Using Mac OS X Lion Server

Software Update Services

Software Update is a service likely best suited for environments with at least five Mac OS X computers who are looking to centrally manage the software patches from Apple. These updates are cached on the Mac OS X Server and then deployed as needed to client systems that subscribe to the Software Update service installed on the server. This reduces the amount of bandwidth required on the server and allows administrators to release software in batches, thus keeping support costs at a minimum (assuming of course that most support incidents derive from change introduced in the environment).

Installing Software Update Server

The initial installation of Lion Server’s Software Update service is one of the easier services to set up and manage. Begin by opening Server Admin and clicking on the name of the server you wish to install the Software Update service from the SERVERS list. Then click on the Settings button in the toolbar and click on the Services tab. Here, check the box for Software Update and click on the Save button.

Once the Service is listed under the name of the server in the SERVERS sidebar, click on Software Update there. No options need to be enabled in order for the Lion to be able to cache updates. However, given that it doesn’t automatically cache any of the updates, some of these options on this screen can be useful. These include:

Limit user bandwidth to

Throttles bandwidth on the server for software updates, useful with slightly larger environments ...