Lion Server for Home use reality check
Hi All,
as many others I had the best intentions buying Lion Server for my home network (5 Macs, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones) to manage everything.
It was destined to be a central server for user management, configuration management, home directories, file server, software update server, web server and Time Machine server and possible VPN gateway to my home network.
I did not intended to use as Address Book, iCal, Mail server as I use iCloud. I just don't see the point of iChat, Podcast, Wiki server for my home use.
Anyway the bits I had to abandon so far are:
- configuration management - Profile Manager works only sometimes and is sluggish to say the least
- home directories - the home sync just doesn't work for Mac libraries such as iPhoto and iTunes
- software update server - worked, broke, fixed, worked, broke, fixed, ... going away with Mountain Lion.
What works for me is user management, file server, web server and Time Machine backup, haven't gotten around to test VPN yet.
Given that Mountain Lion is coming next month and presumably I'll have to buy new license for the Server version I am not sure if it's worth it.
As I see it using a plain vanilla Lion or Mountain Lion system I can still do file server, web server and Time Machine backup. What I'd lose is the user management and I am not sure about VPN on a non-Server system but not really important. User management is a one time task for 5 Macs that's it.
Would be interested to hear opinions from you folks about pros / cons of using a plain Lion or Mountain Lion OS X for server tasks vs Server version?
Anything I am missing here?
Thanks
Andy
Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.1), Server