When you’re kickstarting ARD/Screen Sharing, you might notice times when you are asked if you want to connect to the local logged in user or to a new session, which shows the login window. In most cases, I want to connect to the console user, or that locally logged in user. To go right there, instead of seeing the OS X login window, you can use the defaults command to write a VNCAlwaysStartOnConsole key (boolean, true) into com.apple.RemoteManagement.plist in /Library/Preferences, as follows: defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteManagement VNCAlwaysStartOnConsole -bool true The newer features here are pretty cool and really nice to have, but I’ve now added this to a lot of my…
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Installing Final Cut Server on Lion & Mountain Lion Server
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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A Cheat Sheet For Using pf in OS X Lion and Up
I’ve done plenty of writing on the Application Layer Firewall (ALF) and the IP FireWall (IPFW) in OS X over the years. There will be more on ALF coming in “July” but in the meantime, there’s something I hadn’t written much about in Lion and that’s the pf implementation. To get started, let’s look at the /etc/pf.conf configuration file that comprises pf: scrub-anchor "com.apple/*" nat-anchor "com.apple/*" rdr-anchor "com.apple/*" dummynet-anchor "com.apple/*" anchor "com.apple/*" load anchor "com.apple" from "/etc/pf.anchors/com.apple" Here, you can see that pf is configured with a number of anchors. An anchor is a collection of rules and tables. Basically, the anchor file being loaded is /etc/pf.anchors/com.apple. In here, we…
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Limiting The Number of Windows Users in Lion Server (aka How-to of hidden serveradmin settings)
Lion Server doesn’t have an option in the GUI for throttling the maximum number of users that can connect to the server via SMB. Nor does it have said option in the serveradmin interface. If you run the following, you would have previously seen the required setting: serveradmin settings smb The required setting (if controlled via serveradmin) is MaxClients= followed by the number of clients that you want to be the max: serveradmin settings smb:MaxClients=10 This is pretty easy stuff, but I have a point that goes beyond limiting the number of users. Not all of the settings that can be run through serveradmin are actually in the preferences any…
- Articles and Books, iPhone, Mac OS X, Mac OS X Server, Mac Security, Mass Deployment, public speaking
MacSysAdmin 2012!
MacSysAdmin has quickly become one of my favorite conferences to attend. I love the high level of technical acumen and the chance to row a canoe from Minneapolis to Gothenburg, Sweden, which is a serious workout, let me tell you! The 2012 lineup boasts one of the politest guys I know in Arek Dreyer, my coworker Zack Smith, Andrew Renz (of Code 42/CrashPlan fame), the well dressed (and spoken) Ed Marczak, the great Greg Neagle (Munki/Repasado/awesome guy), Alan Gordon’s alter-ego Alan Gordon, the JAMFerific Andrina Kelly, the ostentatious Duncan McCracken, Rick Wylie, Gary Larizza, Luis Giraldo in all his wireless awesomeness, Sébastien Tomasi (representing the file set goodness that is…
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My OS X Server Book From O'Reilly On Amazon!
I usually don’t like to discuss books (except in person with friends/colleagues) very much until I have an ISBN number. Well, here it is! My next book is going to address what I consider the most important challenge to Apple Server nerds like myself: can a server really be installed off the app store with no technical skills? I also tackle the meaning of life (somewhere on page 42) in this book, but that’s not nearly as interesting a topic… I am about 80 percent done with it and it should be out within the next 5 to 6 weeks. One of the things that really impresses me about O’Reilly…
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Disable AirDrop in Mac OS X Lion
Lion comes with this nifty option called AirDrop, which allows users to share files directly. In many environments, this represents a perceived security risk (whether real or not) and must be disabled. To disable AirDrop: defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser DisableAirDrop -boolean YES To turn it back on: defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser DisableAirDrop -boolean NO This is done per-user and so can also be done via Managed Preferences, profiles and/or at imaging time.
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Man Pages Made Easy
Ever since upgrading to Lion I’ve been making a few slight changes in workflow. One such change, which I’m still on the fence about, is to switch from reading man pages in a tiled Terminal screen, to reading them in a browser window. It seems like a small thing, but I spend a lot of time switching between terminal screens or using screen to switch between sessions. Bwana allows you to read a man page from within a browser. Simply load download the Bwana app into your /Applications directory and wait a few seconds. Then open a browser window and look for a man page. For example: man:dsconfigad Now, you…
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Automating Image File Changes
Ever need to automate changes to image files? Maybe a LaunchAgent that would watch a specific folder and resize png files that were dropped in there, or a little script that sanitized images as they came in to be a specific size (e.g. Poster Frames)? Well, sips is a little tool built into OS X that can help immensely with this. It will even convert that png to a jpeg or pict to png. Let’s look at using sips. First up, let’s just get the width and height of an image file: sips --getProperty pixelHeight /Shared/tmpimages/1.png sips --getProperty pixelWidth /Shared/tmpimages/1.png Or for dpi: sips --getProperty dpiHeight /Shared/tmpimages/1.png sips --getProperty dpiWidth…
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Big Changes in Lion Server
OK, by now I’m sure everyone has heard that OS X Server is a download off the App Store. For a whoppin’ $50 you get the OS that was once called “Open Source Made Easy” until someone at Apple realized that GPLv3 might mean that Open Source doesn’t always mean “free as in beer”. Wait, did I say that out loud? Point is, there are bigger changes here than just moving the server to the App Store. There are also some pretty big changes to the GUI of OS X Server. The first and most obvious is the LoginWindow, which is different in OS X in general. It obviously looks…