Mac OS X Server 1.2 Installation Notes

Caveat!

These are notes compiled from information I've gathered on the web and elsewhere, but mileage may vary. This is a brave new OS, so take normal precautions such as backing up data.

What will OS X Server run on?

Interesting question. Since Apple's only certifying it to run on G3 Minitowers, if you want to run it as a production server, that's what you should use. Note that Apple will not support users running OS X on alternate hardware. However, it is known to run on a variety of configurations, including some of the 604 models.

If you're installing to a non-certified platform, when you run the installer, it will tell you that it can't install on this machine. Note a new menu: Special. It has one item 'Configurations' which allows you to override this restriction.

Drive Considerations

You probably don't want to install OS X on the first bootable partition, since if you run into problems you may want to get at MacOS 8.x. Once OS X is installed, your Mac will want to run it so passionately that unless you hold down the option key shortly after turning on the machine, it will go to OS X. Even if it's not running. Even if it's not there. Thus if you select OS X boot volume as the default boot drive using the System Disk app, (not Startup Disk, that's only for selecting which MacOS boot drive to use, ala Blue Box), you can't ever boot back into MacOS directly.

It also turns out that the 'option' key at startup shortcut doesn't actually look for a *MacOS* boot disk, it looks for *a* boot disk, and if OS X is on the first partition, the option key won't get you to MacOS 8.x. .

Under ATA

OS X requires being on the ATA:0 (master) drive, it will not run on a ATA:1 (slave) drive. System Disk *itself* (which is the app that sets the Open Firmware magic) will only let you *select* a boot volume on ATA:0. So, you *have* to partition your ATA:0 drive into minimum two partitions, and install MacOS 8.x on the *first* partition (actually partition 5 for bootable volumes), then OS X on the next one, and select it in System Disk.

Under SCSI

Under SCSI you have more options, but you still don't want OS X on the first partition. The best results I've had thus far are using OS X on a second SCSI drive (I'm using a laptop, and since OS X doesn't support dialup, there's not much reason to carry it around with me). With OS X on the second SCSI drive, holding down the option key allows me to get to MacOS 8.5 with no problems.

Dialup Connections

There is currently no PPP or serial (modem) support in OS X, or in blue box (because the serial support isn't supported in the OS X kernel, Blue Box can't get to it). Basically, you need a real ethernet connection.

On bluebox and OS X server