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
Our run through of OS X Lion Server continues with one of the platform’s smaller features, but one that may well be useful to some in the home. iChat is Apple’s instant messaging service, and will be a familiar sight to Mac users. It offers text, voice and video messaging across the Internet in its standard guide (that is, when used on a Mac client without a server) but with Lion Server installed on your network, iChat can also be used locally around the home.
That opens up the ability to send text and video chat between rooms at home – handy if you need to get the kids off the Mac upstairs and can’t summon the will to shout after a long day at work. We’re not going to go through all of the features of iChat in this guide, (I’ll let you have fun discovering them for yourself) but we’ll walk through configuring iChat Server and connecting up your clients.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, we’re heading back to the Server app on your OS X Lion Server to enable the iChat service. In the list of services, you’ll see an iChat option listed. Click on it, and the iChat Server panel is displayed.
The configuration options here are very simple indeed. Switch on the service with the On button, that you’ll know. Options include the ability to pass messages from one OS X Server to a second OS X Server (that’s the server-to-server federation option) – most likely not required in most homes. Secondly, you can archive all chat messages, which you may wish to do from a security perspective. Check any options required, and that completes our work in Server app. All done? Actually, no.
If you’re an existing iChat user, you’ll know that a specific type of user account is required for iChat (the application supports a range of accounts including Jabber, Yahoo Messenger, MobileMe and others). To use iChat Server on your local network, your users require Jabber accounts – you’ll have noticed that there is no way of configuring a new Jabber account, or attaching your users to an existing Jabber account within the Server app. Whether it’s a deliberate omission, or Apple simply didn’t have time to bake in the settings in the Server app, we’re going to need to delve into a different configuration panel to get our iChat accounts set up. All hail the Workgroup Manager.
So far, we’ve been able to configure most aspects of OS X Lion Server for the home without the need to open up old school tools like Server Admin (not to be confused with the Server app) and Workgroup Manager, but these two tools offer many advanced settings that aren’t available in Server app. Unfortunately, they’re not installed with Lion Server, so you’ll need to visit Apple’s support site to download and install them.
Once installed, you’ll see a new Servers folder appear in Applications, which contains the Server Admin and Workgroup Manager tools. Open Workgroup Manager, and if requested, log-in with your Administrator account and password.
At the top of the Workgroup Manager panel, you’ll notice a small lock icon on the right hand side. You’ll need to click this, then enter your Directory Administrator account details to edit the required information. That means you need to have already set up Open Directory on the server. Check out Part 7 for more on this. In the left hand pane, you should see a list of users that have previously been set up on your server. Select one of those users, and then click the Info tab to bring up full details of that user (much of the potential information that can be included here is likely to be blank, don’t worry).
You’ll notice a field named Chat a little way down the page – that’s where we’ll need to configure our chat (Jabber) account. Click the Plus button, and select Jabber. An account name will appear in the Chat field, which you can edit if you wish. Click Save, and that’s the account set up. OK, that’s all we need to do on the Server side, so repeat the setup steps for the rest of your users.
