Yosemite brought Xsan 4, which included a whole new way to add clients to an Xsan. Xsan Admin is gone. From now on, instead of scanning the network using Xsan Admin. we’ll be adding clients using a Configuration Profile. This is actually a much more similar process to adding Xsan clients to a StorNext environment than it is to adding clients to Metadata Controllers running Xsan 3 and below. But instead of making a fsnameservers file, we’re plugging that information into a profile, which will do that work on the client on our behalf. To make the Xsan configuration profile, we’re going to use Profile Manager. With OS X Server 5, this trend…
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Using The Profiles Command In Yosemite
You can export profiles from Apple Configurator or Profile Manager (or some of the 3rd party MDM tools). You can then install profiles by just opening them and installing. Once profiles are installed on a Mac, mdmclient, a binary located in /usr/libexec will process changes such as wiping a system that has been FileVaulted (note you need to FileVault if you want to wipe an OS X Lion client computer). /System/Library/LaunchDaemons and /System/Library/LaunchAgents has a mdmclient daemon and agent respectively that start it up automatically. To script profile deployment, administrators can add and remove configuration profiles using the new /usr/bin/profiles command. To see all profiles, aggregated, use the profiles command…
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New Startup Profiles In OS X 10.9 Mavericks Profiles Command
I wrote an article on using the profiles command awhile back, available at https://krypted.com//mac-security/profile-manager-and-profiles/. There is a nifty new feature in the profiles command in Mavericks, where you can configure profiles to install at the next boot, rather than immediately. Use the -s to define a startup profile and take note that if it fails, the profile will attempt to install at each subsequent reboot until installed. To use the command, simply add a -s then the -F for the profile and the -f to automatically confirm, as follows (and I like to throw in a -v usually for good measure): profiles -s -F /Profiles/SuperAwesome.mobileconfig -f -v And that’s it. Nice…
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Using Apple Configurator For Automated Enrollment
I have covered Apple Configurator in a couple of different articles already. But one question I’ve gotten a number of times is how to do automated enrollment of iOS devices into an MDM solution, such as Profile Manager. Each device that gets enrolled into Profile Manager will require a Trust Profile (installed under the Profiles tab of the MyDevices portal) and an Enrollment Profile (installed under the Devices tab of the MyDevices portal). The Trust Profile requires about 3 or 4 taps to install and the Enrollment Profile requires about the same. The best way I’ve seen for doing automated enrollment is actually to do semi-automated enrollment. Basically, each device…
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Exporting Information From iPhone Configuration Utility
In a previous post I looked at automating iPhone and iPad deployment. There, we looked at the iPhone Configuration Utility. Now that Profile Manager is built into Mac OS X Server in Lion, and with the number of 3rd party MDM solutions on the market, many users of iPhone Configuration Utility are looking to extract information from it and move it into other places. Many of these places can import property lists. If you look at the file header for .mobileconfig and .deviceinfo files you’ll notice that they begin with the familiar: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"><dict> Given that .mobileconfig and .deviceinfo files…
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Automating iPhone & iPad Deployment
The iPhone Configuration Utility is used to “image” iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The reason I quoted image was because you aren’t laying bits down as you would in a traditional imaging scenario. Instead, you are sending a profile and possibly some applications to the device. This is done through a configuration profile, which is a property list, prefixed with a .mobileconfig extension. The iPhone Configuration Utility stores its data in the ~/Library/MobileDevice directory. Here, you will find two directories: Devices – Contains the Device data for each device that has been docked to the iPhone Configuration Utility. Configuration Profiles – Contains the profiles that you will assign to devices…