14 DAY TRIAL // iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite are undoubtedly the talk of the Apple blogosphere, but there are several other new releases from the tech giant that haven’t received much attention this week. One of them is OS X Server 4.0, a major update that is currently being offered as a developer preview.
Apple notifies developers that “OS X Server 4.0 Developer Preview (Build 14S171z, app version 3.5) is now available for testing. This version is designed for OS X Yosemite and includes many new features and improvements.”
According to a person who is familiar with the seed notes, Apple touts various changes in Server App, File Sharing, Profile Manager, Mail, Calendar, and Cashing, and outlines that there are various known issues to be resolved.
Profile Manager comes with new payload settings and Mobile Device Management (MDM) support for new features in iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite.
Both iOS and OS X get MDM support for device renaming, MDM query to display which VPP account is configured on a device (if any), network settings for WPA-2 Enterprise and WPA2-PSD security types, and VPN settings to support “Always On” and Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2).
iOS 8 gets MDM support for pushing the installation of media assets including PDF, EPUB, and iBook Author files, MDM query to determine the most recent iCloud backup, and tons of new restriction settings.
Yosemite (OS X 10.10) is treated to MDM support for OS X enterprise app installation, AD Certificate settings to support AllowAllAppsAccess and KeyIsExtractable, SCEP and AD Certificate settings to allow specifying certificate renewal notification time, and a new Passcode setting to prevent logins after too many attempts using the wrong credentials. Mail gets a simpler interface for setting up email for multiple domains.
The Mac maker boasts that SMB 3 is the default protocol for sharing files in OS X Yosemite and that SMB 3 in OS X Server 4.0 “helps protect against tampering and eavesdropping by encrypting and signing data ‘in-flight’.”
“In addition to SMB 3, OS X Yosemite maintains support for SMB 2, AFP and SMB network file sharing protocols, automatically selecting the appropriate protocol as needed,” the company adds.
Developers looking to download and test OS X Server 4.0 will require iMac (Mid 2007 or newer), MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer), MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer), MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer), Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer), Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer), or Xserve (Early 2009).
OS X Yosemite is required to install OS X Server 4.0, and testers will further need at least 2 GB of RAM and at least 10 GB of available disk space (50 GB if they wish to use Caching Server).