One of the things that is awesome and sometimes frustrating about Apple Configurator is that when you do certain tasks, you end up updating the OS on devices. The reason this is awesome is that it allows you to centralize operations. The reason this can be frustrating is that if you’re on a limited bandwidth connection, you may find that you can’t do very basic tasks before downloading a large OS update. And if you’ve got a bunch of Apple Configurator workstations, and you are running a training session, this can get infinitely more annoying. In these types of lab environments, you’re in luck. If you have an ipsw (the iOS…
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Create a Backup of an iOS Device Using Apple Configurator
You can easily create a backup of an iOS device using Apple Configurator. Once you’ve created a backup, it can be restored onto a number of devices. This contains iOS data and data outside of the secure enclave. These backups allow you to restore an iOS device, add apps (not using the backup), set backgrounds, set app locations on the home screen, etc. To do so, open Apple Configurator and then click on the Prepare icon. At the Prepare screen, click into the Restore field and then click on the Create Backup button. At the pop-up menu, select the device you’re backing up (usually there’s only one) and then click on the…
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Resolve InnoDB Errors In MySQL
Database won’t start? InnoDB errors are a pain. Where was krypted for a month? Did everything finally get to me and I gave up blogging? No, the site ended up having some problems with corruption in some rows of the InnoDB tables. But, I was able to get the site back up by putting the database into recovery mode. How did I do this? It’s pretty straight forward. Open my.cnf and paste these lines in there: innodb_force_recovery=3 innodb_purge_threads=0 Once the corruption is resolved, bring up empty databases and import your mysqldump into the new databases and link your site back up. But, the InnoDB force recovery puts the database into…
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Modern Mac Synchronization with ChronoSync
ChronoSync is one of those tools that’s been in the Mac community for a long time (rightfully so). It’s been a little while since I got the chance to really tinker around with ChronoSync so I thought I’d do a little article on what I got to find during my tinkerations. To get started with ChronoSync, go to their website at http://www.econtechnologies.com/chronosync/overview.html. Next, we’re going to walk through the most basic of setups (and you can get all kinds of complicated from there if you’d like!). Once you’ve downloaded, ChronoSync, run the installer from the disk image that was downloaded. Then walk through the installer, basically following the defaults (unless you’d like to…
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Disable Options At Initial Config Time Using Apple Configurator
In Apple Configurator 1.4.3, which just dropped, you can reduce the setup time for iOS devices. This is pretty helpful in Configuration Centers and when warehousing/performing thin setups of devices. To access this new feature, open Configurator and go to the Prepare screen. From there, you will have the Setup tab. Click on Setup and then in the resultant screen, you will see each of the initial screens in iOS that you can now skip. So put this in perspective, if you check the Location Services box and then prepare a device, even if not restoring a backup, you then won’t be prompted for whether or not you want to…
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Fixing Service Issues When Upgrading to 10.7.3 Server
The 10.7.2 to 10.7.3 update for Lion Server has introduced a few issues in some environments that I’ve seen. It just so happens that the update corrects a lot of behavior with Lion Server while also introducing new features, so it’s something you’re gonna’ need to do eventually. Therefore, before I update, I would strongly recommend backing up all of your services, your service data and Open Directory. Once you’ve run the 10.7.3 update, there are a few things that I’ve seen happen. The first is that the web server won’t start. If this happens, reset the web server back to factory default: serveradmin command web:command=restoreFactorySettings Once it’s reset, you…
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Restarting PresSTORE Services
A number of PresSTORE backup servers also provide other services in the environments they are installed in. Therefore, restarting PresSTORE services without restarting the host that runs the PresSTORE services can be done via the command line so that you don’t have to restart the server that is doing backups. To stop the PresSTORE server agent, use the stop-server command stored in /usr/local/aw: sudo /usr/local/aw/stop-server To the restart the server, use the start-server command, stored in the same location: /usr/local/aw/start-server The restart can also be done as a different user by invoking the -u operator followed by (and therefore defining) a user. The server occasionally stops itself for internal housecleaning,…
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Working with Postgres from the Command Line in Lion Server
Mac OS X Server 10.7, Lion Server, comes with a few substantial back-end changes. One of these is the move from SQLite3 to PostgreSQL for many of the back-end databases, including Wiki and Podcast Producer (collab), Webmail (roundcubemail), iCal Server and Address Book Server (caldav) and as the back-end to the newest service in Lion Server, Profile Manager (device_management). As such, it’s now important to be able to use PostgreSQL the way we once used SQLite3, when trying to augment the data that these databases contains, as there currently aren’t a lot of options for editing this data (aside from manually of course). Postgres has a number of commands that…
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WordPress and Spam Bots
There are a number of ways that you can protect your WordPress site from spam bots. The first is to only allow authenticated users to post comments. Doing so can still be a bit unwieldy, but this feature is built into WordPress and so pretty straight forward to use. Some, who deal with large amounts of spam bots then choose to completely disable the commenting feature outright (Settings -> Discussion -> Uncheck Allow people to post comments on new articles), but comments can still be made on existing articles and commentary is one of the best features of WordPress for many. To stop comments on older articles, also disable commenting…
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BRU Primer -> Advanced
In BRU 2, you have 3 tools to use. These include: BRU Server Agent Config (UB) – A tool used to install the agent, which needs to be located on each machine that will be backed up (including the server if it has any data to back up) BRU Server Config (UB) – Used to configure the server daemon, backup server configurations and set passwords to communicate with the server. Also used to set licensing information and perform scans for new tape drives and libraries. BRU Server Console (UB) – Used to configure backup jobs, schedules, etc. To get started, open the BRU Server Config application from the components that…