Apple drops a bunch of network services from macOS Server

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macOS Server
macOS Server will focus on device management.
Photo: Apple

Apple has confirmed plans to drop a number of big network services from macOS Server this year.

In a new support document, the company explains macOS Server is “changing to focus more on management of computers, devices, and storage on your network.”

“As a result, some changes are coming in how Server works,” Apple continues. “A number of services will be deprecated, and will be hidden on new installations of an update to macOS Server coming in spring 2018.”

Some services will remain intact for now

If you have already configured one of the services on Apple’s hit list, you will still be able to use it in the spring macOS Server update, Apple says — you just won’t be able to set them up from scratch. In a future release, they will be removed entirely.

Here’s the long list of services getting the chop:

Calendar

Contacts

DHCP

DNS

Mail

Messages

NetInstall

VPN

Websites

Wiki

The links above, provided by Apple, are potential replacements for the services being dropped.

Apple indicated that servers weren’t a particularly important part of its product pipeline when Steve Jobs discontinued Xserve in 2010. Apple continued to offer the Mac Pro and Mac mini — both with Snow Leopard Server — but these were also dropped later.

macOS Server remains available to purchase from the Mac App Store as a $19.99 add-on to macOS.

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