• Active Directory,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Network Infrastructure,  Ubuntu,  Unix,  VMware,  Windows Server,  Windows XP,  Xsan

    List All DNS Records For A Domain

    May 8, 2013

    Sometimes you want to move a domain but you don’t have a copy of the zone file in order to recreate records. The easy way to do this is to grab a zone transfer. To do so, dig is your friend: dig -tAXFR mycompany.com Sometimes though (and actually more often than not) a zone transfer is disabled. In that case you’ll need to dig the domain a bit differently. I like to use +nocmd, query for any and list the results (+answer): dig +nocmd https://krypted.com/ any +answer Which results in the following: ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 39183 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1,…

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  • Xsan

    Holy Cow, Batman, My Xsan Volume Is Invisible!

    April 22, 2013

    No one could see the Xsan volume. Logged into Xsan Admin, the volume was unmounted for everyone. Mounted the volume and Xsan Admin said it mounted for everyone. No errors in the logs. In a nice place mentally, I stepped away from my desk. The phone rings, no one has access to the volume. Crap, what now? Log in, shows mounted. Log into a client, well, isn’t there. The other volumes are on the desktop. Go to /Volumes and it doesn’t appear there. Go to /Volumes/VOLUMENAME and viola, it’s there. But in the sidebar it’s hidden?!?!?! There aren’t any options in the volume.cfg file in /Library/Preferences/Xsan that deal with this…

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  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Xsan

    Installing Final Cut Server on Lion & Mountain Lion Server

    September 6, 2012

    Thanks to Allan Sanderson for the following submission, which outlines how to install Final Cut Server in Lion and Mountain Lion Server. In Server.app ————- Websites: Check “Enable PHP web applications” Install Java ———— Open /Applications/Utilities/Java Preferences.app You’ll be prompted by Software Update service to install Java, click “Continue”, provide admin credentials when promopted. Install Final Cut Server ———————— Run Final Cut Server installer. Then run Software Update to get ProApplications 2010-02 & Final Cut Server v1.5.2 updates. Check Configuration ——————- 1) Check fcsvr user has been created: dscl /Local/Default -search /Users RecordName fcsvr Output should look something like this: fcsvr RecordName = ( fcsvr ) 2) Check “fcsvr” user’s…

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

    Using The serverinfo Command To Get, Well, Server Info In Mountain Lion Server

    August 25, 2012

    OS X Mountain Lion Server comes with the /usr/sbin/serverinfo command. The serverinfo command can be pretty useful when you’re looking to programmatically obtain information about the very basic state of an OS X Server. The first option indicates whether the Server app has been downloaded from the app store, which is the –software option: serverinfo --software When used, this option reports the following if the Server.app can be found: This system has server software installed. Or if the software cannot be found, the following is indicated: This system does NOT have server software installed. The –productname option can be used to determine the name of the software app: serverinfo --productname If…

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  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Xsan

    Copy Files Status in Mountain Lion

    July 25, 2012

    Of the new features in Mountain Lion, one I have already started to love is the fact that when you’re copying folders, you see a status in the Finder screen that lists the folders. This allows me to do a bunch of Finder level copies and rather than tile out the screens that I’m using to copy, I can just watch them from the parent folder. Sometimes it’s the little things…

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  • Home Automation,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  Xsan

    Lights Out Managing Mac Mini Servers with Vera

    May 8, 2012

    There is no Lights Out Management for a Mac mini Server (btw, am I the only one that noticed that these are now called Mac mini with Lion Server, where mini isn’t capitalized). While the Mac mini Server doesn’t have the Lights Out Management (LOM)/IPMI chips in it, there are a few things that we can control anyway. Convention would say that we’d get a NetBotz card for that spiffy APC we’ve got, which can do minor automation and even a little environmental monitoring. And there are a few other systems out there that can do similar tasks. But I’m a home automation nerd these days. So I decided to…

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

    Enabling Spotlight For Network Volumes

    March 25, 2012

    Spotlight doesn’t automatically index network volumes. To configure spotlight to index network volumes, use the mdutil command followed by an arbitrary path, with the -i option and then the on parameter. For example, for a volume called Galvatron, you would enable indexing using the following command: mdutil /Volumes/Galvatron -i on To monitor the status of the indexing process: mdutil /Volumes/Galvatron -s If this happens to cause any problems, use the off parameter instead, along with the same command to disable indexing of that volume. mdutil /Volumes/Galvatron -i off You can send the mdutil commands through Apple Remote Desktop. For example, I’ve needed to toggle indexing on and then off, for…

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

    Setting Up Promise for Direct Attached Storage

    December 28, 2011

    With the advent of the latest Promise Arrays, I’m starting to see more and more environments stacking a boat load of shelves of storage on top of one another (e.g. for CrashPlan). As such, it occurs to me that I haven’t really covered the initial configuration of a Promise here. The way I like to set them up is using configuration scripts. I’ve been using different iterations of the same scripts for a long time. This script is meant to automatically format 1 E and 7 Js of Promise storage and setup the LUNs named EData1, EData2, J1Data1 and J1Data2, J2Data1, J2Data2, etc. These LUNs and their controller configuration is…

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