OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Using the Server Application

When you start up or log in to OS X Server, you should see the Server application (a globe icon) in the Dock, along with the usual OS X applications. (If not, you can launch it from the Applications folder and add it to the Dock, as Chapter 2 explains.) The Server application is the control center for OS X Server, and the application you'll use most to manage server settings.

New Feature

OS X Mountain Lion Server reverses a change to OS X Lion Server that was poorly received. Two key server tools—System Image Utility and Xsan Admin—are now installed for you, along with the Screen Sharing and Directory Utility tools. You no longer have to install System Image Utility and Xsan Admin from the Internet yourself. Also, the capabilities that had been in the separate Server Admin and Workgroup Manager tools are now part of the standard Server application and the related Profile Manager. Gone in OS X Mountain Lion Server is the Server folder in the Applications folder that held these applications; now that they're part of the Server application, a folder containing them is no longer needed.

The way OS X Server works is through policies. You can set policies on the services and access for individual users and for groups of users, and those policies determine what each user can do.

For example, you might have a group called Sales for which you provide e-mail, calendar, file sharing, and message access, and for which you provide access configuration files for ...