I thought there might be an easier way to do this. So there’s this binary called serverrails that I assumed would install rails – no wait, actually it’s a ruby script that tells me to ‘gem install rails’ – which fails: cat `which serverrails` #!/usr/bin/ruby # Stub rails command to load rails from Gems or print an error if not installed. require 'rubygems' version = ">= 0" if ARGV.first =~ /^_(.*)_$/ and Gem::Version.correct? $1 then version = $1 ARGV.shift end begin gem 'railties', version or raise rescue Exception puts 'Rails is not currently installed on this system. To get the latest version, simply type:' puts puts ' $ sudo gem…
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Clear Expired Shells In macOS
Recently, I got a strange message when trying to run a command: You have exceeded the maximum number of shell sessions. I’d seen a series of commands but never really needed to use them, so I ran: shell_session_delete_expired And viola, life was good. My command run. Of course, the next time I went to close the terminal correctly using the exit command. Upon doing so, I noticed: logout Saving session… …copying shared history… …saving history…truncating history files… …completed. [Process completed] So, I opened a new shell and ran: shell_session_update And go the same result. Same with: shell_session_save Fun.
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My quick and dirty notes from the Apple event
25 minutes about TV 13 and 14 inch pros, 14% thinner and comes in at 4 pounds – that’s extreme! Also 12% thinner than a MacBook Air, and 13% less volume 67% Brighter 25% more colors Core i7, Quad-core 2133MHz 4GB VRAM 3.1GB/s storage, up to 2TB, 50% faster storage New thinner thermal architecture, quite New Speakers, 2x dynamic range audio 130% 3d graphics 60% Gaming 57% Video Editor Intel Iris Graphics 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports 100Gbps, all those ports can be USB, thunderbolt, etc – AND OMG a headphone jack Phil didn’t iron his shirt Function keys are now different Force Touch Trackpad 2x larger Butterfly switch mechanism, responsive…
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Episode 13 Of The MacAdmins.Org Podcast Now Available
Stoked that we got to interview Michael Lynn (@mikeymikey) for the MacAdmins podcast. It turned out to be a great episode on the future of Mac management and MDM. I’m glad we were able to have him join in! Pepijn and Marcus did a great job as well, so all round, a great episode. Hope you enjoy! Or find it on the Podcast site at http://podcast.macadmins.org/2016/10/24/episode-13-mdm-me-maybe/
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Quick and Dirty OS Installations with startosinstall
Automating OS installations is going to eventually be about as easy on macOS as it is in iOS (er, if you have MDM that is). But in the meantime, it’s getting a bit more challenging. The obvious way Apple would prefer this to happen these days is via the startosinstall command that first shipped with El Capitan and with brtool getting moved around all the time, and becoming less of a thing, there’s one quick and easy thing you can do: sudo "/Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/startosinstall" --applicationpath "/Applications/Install macOS Sierra.app" --agreetolicense --nointeraction --volume /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD In the above command, we’ve dropped “Install macOS Sierra.app” on a machine. While you’d guess that…
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Configure The VPN Service In macOS Server 5.2
macOS Server has long had a VPN service to allow client computers to connect to a network even when they’re out of the office. The server was once capable of running the two most commonly used VPN protocols: PPTP and L2TP. And while PPTP is still accessible via the command line, L2TP is now configured by default when you setup the server using the Server app. Setting Up The VPN Service In OS X Server To setup the VPN service, open the Server app and click on VPN in the Server app sidebar. The VPN Settings screen has a number of options available, as seen here. The VPN Host Name field is used…
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Manage Time Machine Server In macOS Server 5.2
The Time Machine service in macOS Server 5.2 hasn’t changed much from the service in previous operating systems. To enable the Time Machine service, open the Server app, click on Time Machine in the SERVICES sidebar. If the service hasn’t been enabled to date, the ON/OFF switch will be in the OFF position and no “Backup destination” will be shown in the Settings pane. Click on the ON button to see the New Destination screen, used to configure a list of volumes as a destinations for Time Machine backups. The selection volume should be large enough to have space for all of the users that can potentially use the Time Machine…
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Manage The Contacts Service In macOS Server 5.2 Sierra
Every Mac by default has an application called Contacts. macOS Server 5.2, running on Sierra, has a service called Contacts. While the names might imply very different things that they do, you’ll be super-surprised that the two are designed to work with one another. The Contacts service is based on CardDAV, a protocol for storing contact information on the web, retrievable and digestible by client computers. However, there is a layer of database-driven obfuscation between the Contacts service and CardDAV. The Contacts service is also a conduit with which to read information from LDAP and display that information in the Contacts client, which is in a way similar to how the Global Address List…
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Configure The Mail Service In macOS Server 5.2
Mail is one of the hardest services to manage. Actually, mail is pretty simple in and of itself: there’s protocols people use to access their mail (such as IMAP and POP), protocols used to communicate between mail servers and send mail (SMTP, SMTPS) and then there’s a database of mail and user information. In macOS Server 5.2 for Sierra, all of these are represented by a single ON button, so it really couldn’t be easier. But then there’s the ecoysystem and the evil spammers. As the former systems administrator of a large number of mail servers, I firmly believe that there is a special kind of hell where only spam is…
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Use The Software Update Service In macOS Server 5.2
The software patching configuration built into most operating systems is configured so that all a user has to do is open a box at home, join the network and start using the computer right away. As environments grow from homes to small offices and then small offices grow into enterprises, at some point software updates and patches need to be managed centrally. OS X Server 5.2 (on Sierra), as with its macOS Server predecessors has a Software Update service. The service in the Server app is known as Software Update and from the command line is known as swupdate. The Software Update service, by default, stores each update in the /var/db/swupd…