• Active Directory,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Automatically assign admin rights in OS X based on Active Directory group membership

    Thanks to Tedd Kidd for the following article, on automatically managing administrative privileges based on Active Directory groups! This is a quick and easy way to assign any user to the local admin group in OS X based on their group membership in your Active Directory. This should also work with Open Directory or eDirectory groups if your workstations are bound to those directory services. You’ll need to include this code in the workstation login script so that it runs as root but uses the $@ variable to determine the user that is logging in. #!/bin/bash # Set group name to check against groupname=”domain admins” if [ “`/usr/bin/dsmemberutil checkmembership -U…

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

    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…

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

    Managing iTunes en Masse

    iTunes is cool.  But there are some features that many organizations want to limit as when they are used by a large number of people they can become problematic.  Apple allows you to manage iTunes for Windows and Mac OS X clients.  For Windows, there are a number of registry keys that can be used and for Mac OS X there is the ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iTunes.plist file, or more importantly the ability to Add the aforementioned file into the Workgroup Manager Managed Preferences.  Once added you will be able to set a number of options to manage, including the following (which are self explanatory for the most part): allowiTunesUAccess disableAppleTV disableAutomaticDeviceSync disableCheckForUpdates…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mass Deployment

    Kace and Mac OS X

    KBOX supports package distribution and inventory management for Mac OS X.  KBOX is more commonly known though, for providing imaging, software distribution and inventory management for Windows environments.  But the imaging is what’s missing in the offering for Mac OS X.  So if you’re planning a KBOX deployment then consider going ahead and also planning a NetInstall, NetRestore or InstaDMG deployment to go right along with it for your Mac environment.