Apple began rolling out new features with the new Volume Purchasing Program (VPP) program last year. There are lots of good things to know, here. First, the old way should still work. You’re not loosing the stuff you already invested in such as Configurator with those codes you might have used last year with supervision. However, you will need an MDM solution (Profile Manager, Casper, Absolute, FileWave, etc) to use the new tools. Also, the new token options are for one to one (1:1) environments. This isn’t for multi-tenant environments. You can only use these codes and options for iOS 7 and OS X 10.9 and 10.10. Also, if you install…
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Use The Time Machine Service In OS X Yosemite Server
The Time Machine service in Yosemite Server 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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Running A Web Server On OS X Yosemite Server
Web Services in Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, Linux and most versions of Unix are provided by Apache, an Open Source project that much of the Internet owes its origins to. Apache owes its name to the fact that it’s “a patchy” service. These patches are often mods, or modules. Configuring web services is as easy in OS X Mavericks Server (10.9) as it has ever been. To set up the default web portal, simply open the Server app, click on the Websites service and click on the ON button. After a time, the service will start. Once running, click on the View Server Website link at the bottom…
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Yosemite and The Xsan Command Line
Let’s start out with what’s actually available in the Server Admin CLI: serveradmin. The serveradmin command, followed by settings, followed by san shows a few pieces of information: bash-3.2# serveradmin settings san san:computers = _empty_array san:primaryController = "95C99FB1-80F2-5016-B9C3-BE3916E6E5DC" san:ownerEmail = "krypted@me.com" san:sanName = "krypted" san:desiredSearchPolicy:_array_index:0 = "" san:serialNumbers = _empty_array san:dsType = 0 san:ownerName = "Charles Edge" san:managePrivateNetwork = yes san:metadataNetwork = "10.0.0.0/24" san:numberOfFibreChannelPorts = 2 san:role = "CONTROLLER" Here, we see the metadata network, the GUID of the primary (active) MDC, the name of the SAN, an array of serial numbers (if applicable – in a purely Mountain Lion/Mavericks SAN they aren’t), the owner info plugged in earlier and the metadata network interface being used. Next, we’ll take a peak at…
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Configure An Open Directory Master In OS X Yosemite Server
Open Directory has never been so easy to setup for a basic environment as it is in OS X Yosemite Server (OS X 10.10, Server app 4). It’s also never been so annoyingly simple to use that to do anything cool requires a bunch of command line foo. No offense to the developers, but this whole idea that the screens that were being continually refined for a decade just need to be thrown out and started fresh seems to have led to a few babies thrown out along with them. Not often as I’m kinda’ digging most of the new config screens in OS X Yosemite Server, but with Open Directory, it’s…
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Setting Up An Open Directory Replica In Yosemite Server
Previously, we looked at setting up an Open Directory Master in OS X Server. An Open Directory Replica keeps a copy of the Open Directory database available for users even when the Master goes offline. But it can also take a part of the load from the Open Directory Master and when using the new Locales feature, balance network traffic. To get started with an Open Directory Replica, first enable SSH, now disabled by default. Next, use the changeip to check the host name. While the Server app is cool, it caches stuff and I’ve seen it let things go threat shouldn’t be let go. Therefore, in order to make…
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Configure The Calendar Service In Mac OS X Yosemite Server
Configuring Calendar Server in Yosemite Server is a fairly simple and straight forward process. The Calendar Server is a CalDAV Server, leveraging HTTP and HTTPS, running on ports 8008 and 8443 respectively. To enable the Calendar service in Yosemite Server, open the Server application and click on Calendar in the SERVICES section of the sidebar. Once open, click on Edit to enable email notifications of invitations in the Calendar Server. Provide the email address and then click on the Next button. At the Configure Server Email Address screen, provide the type of incoming mail service in use, provide the address of the mail server and then the port number used,…
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Configure The Contacts Server In OS X Yosemite Server
Yosemite has an application called Contacts. Yosemite Server has a service called Contacts. While the names might imply differently, surprisingly 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 Postgres-based obfuscation between the Contacts service and CalDAV. 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 (GAL) works in Microsoft Exchange. I know I’ve said this about…
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Promote A Yosemite Open Directory Replica To A Master
You’ve got Open Directory running and humming beautifully in OS X Server (Server 3.5 on OS X 10.10 Yosemite). You show up to work and the hard drive has died on that perfectly configured Open Directory Master. Luckily, you have a replica and you have an archive of your Master. You can restore or you can promote your Replica to a Master. What to do? Well, I can’t tell you what you should do, but I can tell you that Apple has planned for this. Here, we’re going to look at promoting that Replica to a Master. Because after all, hard drives fail. Let’s look at what all this looks…
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Setup The DNS Service In OS X Yosemite Server
Under the hood, OS X Server has a number of substantial changes; however, at first the Server app appears to have had very few changes. The changes in the Server app were far more substantial in the Yosemite version of OS X Server. All of the options from Yosemite are still there and using the new command line interface for managing the service, there are far more options than ever before. The DNS service in OS X Server, as with previous versions, is based on bind 9 (BIND 9.9.2-P2 to be exact). This is very much compatible with practically every DNS server in the world, including those hosted on Windows,…