AFP548 has undergone a new look and feel. But it’s also gotten some fresh faces writing articles and there have also been some links over here about posts I’ve done on services in Mountain Lion Server. Since the introduction of Mountain Lion, the following articles have been posted: Running NetBoot On Mountain Lion Server: http://afp548.com/2012/08/09/netboot-on-10-8-server Garage Band Deployment: http://afp548.com/2012/08/07/garageband-deployment-quick-tip Configuring Alerts on 10.8 Server: http://afp548.com/2012/08/06/alerts-on-10-8-server Resolving Issues With AFP: http://afp548.com/2012/08/05/strange-afpsmb-connection-issues-check-this-out New 10.8 Unix Commands: http://afp548.com/2012/08/04/new-10-8-unix-commands Upgrading to 10.8 Server: http://afp548.com/2012/08/03/upgrading-to-10-8-server Never Image Again: http://afp548.com/2012/08/02/never-image-a-machine-again Upgrading FileVault Enabled Systems From 10.7 to 10.8: http://afp548.com/2012/07/29/upgrading-from-10-7-to-10-8-on-a-fv2-encrypted-system Some of these just link to articles I’ve written, others are original and still others link to other sites within the Mac Systems Administrator…
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Using the Software Update Service on Mountain Lion Server
The software patching configuration built into most operating systems is configured to open a box at home, join your network and start using the computer right away. As environments grow from homes to offices and then offices grow into enterprises, at some point software updates and patches need to be managed centrally. Mountain Lion, as with its OS X 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 directory. The Software Update servie is actually comprised of three components. The first is an…
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Setting Up The Messages Service In Mountain Lion Server
iChat Server was sooooo easy to configure. iChat Server is now Messages Server. Both use the open source jabber project as their back-end code base. Lucky us, all Apple did in the latest iteration is change the name of the service in the Server app, leaving the command line effectively untouched. The paths to things serverish have changed. The jabberd binary is now at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/private/var/jabberd and the autobuddy binary is at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/bin/jabber_autobuddy. Given the importance of having multiple binaries that do the same thing, another jabberd binary is also stored at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/libexec/jabberd. Note that the man page says it’s in /etc. But I digress. Setting up the Messages service is simple. Open the…
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Apple Certified Associate For OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion
Apple has posted the first of the Mountain Lion certifications. Information about the Apple Certified Associate – Mac Integration 10.8 is available at http://training.apple.com/certification/macosx. This certification requires only one exam, 9L0-408, which can be taken online. There’s no word yet on the ACSP or ACTC for 10.8, although I am certain work on them is in progress. The current table of certifications is as follows: The test is relatively simple. I took it this morning and it focused completely on the client in a heterogenous environment. There were questions about AD binding, sharing files between Windows and OS X Mountain Lion clients, securing the OS (Gatekeeper, FileVault 2), Time Machine, Messages…
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Installing the Mountain Lion Server VPN Server
OS X Server has long had a VPN service that can be run. The server is capable of running the two most commonly used VPN protocols: PPTP and L2TP. The L2TP protocol is always in use, but the server can run both concurrently. You should use L2TP when at all possible. Sure, “All the great themes have been used up and turned into theme parks.” But security is a theme that it never hurts to keep in the forefront of your mind. If you were thinking of exposing the other services in Mountain Lion Server to the Internet without having users connect to a VPN service then you should think…
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Jump Straight From Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion
That’s right folks, Apple has been kind enough to allow users of Snow Leopard to go straight to Mountain Lion. I’m not saying I’d take a Snow Leopard Server directly to Mountain Lion Server without stopping off at the trusty Lion upgrade path grill for a burger and some fries, but for client systems, the Mountain Lion installer is built to upgrade either Snow Leopard or Lion clients directly to Mountain Lion. To install, just get to 10.6.8 and get all available updates installed and search for Mountain Lion in the App Store and click Install. Click Continue ’till the installer is finished and you’ll have a shiny new cougar…
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2,000 Posts And Going Strong
In December of 2004, in response to a request from my publisher at the time, I started this site in its current form. I kept the domain from my personal tinkeration site, which was a glorified file service, some static html pages for me to remember things (I can be a bit forgetful at times) and some .htaccess files to keep parts of the site private. I’d been using the domain for awhile, but started tinkering around with a few blogging engines and eventually settled on the one I’m using now. The total number of posts now sits a little over 2020, with a few being drafts on upcoming products…
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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…
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RAMdisk on MacBook Air
I can’t remember where I picked up how to get a RAM Disk mounted in OS X, but it’s a great way to get some unbelievable speeds on your Mac for those minor IO intensive processes that don’t need persistent data. It should be mentioned that the contents of RAM disks are erased, once ejected, but the speed of processes while they’re running can be pretty phenomenal on systems with fast RAM. The best example is a MacBook Air, where the memory is surface-mounted QFP and so really fast. Let’s say you have 4GB of memory and you want to run a process that isn’t going to take more than a…