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Chapter 9 of “Take Control of OS X Server” Now Available

I’ve been editing along in Charles Edge’s “Take Control of OS X Server” so far with a certain amount of knowledge, since I’ve used OS X Server in the distant past and have run Internet servers for decades. But this week’s installment, Chapter 9, “Mobile Device Management,” was an eye-opener for me. The Profile Manager service in OS X Server is one of the more complex — and more useful! — features of OS X Server, since it enables system administrators to configure multiple iOS devices or Macs with consistent settings and policies, something I’ve never had a chance to play with before.

The list of settings that can be pushed wirelessly to a fleet of iPads, for instance, is huge, and it’s something that any organization with a collection of devices should be using. Among much else, you can use it to push apps and Web clips to devices, set and enforce passcode policies, configure email settings, set device restrictions, and even remotely unlock, lock, or wipe devices.

Charles starts out by walking readers through enabling Profile Manager, which is a bit more involved than many other services in OS X Server. The next step is to enroll devices in Profile Manager, and once that’s done, Charles explains how to manage those devices, which takes place in a Web-based portal, rather than in the Server app. It’s not hard, but you’ll spend some time wrapping your head around all the options and determining what settings and policies you wish to distribute.

We encourage everyone to read the first two chapters of “Take Control of OS X Server” to see where the book is going — all subsequent chapters are available only to TidBITS members for now. If you have already joined the TidBITS membership program, log in to the TidBITS site using the email address from which you joined. The full ebook of “Take Control of OS X Server” will be available for purchase by everyone in PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket (Kindle) formats once it’s complete. Published chapters include:

Publishing this book in its entirety for TidBITS members as it’s being written is just one of the ways we thank TidBITS members for their support. We hope it encourages those of you who have been reading TidBITS for free for years to help us continue to bring you more of the professionally written and edited articles you’ve become accustomed to each week. For more details on what the membership program means to us, see “Support TidBITS in 2014 via the TidBITS Membership Program” (9 December 2013).

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