• Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    NFS. Not… Dead… Yet…

    NFS may just never die. I’ve seen many an xsan covert to NFS-based storage with dedicated pipes and less infrastructure requirements. I’m rarely concerned about debating the merits of technology but usually interested in mapping out a nice workflow despite said merits. So in the beginning… there is rpc. Why? Because before we establish a connection to an nfs share, we first want to check that we can talk to the system hosting it. Do so with rpcinfo: rpcinfo server.pretendco.com Now that we’ve established that we can actually communicate with the system, let’s use the mount command (for more on creating mounts see `man exports`). Here, we’ll  mount -t nfs…

  • Uncategorized

    Configure A Mavericks File Server

    File Services are perhaps the most important aspect of any server because file servers are often the first server an organization purchases. There are a number of protocols built into OS X Mavericks Server dedicated to serving files, including AFP, SMB and WebDAV. These services, combined comprise the File Sharing service in OS X Mavericks Server (Server 3). File servers have shares. In OS X Mavericks Server we refer to these as Share Points. By default: File Sharing has some built-in Share Points that not all environments will require. Each of these shares is also served by AFP and SMB, something else you might not want (many purely Mac environments…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Network Infrastructure

    The Cumulus Command Line Interface

    Cumulus comes with a number of commands installed in /usr/local/Cumulus_Workgroup_Server. The assets can be in a shared directory location, such as an NFS mount mapped to /cumulus or /Volumes/Cumulus. But in the /usr/local/Cumulus_Workgroup_Server directory there are a number of commands that can be pretty useful. For example, the stop-admin, stop-cumulus, start-cumulus and start-admin commands can be used to restart the Cumulus using a simple ARD template: /usr/local/Cumulus_Workgroup_Server/stop-admin.sh /usr/local/Cumulus_Workgroup_Server/stop-cumulus.sh sleep 30 /usr/local/Cumulus_Workgroup_Server/start-cumulus.sh /usr/local/Cumulus_Workgroup_Server/start-admin.sh There are others, such as status.sh, which shows size of repository, PIDs, and the time running. The repair.sh can be used to repair the database and remove-admin.sh and remove-cumulus.sh can uninstall the admin console and cumulus servers respectively…

  • Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    Forcing NFS to Use TCP

    NFS has 3 settings in Lion Server: nbDaemons, the number of NFS daemons, useTCP, whether or not TCP is used and useUDP, whether or not udp is used. To disable UDP forces TCP: serveradmin settings nfs:useUDP = 0 Or to turn UDP back on: serveradmin settings nfs:useUDP = 1 To disable TCP if you’d rather just use UDP: serveradmin settings nfs:useTCP = 0 Or to turn TCP back on: serveradmin settings nfs:useTCP = 1

  • Mac OS X Server,  Mass Deployment,  Ubuntu

    NFS + Ubuntu + Mac OS X Clients = A Quickie

    NFS is an old standby in the *nix world. It seems that it’s about as old as the hills and while it can be cranky at times, it’s pretty easy to setup, manage and use. Once it’s configured, you use it in a similar fashion as you do in Mac OS X Server. The client configuration is identical. To get started, let’s install the nfs-kernel-server, nfs-common and portmap packages on our Ubuntu 10.04 box: apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap Then let’s create a directory to share (aka export): mkdir /Homes Then we need to define the permissions for /Homes (ends up similar in functionality to the export to option in…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mass Deployment,  Ubuntu,  Unix,  Xsan

    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…