I thought the whole point of this application was that it would run unattended, bring down a collection on a network server, log off its clients, run utilities, etc. and then restart the Helix Server.
Have I got this wrong?
You've got it right. The point of Helix Maintenance Manager is to do unattended maintenance.
Because it isn't really designed for that. Helix Maintenance Manager is an OS X only product, and is designed for operation in an OS X world. Helix Server 5 is an OS 9 product, and it can't be safely run in Classic under OS X. Helix 6 Server and utilities are OS X native applications and work seamlessly with HMM.
We knew that releasing Helix Maintenance Manager before we shipped a Helix Server that runs natively in OS X would complicate matters, but we were facing a dilemma: we move forward almost entirely on funds we get from users who purchase our products. At that time our income was down and OS X work was slowed because of it. Helix Maintenance Manager was ready to ship, so we decided to sell it, using those sales to generate income to finish the work on Helix Server 6.
Also: Helix Maintenance Manager does work with Helix Server 5.x. You just have to understand the fine points of Mac OS networking. We provide many example scripts in the manual to show you various methods of accomplishing this. However there is no "one size fits all" answer, so if you want to use Helix Maintenance Manager with Helix Server 5.x, you will have to roll up your sleeves, learn some scripting, and devise a solution that works for you.
Plus: Helix Maintenance Manager works with Helix 5.x/6.x RADE and Engine running in Classic mode. RADE and Engine customers also benefit from this product.
If you are a Helix RADE or Engine user, you're all set.
If you are a Helix Server user and you aren't proficient in scripting Mac OS networking, your choices are:
- Upgrade to Helix Server 6
- Learn to write AppleScriptor
- Hire somebody to write scripts for you
Because of the technological and chronological issues we've outlined, getting Helix Maintenance Manager to work with Helix Server 5.x is not a simple task. One of our goals in building Helix Maintenance Manager was to provide enough hooks so that you have power to customize it to provide features beyond the basic features. You can write extensions to Helix Maintenance Manager in any language (AppleScript, Python, Java, xCode...) you choose, as long as the language creates proper MacOS applications.