About the Mac OS X Server 10.3.4 Update

Important: Read Before Installing

1. An administrator account password that does not contain spaces or Option-keyed characters is required to install. The password may not be blank. If your password must be changed, follow these steps: Choose System Preferences from the Apple menu. Choose Accounts from the View menu. Select an Admin account and click Edit User. Type your current password, and press Return. Change the password, and click OK.

2. You may experience unexpected results if you have installed third-party system software modifications, or if you have modified the operating system through other means. This precautionary statement does not apply to the normal installation of application software.

3. The installation process should not be interrupted. Monitor progress by clicking the Detailed Progress disclosure triangle. If a power outage or other interruption occurs during installation, use the standalone installer (see below) from Apple Software Downloads to install.

4. This update can be installed on non-startup volumes, but that should be done only when the current startup volume has already been updated to Mac OS X Server 10.3.4. The simplest way to avoid issues from an improper installation is to start up from the volume that you wish to update.

Installation

There are two ways to update to Mac OS X Server 10.3.4: Software Update and Standalone Installer.

Software Update Installation

You may have been referred to this document by Software Update. For more information on this feature, see How to Update Your Software.

Because some updates are prerequisites for others, you may need to use Software Update more than once to get all available updates.

Standalone Installer

An installer is also available from Apple Featured Software.

The Mac OS X Server 10.3.4 Update is specifically for updating version 10.3.3. There is also a "combo" installer available, which will update version 10.3, 10.3.1, 10.3.2, or 10.3.3.


Remote Installation

If you need to install the update on a remotely located computer, you can do so using either the Server Admin application or the "softwareupdate" command-line tool. Choose the method that works best for you.


Enhancements
These are some of the enhancements that are part of Mac OS X 10.3.4 Server Update:

Open Directory (Directory Services)

• Password Server: Addresses issue in which Password Server replicas have incomplete databases and use 100% of the CPU time, causing the server to operate slowly. The affected Password Server Replication log file displays the message "DoSyncWithServer: error = -14090."
• Passwords: Addresses an issue in which inclusion of the dollar sign ($)in the password of the the primary administrator (UID 501) results in unexpected server behavior. Reported symptoms include Password Server not starting, unreliable LDAP services, and the inability to log in at the Login
• LDAP: Addresses issue in which Open Directory client computers will not rebind to an LDAP master after waking from sleep. This issue may also prevent the network users list from appearing on the client computer.
• LDAP: The LDAP server has been enhanced to allow more client connections. This improves server performance by allowing more than 250 client connections and reducing the total CPU usage. Note: The maximum number of client connections is approximately 1000.
• Active Directory Plug-in: Addresses an issue in which attributes/values may be lost if when modified by the Workgroup Manager Inspector, particularly when administrators attempt to change values for attributes that have "multiple" values (all of the old values may be deleted while keeping the new value intact).
• Active Directory Plug-in: Addresses an issue in which clients fail to bind to the directory master when computer is in a domain separate from the user. For example: If all users are members of the top-level domain, and all computers are in a domain lower in the hierarchy, users attempting to bind the computer to the top-level domain will not succeed.
• Addresses an issue in which accounts with a period in the UPN (User Principal Name) may not be able to log in.
• Active Directory Plug-in: Enhances client-server interaction by requiring clients to only read group information for each user as on-demand, reducing network-server bandwidth usage by each client.
• Directory Services: Improves performance of Directory Services (DirectoryS process) by reducing the total CPU usage for servers with significant uptime.

Network Services

• DNS: Enhances DNS code to deal with large network infrastructures (more than 10 DNS servers). This enhancement should improve experience when performing activities such as web browsing, Active Directory integration, and connections to Microsoft Exchange servers in this type of networking environment.

File Services

• NFS: Resolves a situation in which you have issues while trying to search NFS reshared volumes mounted at a client. (The search never finishes in Mac OS X and Sherlock; Mac OS 9 says the volume was modified by another process and to try again.)
• AFP/NFS: Addresses an issue that causes the message "unexpected problems occurred" when executing a Sherlock search for a file or folder on an AFP reshared volume which has originally been exported using NFS (such as from Linux, NetApp, or Solaris).

System Imaging (NetBoot/Network Install)

• Network Image Utility: Addresses an issue in which more than one package added to a Network Install image will not install on the targeted client computers.

User Management (Managed Client)

• Addresses an issue in which the Login Window will not display the list of users when local users or administrators are not enabled for clients.

Mail Service

• Mailman: Addresses an issue in which mailman lists no longer accept new mail after using the repair permissions feature of Disk Utility on the server's startup disk.

Web Services

• Site Administration: Addresses an issue in which no sites can be created on a server that had no defined websites at the time of being upgraded from 10.2 to 10.3. The resultingmessage is "Uncaught exception raised in Web client-side plugin."
• Configuration Files: Multiple RegisterResource directives may now be manually added to the httpd.conf file without being overwritten by Server Admin activities.

Server Administration Tools

• Server Admin Application: Software Update pane GUI has been enhanced to display software updates flagged as requiring "Reboot". This may allow you to better plan your updates during off-hours, for example.

Disk Utility

• Addresses an issue in which Disk Utility will not open on a client computer started up from a NetInstall image that was created from a configured volume (rather than a CD/DVD).

Other

• Addresses issue in which some USB-, Firewire-, SCSI-, and PCI RAID card-connected devices may not mount after applying the Mac OS X 10.3.3 Software Update. See document 107914.