I’ve now had the chance to take a brief look at the Mountain Lion (10.8) release of OS X Server – a few things do appear to have changed, and I’ll go in to more detail about some of the things I have noticed so far from my first impressions.

First up, some readers have made me aware that there no longer appears to be any web based email built in to 10.8 Server. This used to be a service provided by Round Cube Mail, and although it is still pointed out in the 10.8 documentation on how to enable the service, the options in Server.app are just not there.

My guess here is that Apple are either leaving the door open for users to install their own choice of web-based mail clients, or have taken the view that the days of web-based mail are heading towards the end and that users would rather use the Mail app or similar. At this point no one knows and we’ll have to wait on further clarification from Apple here. Some will certainly miss it!

One of the lesser surprises in 10.8 Server is the fact that Server Admin has now been entirely depreciated. It is no longer available from now on with all services now having been migrated to Server.app. I think this was an obvious move from 10.7 Server, with some services remaining in Server Admin in that release, it was clearly the way Apple were moving.

It is good news that Apple have still retained the use of WorkGroup Manager though – the transition over to Profile Manager is still not 100%, so allowing Sys Admin’s to continue managing their Mac’s with WGM is the right move at this point. For those looking for WorkGroup Manager for 10.8 Server, it can be downloaded here.

The only other thing at this point is a change to the way PostgreSQL is configured. To configure the listen address, you now need to edit this file:

/Library/Server/PostgreSQL/Config/org.postgresql.postgres.plist

Thanks to Richard for commenting on this change in the 10.7.4 Postgres configuration post. I will be making a new video walkthrough for configuring PostgreSQL in Mountain Lion Server soon.