I wrote about using the smbutil for DFS in Lion awhile back. I haven’t needed to write anything else as it hadn’t changed since. The statshares option has an -m option to look at a mount path for showing the path to the mount (e.g. if the mount is called krypted this should be something like /Volumes/krypted): smbutil statshares -m /Volumes/krypted When run, you see a list of all the attributes OS X tracks for that mount path, including the name of the server, the user ID (octal), how SMB negotiated an authentication, what version of SMB is running (e.g. SMB_1), the type of share and whether signing, extended security, Unix and…
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Install The Server 5.2 App On macOS Sierra
The first thing you’ll want to do on any server is get all software updates installed on the server (done using the App Store app). Then setup the networking for the computer so you’re not changing IP addresses and stuff like that, once the server is installed. To do so, open System Preferences (aka the Settings app, some day) and click on the Network System Preference pane. You will almost always want to use a wired Ethernet connection on a server, but in this case we’ll be using Wi-Fi. Here, click on the Wi-Fi interface and then click on the Advanced… button. At the setup screen for the interface, provide a good…
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Show The Software Update Service In Server 5.2 for macOS Sierra
By default, the Software Update Service, long a part of OS X Server, is hidden. This indicates the service is not likely to be long for this world. However, many an organization still likes to leverage cooling off periods for their Mac fleet. To see the service, once you’ve installed the Server app, open the Server app and then from the View menu, select Software Update. You’ll then see the Software Update service. If you click off of the service and close the app, it will be hidden again. If you enable the service, you will then see it each time you open the Server app. We’ll get into enabling the Software…
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Enable The Caching Service Using Server 5.2 on macOS Sierra
The Caching Server in OS X Server 5.2 (for Sierra) does content, apps, and software updates. The Software Update service is hidden by default indicating it will likely be removed from the Server app in a future update, although when is kinda’ up in the air. The Software Update service can still be enabled for now, which we’ll look at later. The Caching service on the Server app works like a proxy. When 10 of your users download that latest Nicholas Sparks book and movie, you only sacrifice your WAN pipe to download it once, and the other 9 people piggy-back off that. And when 10.12.1 ships, you only need to download it over…
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Precache Updated
Fixed an error that was causing downloads not to run. Enjoy. https://github.com/krypted/precache
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Delete User Configurable nvram In Sierra (10.12)
A nifty little feature of nvram is the ability to delete all of the firmware variables you’ve created. This can get helpful if you’ve got a bunch of things that you’ve done to a system and want to remove them all. If you run nvkram followed by a -p option you’ll see all of the configured firmware variables: nvram -p If you run it with a -d you’ll delete the given variables that you define (e.g. boot-args): nvram -d boot-args But, if you run the -c you’ll wipe them all: nvram -c
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Enable Push Notifications In macOS Server 5.2 On Sierra
Push Notifications can be used in most every service that macOS Server 5.2 (for Sierra) can run. Any service that requiring Push Notifications will often provide the ability to setup APNS during the configuration of the service. But at this point, I usually just set up Push Notifications when I setup a new server. To enable Push Notifications for services, you’ll first need to have a valid AppleID. Once you have an AppleID, open the Server app and then click on the name of the server. Then click on the Settings screen and click on the checkbox for Notifications. At the Settings screen for your server, click on the check-box for Apple…
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Demote Open Directory Servers Using The Command Line
The command to create and tear down an Open Directory environment is slapconfig. When you disable Open Directory from the Server app you aren’t actually removing users. To do so, you’d use slapconfig along with the -destroyldapserver. When run, you get a little insight into what’s happening behind the scenes. This results in the following: bash-3.2# slapconfig -destroyldapserver Note: Currently the system is not working as intended on replicas. The replica will remove, but the Open Directory Master will not remove the replica from the Open Directory list. The process will fail in 10.12 and above. I’ve filed a radar on this. You can archive and restore the master and then rebuilt…
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Use SSH, ARD, SNMP, And The Server App Remotely on Server 5.2
SSH allows administrators to connect to another computer using a secure shell, or command line environment. ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) allows screen sharing, remote scripts and other administrative goodness. You can also connect to a server using the Server app running on a client computer. To enable any or all of these, open the Server app (Server 5.2 for Sierra), click on the name of the server, click the Settings tab and then click on the checkbox for what you’d like to enter. All of these can be enabled and managed from the command line as well. The traditional way to enable Apple Remote Desktop is using the kickstart command.…
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Backup macOS Server 5.2 Settings On Sierra
We covered using Time Machine Server previously. Here, we’re going to look at backing up the settings of an OS X Server. To do so, we’re going to install a little app called Bender from the great folks at Robot Cloud. You can download that from http://robotcloud.screenstepslive.com/s/2459/m/5322/l/94467-bender-automated-backup-of-os-x-server-settings. Once downloaded, run the package installer. At the Welcome to Bender screen, click Continue. Agree to the licensing agreement by clicking the Continue button. Click Agree again (assuming of course that you agree to the license). Choose who you wish to install the software for and click Continue. I’d go ahead and install Bender at the default location, so click Install. Once the…