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

    Enable The Built-In Web Server In OS X

    OS X has a built-in web server called Apache. It’s been there for a long, long time. Once upon a time, you could enable web sharing using System Preferences. This is no longer a feature in the Sharing System Preference pane, but you can actually enable it quicker than you could before. To do so, we’ll use apachectl: /usr/sbin/apachectl start To then stop the web server: /usr/sbin/apachectl stop To see the apache status: /usr/sbin/apachectl status Or: /usr/sbin/apachectl fullstatus The default site is stored in /Library/WebServer/Documents. You can then edit this there, or replace the index.html.en file with a file/hierarchy that you wish to have. Enjoy.

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

    Command Line Firewall Management In OS X 10.10

    The tools to automate OS X firewall events from the command line are still stored in /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall. And you will still use socketfilterfw there for much of the heavy lifting. However, now there are much more helpful and functional options in socketfilterfw that will allow you to more easily script the firewall. Some tricks I’ve picked up with the Mac Firewall/alf scripting: Configure the firewall fully before turning it on (especially if you’re doing so through something like Casper, FileWave, Munki, or Absolute Manage where you might kick yourself out of your session otherwise). Whatever you do, you can always reset things back to defaults by removing the com.apple.alf.plist file…

  • Active Directory,  Windows Server

    Setting Up Active Directory In Windows Server 2012

    Installing Active Directory services is arguably one of the first things done on many a Windows Server. And for well over a decade you could unbox, update, run dcpromo and be done with much of that. While the wizards are still there, in the case of Windows Server 2012, the process has changed ever-so-slightly. To install a domain controller in Windows Server 2012, start with Server Manager. This new tool is the place where you start many a process in a Windows Server now, and Active Directory is no different. To get started, first open Server Manager. From Server Manager, click on the Manage menu and select Add Roles and…

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

    Setting Up The Messages Service In Mountain Lion Server

    iChat Server was sooooo easy to configure. iChat Server is now Messages Server. Both use the open source jabber project as their back-end code base. Lucky us, all Apple did in the latest iteration is change the name of the service in the Server app, leaving the command line effectively untouched. The paths to things serverish have changed. The jabberd binary is now at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/private/var/jabberd and the autobuddy binary is at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/bin/jabber_autobuddy. Given the importance of having multiple binaries that do the same thing, another jabberd binary is also stored at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/libexec/jabberd. Note that the man page says it’s in /etc. But I digress. Setting up the Messages service is simple. Open the…

  • Mac OS X,  Mass Deployment

    Pinning Down Your Dock

    The Dock is, by default, anchored to the middle of the screen. However, in some environments you may want to have it skewed to one side of the screen. In order to do this Apple provides the ability to use pinning. Pinning will pin the dock to the start, end or middle; by default it’s pinned to the middle. If you pin the dock to the start and it’s either on the right or left side of the screen then it will appear to be skewed towards the top. If you pin it to the start and it’s on the bottom then it will skew to the left of the…