Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

OS X & Recent Servers

Click on your Apple, then click on Servers. Here, you’ll see a list of the recent servers you’ve logged into.

Screen Shot 2013-10-20 at 6.42.34 PM

Now open a Connect to Server dialog (Command-K) and then click the disclosure triangle for the recent servers.

Screen Shot 2013-10-20 at 6.45.41 PM

There are two different values here. How’s that possible? Well, the first list mirrors the ~/Library/com.apple.NetAuthAgent.plist contents. To view the contents use defaults to read the domain:

defaults read com.apple.NetAuthAgent

Which shows the following information, mirroring the list shown in the first screenshot (Servers under the Recent Items list of the Apple menu):

{
PreviouslySelectedShares = {
"10.1.1.6" = (
"_JOBS1"
);
"192.168.210.175" = (
Desktop
);
"192.168.55.2" = (
318SERVER,
"Disk Images"
);
"192.168.56.111" = (
Desktop
);
"192.168.56.250" = (
Desktop
);
san = (
"_JOBS2"
);
};
}

The second list mirrors the Hosts array in the com.apple.recentitems.plist file in ~/Library/Preferences. This file also contains the protocols for each item in the list, as well as a MaxAmount, which can configure the maximum number of objects displayed in the list. To read, again use defaults to read, but this time view the contents of com.apple.recentitems:

defaults read com.apple.recentitems

Which displays the following:

{
Hosts = {
Controller = CustomListItems;
CustomListItems = (
{
Name = 318server;
URL = "afp://192.168.55.2";
},
{
Name = mdm;
URL = "afp://192.168.56.250";
},
{
Name = pretendco09934;
URL = "afp://192.168.210.175";
},
{
Name = "Mavericks Server";
URL = "afp://192.168.56.111";
},
{
Name = SAN;
URL = "afp://10.1.1.6";
},
{
Name = san;
URL = "smb://san";
}
);
MaxAmount = 10;
};

You can also view the rest of this file and see the recent applications, recent files, etc.