Mavericks Server comes with a few new alerting options previously unavailable in versions of OS X. The alerts are sent to administrators via servermgrd and configured in the Server app (Server 3). To configure alerts in Mavericks Server, open the Server app and then click on Alerts in the Server app sidebar. Next, click on the Delivery tab. At the Delivery screen, click on the Edit button for Email Addresses and enter every email address that should receive alerts sent from the server. Then click on the Edit button for Push Notifications. Here, check the box for each administrator of the server. The email address on file for the user…
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Cascade Software Update Servers in Mavericks Server
The swupd.plist file used to daisy chain multiple servers so they act as a cascade of software update servers. The new path for the property list is /Library/Server/Software Update/Config/swupd.plist. Here, the metaIndexURL key is sill the location that points to an internal Software Update Server that the server you are editing should look to for updates. To set a server to look at another internal server for software updates, edit the metaIndexURL key in the /Library/Server/Software Update/Config/swupd.plist file to include the path to the new server. The path should always have /content/meta/mirror-config-1.plist after the FQDN of the host name. So if your internal software update server was called daneel.foundation.lan the…
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Mavericks Server Logs
OS X Mavericks has a lot of scripts used for enabling services, setting states, changing hostnames and the like. Once upon a time there was a script for OS X Server called server setup. It was a beautiful but too simplistic kind of script. Today, much of that logic has been moved out into more granular scripts, kept in /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/ServerSetup, used by the server to perform all kinds of tasks. These scripts are, like a lot of other things in Mountain Lion Server. Some of these include the configuration of amavisd, docecot and alerts. These scripts can also be used for migrating services and data, such as /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/ServerSetup/MigrationExtras/30-ipfwmigrator. Sometimes the…
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Obtain Information About OS X Server Using serverinfo in Mavericks Server
OS X Mavericks Server (Server 3) comes with the /usr/sbin/serverinfo command (introduced in Mountain Lion Server). The serverinfo command is useful when programmatically obtaining information about the very basic state of an Apple Server. The first option indicates whether the Server app has been downloaded from the app store, which is the –software option: serverinfo --software When used, this option reports the following if the Server.app can be found: This system has server software installed. Or if the software cannot be found, the following is indicated: This system does NOT have server software installed. The –productname option determines the name of the software app: serverinfo --productname If you change the…
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Enable SSH, ARD, SNMP & the Remote Server App Use In OS X Server (Mavericks)
SSH allows administrators to connect to another computer using a secure shell, or command line environment. ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) allows screen sharing, remote scripts and other administrative goodness. SNMP allows for remote monitoring of a server. You can also connect to a server using the Server app running on a client computer. To enable all of these except SNMP, open the Server app (Server 3), click on the name of the server, click the Settings tab and then click on the checkbox for what you’d like to enter. All of these can be enabled and managed from the command line as well. The traditional way to enable Apple Remote…
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Use Server Admin Web Modules In Mavericks Server
Since the early days, OS X Server has supported performing the serveradmin commands through a web interface. This interface was accessible at the address of the server followed by a colon and then 311 in a web browser. This feature was disabled by default in Mountain Lion. But fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true, so we’re going to turn it back on here in Server 3. To enable, use the following command: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.servermgrd requireUserAgent -bool false Once done, open https://127.0.0.1:311 in a web browser, or replace 127.0.0.1 with the address of the server if accessing from another location. This is…
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Configure DHCP in Mavericks Server
DHCP, or Dynamic Host Control Protocol, is the service used to hand out IP addresses and other network settings by network appliances and servers. The DHCP Server built into OS X Server 3, installed on Mavericks Server is easy-to-use and fast. It’s pretty transparent, just as DHCP services should be. To install the service, open the Server app and then click on the Show button beside Advanced in the server sidebar. Then click on DHCP. At the DHCP screen, you’ll see two tabs: Settings, used for managing the service and Clients, used to see leases in use by computers that obtain IP address information from the server. You’ll also see…
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Changing the Xcode Server Log Path in OS X 10.9 Mavericks Server
The logs in Xcode Server (Server 3) by default point to /Library/Server/XcodeLogs/credserver.log. This takes all of the output from xcscredd and xcscredhandler. If you’re doing a lot of debugging then logs can be pointed to another location, such as another drive. The path to the logs is defined in the /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/LogConfiguration directory. The file to edit is a standard property list, XCSCredentialServer.plist. Once open, look for a key called logPath. Change that to the desired path, such as /Volumes/MyDrive/Logs/credserver.log and then restart the service: serveradmin stop xcode; serveradmin start xcode
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OS X 10.9 Mavericks Makes fdesetup A Bit More Useful
Previously I’ve written a little here and there about using FileVault and more specifically scripting things around Filevault. The fdesetup command that enables FileVault for OS X clients from the command line got a few new options in OS X 10.9 Mavericks. We’ve always been able to enable FileVault using scripts thanks to fdesetup but now Apple’s taken some of the difficulty out of configuring recovery keys. This comes in the form of the changerecovery, haspersonalrecoverykey, hasinstitutionalkey, usingrecoverykey and validate recovery options. These options all revolve around one idea: make it easier to deploy centrally managed keys that can be used to unlock encrypted volumes in the event that such an…
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New statshares Option in the smbutil command For OS X 10.9 Mavericks
I wrote about using the smbutil for DFS in Lion awhile back. I haven’t needed to write anything else as it hadn’t changed since. But in OS X 10.9 Mavericks, a new option for smbutil appears: statshares. The statshares option has an -m option to look at a mount path for showing the path to the mount (e.g. if the mount is called krypted this should be something like /Volumes/krypted): smbutil statshares -m /Volumes/krypted When run, you see a list of all the attributes OS X tracks for that mount path, including the name of the server, the user ID (octal), how SMB negotiated an authentication, what version of SMB…