<p>So when I went to go upgrade, I noticed that it’s split up into 2 components - the OS and the server. I know what an operating system is, but I have no clue what a server is. Why do I need to upgrade my server, and what good will it do for me?</p>
<p>Servers are for internet…a website might be stored on a UNIX server or Windows server. Apple wants to be in the game too. You don’t need a server OS if you don’t know what it is.</p>
<p><a href=“macOS Ventura - Apple”>macOS Ventura - Apple; for some examples of what you can do with it.</p>
<p>Server = Local or Web Server…
If you don’t know what it is, it is highly unlikely you have any need/use for it.
Needed if you are running Netboot at a school or company, or serving webpages, or running an email server etc…
Did not used to be on the app store and the older versions were very expensive ($500)</p>
<p>so…I don’t need to upgrade to it? It’s free, so should I do it anyway?</p>
<p>If you have 7GB of available HHD space that you have no use for, and want some software that you won’t use… go for it</p>
<p>point taken. but i should upgrade the os…right?</p>
<p>Yeah I would, Lion is getting great reviews. Just make some backups and then go for the install. $30 well spent from everything i’ve read.</p>
<p>With Wednesday’s release of Mac OS X Lion, Apple has definitively leapfrogged its rivals by offering an operating system with state-of-the-art security protections that make it more resistant to malware exploits and other hack attacks, two researchers say.</p>
<p>The most important addition is full ASLR. Short for address space layout randomization, the protection makes it much harder for attackers to exploit bugs by regularly changing the memory location where shell code and other system components are loaded. Other improvements include security sandboxes that tightly restrict the way applications can interact with other parts of the operating system and full disk encryption that doesn’t interfere with other OS features.
Mac OS X Lion logo</p>
<p>“Dino Dai Zovi, principal of security consultancy Trail of Bits and the coauthor of The Mac Hacker’s Handbook. “I generally tell Mac users that if they care about security, they should upgrade to Lion sooner rather than later, and the same goes for Windows users, too.”</p>
<p>[Major</a> overhaul makes OS X Lion king of security ? The Register](<a href=“http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/21/mac_os_x_lion_security/]Major”>Major overhaul makes OS X Lion king of security • The Register)</p>
<p>For the most part, the only people that need Lion Server are people that know what it is and really want it for what it is.</p>
<p>Even fairly advanced webhosting can be done by the client version without a hitch. :)</p>
<p>@gojack ASLR is unfortunately not that big of a deal. Windows Vista implemented ASLR when it was released. While it was marginally more secure than XP (although buggier), it didn’t really stop malware from being developed. I haven’t tinkered with Lion at all, but considering that Vista had a widely-available 64-bit version at launch, I’d bet that Lion received roughly the same benefit as Vista did (however keep in mind that Vista actually disable ASLR by default, but it wasn’t a super game-changer when it was enabled) It helps, but not as much as you’d like.</p>
<p>The two major problems I see are this:
- Most programs already “allow” themselves to be memory-scrambled, if you will, but some commercially available software does not. Some of this commercially available software has an exploitable plug in system that allows malware to be loaded.</p>
<ol>
<li>There are techniques to bypass ASLR. It is possible for an automatic code to squeeze information out of what’s in the memory that it latched on to, which reduces the effectiveness of ASLR.</li>
</ol>