The Time Machine service in Mountain Lion Server hasn’t changed much from the service in Lion Server. To enable the Time Machine service, open the Server app, click on Time Machine in the SERVICES sidebar. If the service hasn’t been enabled to date, the ON/OFF switch will be in the OFF position and no “Backup destination” will be shown in the Settings pane. Click on the ON button to see a list of volumes to use as a destination for Time Machine backups. This should be large enough to have space for all of the users that can potentially use the Time Machine service hosted on the server. When you…
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Missing Server.app Settings for AFP
Earlier, I wrote an article on enabling some of the settings in SMB that are now unavailable in the GUI, but were still available from the command line. I have now decided to go ahead an document some of the ones for AFP that have been removed during the transition to the Server app. The first to mention is maximum connections. There are a number of reasons that throttling maximum afp connections can be handy. The serveradmin afp setting for it is maxConnections, which by default is set to -1, indicating unlimited. To set this to 500, one would run: serveradmin settings afp:maxConnections = 500 The second setting to mention…
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Video ON Setting Up File Sharing Services In Lion Server
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Managing iOS Devices with Apple Configurator
My traditional interpretation of Apple’s vision on how iOS devices are used is that everyone has an AppleID. That AppleID enables them to access their apps from any iOS device they own or Mac that they own. That AppleID enables them to access mail, contacts, calendars and even files through iCloud. That AppleID also allows users to remotely wipe their device through Find iPhone and track their friends iOS devices (as in social networking via breadcrumb tracking) through Find Friends. All of this “Just Works” in a consumer sense. And it even allows for a little sharing of content across devices you own. However, larger organizations need more. They need…
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The Xserve Has Been Discontinued
The Xserve has officially been discontinued by Apple and will no longer be sold after January, 2011. Mac OS X Server will still be available on Mac Mini and Mac Pro (which will be the only option for Metadata Controllers on Mac OS X). Apple has produced a transition guide, available here. I do like the Mac Mini server, I just can’t seem to fit a fibre channel card into them. Before the Xserve, we used to buy Marathon rack mount kits for G3 and G4 systems. I would anticipate that a new business will spring up that takes the place of the Xserve, putting Apple logic boards and CPUs…
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bdb and netatalk
I’ve been finding recently that practically every netatalk implementation is using bdb instead of cdb (the default), due to the fact that cdb seems to be more susceptable to corruption. To make this change, you open the netatalk configuration file at /etc/default/netatalk. Here you will see the following options: ATALKD_RUN=no PAPD_RUN=no CNID_METAD_RUN=no AFPD_RUN=yes TIMELORD_RUN=no A2BOOT_RUN=no To switch from cdb to the dbd scheme change CNID_METAD_RUN = no to CNID_METAD_RUN = yes. Save the netatalk file and then restart using the ‘netatalk restart’ command (with sudo or as root): /etc/init.d/netatalk restart No further changes need to be made in AppleVolumes.default or afpd.conf, but do be sure to check that the users…
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How to Get Hax0r'd
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Xsan: Small Files & AFP
Xsan can be used as the back end storage to provide front end network file share services for a Mac OS X environment. This isn’t to say that it will work like a charm without some fine tuning though. One of the most important tools you have in performance tuning any Xsan volume is the block size. As I’ve mentioned in the past, the stripe breadth multiplied by the block size should total out to about 1MB total. The stripe breadth on the storage pools is therefore going to need to be customized any time you change the block sizes for the volume. If you are using Xsan as a…
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Disable and Remove .DS_Store Files
In a number of environments, where SMB, AFP and other file sharing protocols are used with Mac OS X, Windows and Linux clients, there are a number of hidden files that Mac OS X leaves behind. For anyone who has managed an environment like this you’re likely to notice the .DS_Store files and potentially even have tried taking measures to get rid of them. However, try as you might they’re likely to have come back repeatedly. But you don’t have to live with them. You can tell your Windows clients not to show hidden files. From Windows XP, open an explorer.exe window (Windows Explorer, also accessible by browsing any folder…
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Reducing Inactive AFP Traffic
In Windows, when you have connected to a share, as with a mapped drive letter, that share shows as Active. At some point, if the client cannot communicate with the open session to a SMB/CIFS server the drive will appear to the Windows client as OFFLINE. AFP does something similar, but the result is a constant communication with the AFP server (at least constant as it is perceived from the Finder). While this communication may appear to be constant it is actually verified by the server every 30 seconds, and the AFP client software, if no poll is sent from the server, the client will also attempt to reach out…