Apple updates OS X Server to 2.2, adds Caching Service
updated 01:57 am EST, Fri December 7, 2012
Addresses bugs, adds features to Profile Manager
Late Thursday, Apple updated the its OS X Server app for Mountain Lion to version 2.2, with its major new feature being a Caching service designed to speed up software downloads from the Mac App Store. The service caches both software updates and purchased apps. In addition to the caching feature, the update addresses a number of issues in the app, the adaptive firewall feature, and the Mail, Calendar, Contacts and Messenger services. It also makes improvements in the Profile Manager.
The server app itself is updated in the new version, including general enhancements and addressing an issue in which attempting to change the blacklist server used by the Mail service might not work. The adaptive firewall was corrected to fix an issue that could cause an exception to be raised when using the hb_summary tool, while the Calendar service has squashed a bug in which Calendar invitations were always sent in English regardless of the language chosen. It also has seen some general enhancements.
The Mail service had a few bugs identified and fixed, including an issue in which freshclam and clamav weren't providing logs about upgraded systems, resolving a problem in which the quota hard limit was not being respected, and a bug in which certain settings weren't maintained when upgrading from a previous version of OS X Server. The Contact service corrected an issue under certain circumstances in which the service wouldn't start when using a different location than the default for its data store, and added the ability to search for records containing non-English characters.
Also resolved was an issue with the Messages service that mirrored the issue with the Contact service: in some circumstances, the service wouldn't start when using a non-default location for the data storage. Finally, the Profile Manager in v2.2 has added the ability to use Active Directory groups, and the ability to delete apps uploaded to the Profile Manager. It also includes performance and other general enhancements.
In its support note, Apple cautions that "the DHCP service may not automatically start when updating from a previous version of OS X Server configured to use the DHCP service." It is recommended that if this problem should occur, opening the Server app and starting the service manually should resolve the issue. The new version also now stores Postgres data in its own database, which may create an issue for those who had custom content store in Library/Server/PostgreSQL. Admins can resolve the problem by typing in "sudo serveradmin start postgres" in Terminal. This way, users can have a Postgres process separate from the one used by Server.
The update is recommended for all users of OS X Server. The update can be installed through the Mac App Store's Software Update feature.
