The setup shows that there are two core audiences: professional IT/data center workers and the small business/workgroup environment. You can choose to build the box as a simple stand-alone server that uses only the basic services, you can choose to be in a workgroup environment where the server will automatically integrate with an existing directory server and mail system, or IT pros can choose advanced setup and customize the server build as they have always done.

A new feature called network health check will query the addresses and ports required for selected services and inform the administrator of availability issues prior to executing the build. As part of the stand-alone build for small and midsize businesses, the administrator can define user accounts during the build. The workgroup build allows the administrator to import user accounts from an existing directory services system, pointing to that account for authentication, not replicating it. When client machines are built and connected to the server, their account information and configurations will automatically be pushed out to the client machine, simplifying setup and the overall administration process.

Administration

Keeping with the two-user-community theme, Leopard Server has two sets of administration tools: Server Prefs and Server Admin.

Server Prefs are modeled after the system preferences control system and have a limited set of choices and options for controlling the server, providing only the truly necessary controls for basic administration. There is a simple way to manage user and group memberships and a new directory management application.