If you’ve been enjoying our Using Apple OS X Lion Server as a Home Server series, then make sure you pick up a copy of the accompanying eBook. You’ll find additional chapters and information on using OS X Lion Server to power your digital home that won’t be available here on the site, and with all of our walkthroughs available in one convenient document (ePub or PDF), it’s far easier to install and configure your server without having to click backward and forwards to the website.
- Introduction
- Choosing Your Hardware
- Features
- Installation
- The Server App
- Storage and Network Configuration
- Users and Groups Configuration
- Profile Manager and Macs [eBook Exclusive]
- Profile Manager and iOS Devices [eBook Exclusive]
- File and Folder Sharing
- Shared Address Book [eBook Exclusive]
- Shared Calendar [eBook Exclusive]
- iChat Server
- Time Machine Backup
- Windows PC Backup [eBook Exclusive]
- VPN Configuration [eBook Exclusive]
- Websites, Blogs and Wikis
If you read Part 8 of our series, then you’ll now be comfortable using the Profile Manager to remotely configure various user and device settings on your Mac clients. One of the great new features in OS X Lion Server, however, is the extension of the Profile Manager to support remote configuration of iOS devices as well – iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches. Obviously, there’s an increase of these devices (certainly the first two) in business, so it makes sense for Apple to include management support in their server platform, but it’s also a great addition for those thinking about Lion Server in the home.
As we’ll see, managing iOS devices is very similar to how we manage Macs, but some of the configuration settings are more tailored to highly mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad. If your home, like mine, is slowly becoming littered with these touch-capable devices, then you’ll definitely want to check out what you can do to secure and manage them.
1. Enroll Your iOS Devices
Just like we did with our Macs last time, we’ll need to enrol our iOS devices too – we can do so in a similar way too. Take you iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone and visit your server’s device enrollment page at http://yourserver/mydevices. (The shots below are from a first generation iPad)
As before, you’ll be asked to login with your server admin credentials, following which you’ll be taken to the now familiar My Devices enrolment page.
Again, we see the two tabs – one for your devices, and a second for installing profiles manually, if for some reason you don’t want them delivered over the air. Hit the blue Enroll button to proceed, and a screen will pop up with the Device Enrollment profile.
Go ahead and click install to, well, install it. You’ll receive a warning that installing the profile will change the settings on your device (which is the point, so that’s fine).
My experience was that initially, despite us running with an authorised SSL certificate, signed by a third party, you’ll still receive a warning that the authenticity of the profile cannot be verified. That’s not such a concern as obviously, you know it’s you that is installing the profile from your server, but it does mean that we’ll need to install a trust profile from the server to verify its identity shortly. As with enrolling your OS X devices, again you’ll be advised that the server administrator has full access to the data on the device. Okay, hit the Install button at the top of the panel to proceed.
That’s the profile installed, and the device enrolled – but you’ll see the red “Not Verified” message there, which means it’s time to install the Trust Profile. Click Done to go back to the Enrollment screen, where you’ll see your device is now listed.
Click the Profiles Tab, and you should see a Trust Profile listed which can be downloaded and installed on your device. Install it, and you’ll see that the original Remote Management profile has switched from a red Not Verified message, to a green Verified. That’s a job done!
Whether you’re enrolling an iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad, the experience and the steps to enrol are exactly the same – albeit with slightly different screen dimensions. I’ll spare you a second walkthrough, and we’ll head straight to the Profile Manager on the server to take a look at configuration options.
