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

    Run A Caching Server On A Computer Without Ethernet

    I do a lot of testing on MacBook Airs and the latest MacBooks. Neither have a built-in Ethernet port and I try not to travel with one. But, when you enable the Caching Server service in OS X on a machine without an active Ethernet connection, the AssetCache will report an error of the following: Wireless portable computer not supported The cause is pretty obvious, but bypassable because of how the sanity check was built. Simply run the following: sudo serveradmin settings caching:Interface = en0 Now try again. Enjoy. PS: Since people always jump on the article where I talk about how to do things that shouldn’t be done in…

  • Articles and Books,  iPhone,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    Migrating Objects From Active Directory To Apple School Manager

    Apple School Manager is a portal used to create classes, import students, manage Managed Apple IDs, and link all these things together. You can use a Student Information System (SIS) to create these classes, import students, etc. But, only if you have a SIS with an API that Apple links to. If you don’t, you’ll need to import data using csv files. And you’ll need to import four csv files: Classes, Instructors, Staff, and of course Students. Many schools will already have this data in Active Directory or another LDAP-based solution. Here, we’ll look at getting the information out of Active Directory and into csv. The LDIFDE utility exports and imports objects from…

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

    Get the OS X Server Version

    You can find the version of the Server app that an OS X Server is running using the serveradmin command. To do so, run the serveradmin command followed by the -version option: sudo /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin --version The output would be as follows: Version 15S5127

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Ubuntu,  Unix

    Run a script directly from github

    There are a lot of scripts stored on github. And you can run them directly by curling them into bash. To do so, you’ll need a link to the raw script (using the github page with the URL of the script brings in all the cruft, so you’ll need to find the raw text). To grab that, click on the page with the script and then right-click  on Raw, as seen here: Then, throw out a bash command followed by < and then the URL you just copied into your clipboard in parenthesis: bash <(curl -Ls https://github.com/krypted/resetsoftwareupdate/raw/master/resetsoftwareupdate.sh)

  • Apple Configurator,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    Scripting The OS X Caching Server To Cache Updates

    The Caching Server in OS X is a little bit of a black box. But, it’s not all that complicated, compared to some things in the IT world. I’d previously written about command line management of the service itself here. When you enable the caching service, the server registers itself as a valid Caching Server. Nearby devices then lookup the closest update server with Apple and register with that update server using a GUID: /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/serveradmin settings caching:ServerGUID Then, each time the device looks for an update, it does so against http://mesu.apple.com/assets/com_apple_MobileAsset_SoftwareUpdate/com_apple_MobileAsset_SoftwareUpdate.xml using the device model. Noticed this with this line in my proxy logs: "GET http://mesu.apple.com/assets/com_apple_MobileAsset_SoftwareUpdate/com_apple_MobileAsset_SoftwareUpdate.xml HTTP/1.1" 200 - "-"…

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

    mysql command switches

    Mysql command options: –auto-rehash Enable or disable automatic rehashing –auto-vertical-output Automatically display output of commands vertically rather than horizontally –batch Do not write to the history file –binary I use this when I have large results timing out due to blobs being in there –bind-address Specify a network interface when connecting to the server –character-sets-dir Indicate a custom directory where character sets are installed –column-names Output column names when running queries –column-type-info Show metadata –comments Enable or disable commenting when sending statements to the server –compress Compresses data sent to/from client and server –connect_timeout Seconds of inactivity before a timeout –database The database to connect to –debug Write debugging log; supported only if MySQL was built with debugging support –debug-check Print debugging information…

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

    Create Classes In Profile Manager For The Classroom App

    Creating a classroom is a pretty straight forward process in Profile Manager. To do so, open the Profile Manager web interface and click on Classes in the sidebar. For your first class, click Add Class (for future ones, click the plus sign (+). At the New Class screen, click into New Class in the title bar and provide a name for the class. Optionally, provide a description, as well. Click on the Save button to save the class. Then click on the Instructors tab and use the plus sign towards the bottom of the screen and then choose the user or group you’d like to add as the Instructor for the class.…

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

    Software Update Server Reset Script

    Any time I need to get a bunch of cruft out of Software Update Server on OS X Server, I just reset it real quick. To do so, simply remove /Library/Server/Software Update. But first, it’s important to stop the service, and once removed, set the port back up (which isn’t done automatically), and then start the service (swupdate). As this has become somewhat routine, I made a micro-script of it here.

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

    Huffington Post Article: 20 Cool Things You Can Do With Box.com

    My latest Huffington Post article, Twenty Cool Things You Can Do with Box is online here. It begins: If you are looking for a secure and uncomplicated and file sharing service, you will find box.com to be a wonderful way to share files from any device. Today, it is easier than ever for businesses to operate globally regardless of how large or small they are. This is because of the digital age that makes works products easy to share or transfer. Here are twenty cool things that you can do with box.com. For more, click here.