• JAMF,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Add Jamf Pro Smart Group to a Google Doc Using Zapier

    In this article, we’ll cover how to use Zapier to connect data from your Jamf Account to a Google sheet. Once you build a WebHooks receiver in Zapier, you don’t have to use Google as the third party service that your WebHook triggers. You could use any other service that Zapier integrates as well, including Mailchimp, WordPress, Shopify, Todoist, ZenDesk, SurveyMonkey, Freshdesk, Quickbooks, Basecamp, and about 1,200 other solutions. In other words, you can link a WebHook from Jamf Pro into pretty much any automated service that you can think of! So what’s a WebHook? A WebHook is an HTTP callback, or an HTTP POST that is fired when an event…

  • cloud,  Mac OS X,  Mac Security

    Reset Connections To ApplePay and Health With ckksctl

    I’ve seen a few issues now where ApplePay and Health stopped working properly on a Mac and iOS device and when you fixed one, it seemed to wreck the connection with the other. Turns out that the information on a local system is managed with the new(ish) ckksctl command. Using ckksctl is pretty straight forward. First, let’s look at what’s on the Mac, using the ckksctl command with the status verb: /usr/sbin/ckksctl status There will be a section for ApplePay and another for Health. Here, if the services are configured, you should see the following in that section: CloudKit account: logged in Now, let’s force a pull of what’s in…

  • Mac OS X

    Move From Hosting Files From A macOS Server To A macOS Client

    Migrating file services from a macOS Server to a macOS Client can be a bit traumatic at first. Mostly because the thought itself can be a bit daunting. But once you get started, it’s pretty simple. Mostly because there’s less to do. And that can be a challenge. While there are ways to hack together solutions for network homes and other more advanced features, if you’re doing that, then you’re missing a key point here.  Let’s start by documenting our existing share points. We’ll do this with the serveradmin command and using the settings verb for the sharing service as follows: sudo serveradmin settings sharing Each share is an item…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Inspecting and creating Mac installer packages on Linux

    Awhile back, I wrote a tool to rewrap ipa files that I called ipasign: https://github.com/krypted/ipasign/blob/master/ipasign.py. But I wanted to do something similar for the Mac, and specifically have it run in Linux. So looking at what you’d need to be able to do, let’s start with viewing the contents of a flattened Apple package. This command will show you the files installed as a part of the Node JS package. Why did I choose that package? It was sitting on my desktop… pkgutil --files org.nodejs.node.pkg Now, this logic is available because you’re running pkgutil on a Mac. But that can’t run in Linux. So what would you do if you wanted…

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

    The ins and outs of using tmutil to backup, restore, and review Time Machine backups

    Since some of the more interesting features of Time Machine Server are gone, let’s talk about doing even more than what was previously available in that interface by using the command line to access Time Machine. As with any other command, you should probably start by reading the man page. For Time Machine, that would be: man tmutil Sometimes, the incantation of the command you’re looking for might even be available at the bottom of the man page. Feel free to use the space bar a few times to skip to the bottom, or q to quit the man interface. In addition to the man page, there’s a help command,…

  • Mac OS X

    Backup Macs with Carbonite

    Carbonite is a great tool for backing up Macs and Windows devices. To install Carbonite, download it from www.carbonite.com. Once downloaded, copy the app to the /Applications directory and open the app.  The Carbonite app will then install the components required to support the backup operations and index the drive.Next, you’ll see some basic folders that will be backed up. Check the box for those you want to add to the backup (or do this later) and click the Install button.  Click Open Carbonite. Notice that the backup has begun! The only really customer-installable action is to select the directories to be backed up, which is done using the left-hand sidebar. …

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    DNS: Install BIND on macOS

    The DNS service in macOS Server was simple to setup and manage. It’s a bit more manual in macOS without macOS Server. The underlying service that provides DNS is Bind. Bind will require a compiler to install, so first make sure you have the Xcode command line tools installed. To download Bind, go to ISC at https://www.isc.org/downloads/. From there, copy the installer locally and extract the tar file. Once that’s extracted, run the configure from within the extracted directory: ./configure --enable-symtable=none --infodir="/usr/share/info" --sysconfdir="/etc" --localstatedir="/var" --enable-atomic="no" --with-gssapi=yes --with-libxml2=no Next, run make: make Then run make install: make install Now download a LaunchDaemon plist (I just stole this from the org.isc.named.plist on a…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac Security

    Use Backblaze to Backup Mac

    Backblaze is a great cloud and on-prem backup tool for Mac and Windows. You can download Backblaze at https://secure.backblaze.com/download.htm. Once downloaded, extract the DMG and open the Backblaze Installer. At the Installer screen, enter your existing credentials or create a new account and click Install Now.The drive will then be analyzed for backup.By default, once the analysis is complete, the computer will immediately start backing up to the Backblaze cloud. Let’s click on the Settings button to configure how the Backblaze app will work.This opens the Backblaze System Preference pane. At the Settings tab, you’ll see a list of drives to back up and an option to set when to receive warnings…