Removing A Credit Card From An AppleID

Sometimes you deploy iOS based devices with iTunes. There are a number of factors that can still force you into iTunes based deployments, such as needing the icons to appear a certain way in iOS. It’s not optimal but it happens. And sometimes you need to give an iPad or iPhone to a user leveraging an existing AppleID that will have a password known by multiple users. Again, not the right way, but there are design requirements that cause you to do it from time to time.

And if you’re using a shared account, one of the last things you want is for users to actually buy stuff with that shared account. Because you might have used that account and connected a credit card to it, it can come up from time to time that you then need to disable that card. Again, none of this is optimal, but it happens.

To remove the card, first open up iTunes.

From here, click on the AppleID in the upper right hand corner of the screen (the email address the account was registered with, usually) and select Account from the drop-down list.

Once the account page loads, click on Edit beside the Payment Type.

At the Edit Payment Information screen, click on None (the big red arrow isn’t actually on the screen at this point, btw).

Then click on Done and there won’t be a payment funding source attached to the account any longer. This can cause a few minor issues with deployments, but turns out way better than having tons of explicit content downloaded to devices using your organizations funds…

Posted on May 16, 2012 at 5:00 am by Charles · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: iPhone, Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, MobileMe · Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Video On Setting Up Software Update Services In Lion Server

New User Submission Page

I have now opened up the site to user submissions and built a page to submit content. I’ve also tweaked the layout a little more to make things load faster and cleaned up the nav bar so that the Submit button can take you to the submission page. I hope to see some pretty awesome submissions after slaving away on the forms!

A couple of notes on submissions:

The submission page is here: http://krypted.com/submissions

Posted on May 12, 2012 at 12:04 pm by Charles · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: sites · Tagged with: , , ,

I <3 Google Drive for Mac OS X

Google recently decided that it was time to force some other company to buy cloudy dispositioned upstarts, Dropbox and Box.net. Google also decided that Office365 represented Microsoft being a little too brazen in their attempts to counteract the inroads that Google has made into Microsoft territory. Therefor, Google thumped their chest and gave away 5GB of storage in Google Drive. Google then released a tool that synchronizes data stored on a Google Drive to Macs and Windows systems.

Installing Google Drive is pretty easy. Just browse to Google Docs and Google will tell you that there’s this weird new Google Drive thing you should check out.

Here, click on Download Google Drive for Mac (or Windows if you use Windows). Then agree to give your first born to Google (but don’t worry, they’d never collect on that debt ’cause they’re sworn to do no evil).

Once downloaded, run the installer. You can link directly to your documents now using https://drive.google.com.

The only real question the installer asks is whether you’d like to automatically sync your Google Drive to the computer. I said yes, but if you’ve got a smallish drive you might decide not to. Once the Google Drive application has been downloaded and installed, open it (by default it’s set to open at startup). You’ll then see a icon in the menu bar that looks a little like a recycling symbol. Here, click on Open Google Drive folder.

The folder with your Google Docs then shows up on your desktop. Copy an item in there and it syncs up to Google. It can then easily be shared through the Google Apps web portal and accessed from other systems.

While there are still a number of features that Box.net and Dropbox will give you due to the fact that they’re a bit more mature, I’d expect Google Drive to catch up fast. And given that I already have tons of documents in Google Docs, it is nice to have them saved down to my local system. I’m now faced with an interesting new challenge: where to draw the line in my workflow between Google Drive, Dropbox and Box.net. Not a bad problem to have, really! Given the frustrations of having things strewn all over the place I’ll want to minimize some of the haphazardness I’ve practiced with regards to why I put things in different places in the past. In some cases I need to be able to email to folders, have expiring links or to have extended attributes sync between services, so there are some aspects that are likely to be case-by-case… Overall though, I’m very happy with the version 1 release of Google Drive. I mean, who complains about free stuff!?!?!

Posted on May 11, 2012 at 10:32 am by Charles · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: cloud, Mac OS X · Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,

Video On Setting Up Users and Groups In Lion Server

Posted on May 10, 2012 at 8:00 am by Charles · Permalink · Leave a comment
In: iPhone, Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, Mac Security, Mass Deployment

Video on Setting Up Profile Manager in Lion Server

Lights Out Managing Mac Mini Servers with Vera

There is no Lights Out Management for a Mac mini Server (btw, am I the only one that noticed that these are now called Mac mini with Lion Server, where mini isn’t capitalized). While the Mac mini Server doesn’t have the Lights Out Management (LOM)/IPMI chips in it, there are a few things that we can control anyway. Convention would say that we’d get a NetBotz card for that spiffy APC we’ve got, which can do minor automation and even a little environmental monitoring. And there are a few other systems out there that can do similar tasks.

But I’m a home automation nerd these days. So I decided to look into whether my Vera can manage my mini Server botnet and what I might be getting or sacrificing. First, let’s define what we did with LOM. The first and most important is, when the system crashed, we rebooted the server. The second aspect was to maybe wake the thing up, with the 3rd to monitor the components of the system. Let’s look at the first, most important thing, rebooting.

I’m going to start with a Vera. The setup process for Vera is similar to that of a LinkSys, where you give the device an IP and then go a step further by signing up for the MiOS portal, used to remotely control the Vera through a secure tunnel. Then I’m going to add an appliance module to the system. Notably, I want a ground, so I’m going to add the Wayne-Dalton HA-04WD HomeSettings Outdoor Appliance Module. The device can be added to Vera pretty easily. To do so, open Vera and click on DEVICES and then on Add Devices in the subnav bar. From here, click on Add in the first row.

Then scroll down a little and click on Option 1.

The system will then scan for a device. At this point, you’ll see a screen telling you to manage the device. At this point, I just press the button on the device to pair it to the Z-wave network.

Once the device is seen by the Vera, we can go ahead and click on the Next button (by default they’re seen as light switches).

At the next screen, you’ll see a screen with a field you can type in. Here, provide a name for the device and give it a room that the device is in (if you’re using rooms). Click on Close and then Save (big red button after you click Close).

Click on the Continue button to commit the save and you should see your new device listed in All Devices.

At this point, click on the On and Off switches to turn systems on and off. From System Preferences, go to Energy Saver and then check the box for Restart automatically

We’ve now achieved the first goal, having a way to physically turn on and off a Mac mini with Lion Server. Better than LOM, we can do so using a web interface or an iOS app. While the lack of so many moving parts has reduced the need for environmental monitoring, we want to monitor the environment outside the box, the environment inside the box and whether the box has developed any human emotions. To monitor the environment outside the box, I’m using one of the many Z-wave thermostats available. I plan on replacing it with a Temperature and Humidity Sensor, so I can put a sensor right by the machine instead of just monitoring the temperature of the room. I also like the idea of seeing moisture levels, but that’s aside from the point.

Monitoring the inside of the system is really easy, since Apple has built snmp into Mac OS X and a quick snmpwalk will show me most everything I need to know about a box. For that, let’s just remove the default snmpd.conf file:

rm /etc/snmp/snmpd.conf

And then run snmpconf -i to create a new snmpd.conf file. This is interactive, so use option 1 and then choose the settings that work best for whatever monitoring software you’re using. With the loss of Lithium, I am a big fan of Nagios and Dartware’s Intermapper, but there are a number of other solutions that I would look at as well. Either way, this can be a very cumbersome aspect if you let it. Once you’ve configured snmpd.conf, restart it (assuming it’s running):

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.net-snmp.snmpd.plist
launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.net-snmp.snmpd.plist

Next, to wake up the server, we can use Wake on LAN (note that wake for network access is in the Energy Saver System Preference pane). We can also monitor the server’s IP address (ping/ICMP) and even activate a camera in the event that a motion sensor is tripped. I’ll look at these in a future automation article, where we’ll reboot the server automatically in the event that it goes offline and maybe even control an IR blaster to turn on the TV when status bars are running on the server (we might also hook up a coffee pot so we can stay awake while waiting for Lion to download during some upgrades). But for now, suffice it to say that at this point, we have some of what we had with LOM on an Xserve. It’s not everything and it’s not really pretty. But it works and would cost about the same as a module for that APC you’ve got sitting around, while also laying the groundwork for much more home and small office/small data center automation – and at about $25 per additional device, it’s priced pretty well all things considered.

Finally, if that snmp-based monitoring system happens to need to restart the devices, there’s also an API for Vera, documented at http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Luup_Requests. Being able to script an snmp-generated event that kicks off some kind of triggered response with a grid of devices is pretty cool, and while I hope to cover it eventually, I’m not sure exactly when I’ll end up with time, so might be awhile…

MacSysAdmin 2012!

MacSysAdmin has quickly become one of my favorite conferences to attend. I love the high level of technical acumen and the chance to row a canoe from Minneapolis to Gothenburg, Sweden, which is a serious workout, let me tell you! The 2012 lineup boasts one of the politest guys I know in Arek Dreyer, my coworker Zack Smith, Andrew Renz (of Code 42/CrashPlan fame), the well dressed (and spoken) Ed Marczak, the great Greg Neagle (Munki/Repasado/awesome guy), Alan Gordon’s alter-ego Alan Gordon, the JAMFerific Andrina Kelly, the ostentatious Duncan McCracken, Rick Wylie, Gary Larizza, Luis Giraldo in all his wireless awesomeness, Sébastien Tomasi (representing the file set goodness that is FileWave) and someone I told Tycho he simply had to add to the list of speakers after last years event was over, Per Olofsson (I’m sure my recommendation had little to do with his addition as he has plenty of merit, but I’m very excited to see him do his thing anyway). Oh and least of all, I’ll be there and hopefully my demos will work this year (or more likely be pre-recorded).


Many of the same speakers from last year, but all fresh content. More important than the speakers, the attendees are fun to be around and impressive (I sure wish that H1 Visas were easier to come by in the US). I can’t think of a group of people I’d rather be around! The most important aspect, the content, will be focusing on large scale Mac administration, with sprinklings of Mac servers and other oddities. A great overall look and feel to the program. Even a little iOS in there…

The conference will again be held at Folkets Hus, in Göteborg, Sweden. The dictator will again be the enigmatic Tycho, who always facilitates a great event. After last year, I left there wishing I could stay for a few more weeks with that brain trust! It really is an impressive collection of people and I hope to see you there!

Video ON Setting Up File Sharing Services In Lion Server

2012 Penn State MacAdmins Slides