• 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…

  • Mac OS X

    Suppressing Time Machine on Disk Mount

    By default, when you are using Time Machine in Mac OS X, every time you insert a drive the system will ask you if you would like to use that drive as a Time Machine backup destination.  If you are like me and you swap drives around a lot then this can get annoying.  So to stop it you can actually just disable a launchd System Daemon, com.apple.backupd-attach.  To do so, simply move the /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-attach.plist to another location and viola, on the next restart when you attach a disk Time Machine won’t ask you if you wish to add the disk to your Time Machine destinations. /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.backupd-attach.plist While this is one…