3rd-Party Applications: • GUI Text Editors: TextWrangler / BBEdit, TextMate, Coda • Unison (from Panic.com) news reader for the Novell forums. • OS X as Mainstream Desktop • Microsoft Office (including Outlook!) • Official Windows Remote Desktop Client (mactopia.com) • iTunes etc. • Quality Hardware: Retina, SSD, etc. Miscellany • iPrint Administration via Non platform-specific iprintcmd • FLAIM compiles. • Only I care about this. • http://www.novell.com/communities/node/13524/ compiling-flaim-os-x • Apple maintains many OSS projects, including CUPS. How Can We Improve? • Let T.A.G. , Condrey, and your consultants know you are using a Mac. • Request that all web tools work with WebKit - Safari and Chrome • File Enhancements www.novell.com/rms • Let PMs , Support, and Bangalore Engineering know Mac admin is important. • Use stuff, break stuff, and file bugs. Conclusion • Questions? • Go Forth and Admin! • Thank You!.