It can be tough to get information about larger Mac deployments. I’ve written a few books on it. Apple has built some pages on it. But many prefer to consume their content through video. As such, Sean Collins has teamed up with Lynda.com to put together an IT Administrator’s Guide for El Capitan. With topics ranging from SIP to DEP, and all the acronyms in the middle, Sean’s soothing voice will guide you through what you need to get started with a new Mac deployment. Many a job can seem daunting, but with this latest addition to our arsenal, you’ll instantly feel less intimidated. It’s like the Sun A of…
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My El Capitan Enterprise Mac Security Book Now Shipping
If you’re interested in Mac Security, the next edition of my Enterprise Mac Security book is now shipping. You can get it here http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Mac-Security-OS/dp/148421711X. The book is shipping from 3rd party sellers, but should ship directly from Amazon soon at the regular price. I don’t usually know exactly when, but it should also appear for Kindle and on the Apple Books store as well. Hope you enjoy!
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Automating The Server.app Setup Using A Script
There are a couple of parts to this article. The first is to describe the server command, stored in /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/sbin/server. The description of the command by Brad Chapman was so eloquently put on this JAMF Nation post that I’m just gonna’ paste it in here: So … I just installed Server 5.0.x tonight on my Mac Mini running Yosemite (10.10.5). There was a question that came up during JNUC about upgrading Server and having a way to accept the license agreement without going through the GUI. So for shits and giggles I tried: server setup It’s not documented. And lo and behold, I got the prompt to accept the license agreement just…
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The Second Edition of the Enterprise Mac Administrator’s Guide Now Available for Pre-Order!
The latest and greatest of the Enterprise Mac Admin’s Guide is now available for Pre-Order at http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Mac-Administrators-Guide-Second/dp/1484217055/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445529968. This is an interesting update. If you happened to see the previous edition, I’d described more about Casper than most of the other third party products on the market. In this edition, there’s still an equal amount of information on Casper, but now there’s also more information on FileWave, and a whole chapter on the open source toolchain of products, including Munki and AutoPKG. The main reason I decided to update this title was actually the change from focusing on directory services (which still has plenty of page count) to focusing on profile management.…
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Startup Profiles In El Capitan
There is a nifty feature in the profiles command in El Capitan (dating back to Mavericks), where you can configure profiles to install at the next boot, rather than immediately. Use the -s to define a startup profile and take note that if it fails, the profile will attempt to install at each subsequent reboot until installed. To use the command, simply add a -s then the -F for the profile and the -f to automatically confirm, as follows (and I like to throw in a -v usually for good measure): profiles -s -F /Profiles/SuperAwesome.mobileconfig -f -v And that’s it. Nice and easy and you now have profiles that only…
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Upgrade OS X to El Capitan
Installing OS X has never been easier than in Yosemite. In this article, we’ll look at upgrading a Mac from OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) to OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) to . The first thing you should do is clone your system. The second thing you should do is make sure you have a good backup. The third thing you should do is make sure you can swap back to the clone should you need to do so and that your data will remain functional on the backup. Once you’re sure that you have a fallback plan, let’s get started by downloading OS X El Capitan from the App Store. Once downloaded, you’ll…
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Create A Bootable El Capitan Installer
A bootable installer is one of the fastest ways to install El Capitan. Rather than copy the installer to a local drive you can run it right off a USB disk (or Thunderbolt if you dare). Such a little USB drive would be similar to the sticks that came with the older MacBook Air, when we were all still sitting around wondering how you would ever install the OS on a computer with no optical media or Ethernet otherwise. Luckily, Apple loves us. To make a bootable USB/flash drive of El Capitan like the one that used to come with the MacBook Air, first name the USB drive. I’ll use mavinstall…
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Dark Knight Mode In El Capitan Server
In case your Mac just isn’t emo enough for ya’, Apple’s provided us a cool little new feature in Yosemite called dark mode. No, this won’t cause Hellboy to leap forth from your MacBook Air. Well, maybe he’ll visit your MacBook Pro, but I haven’t tested that so please don’t quote me on that. Instead, you’ll get the nice new dark menu bar: But that’s not all folks! Your dock will also get all dark and gothy! To turn it on, just open the General System Preference pane and check the box for “Use dark menu bar and Dock”. Enjoy! Oh, and if that’s not emo enough for you feel…
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statshares in OS X Server 5
I wrote about using the smbutil for DFS in Lion awhile back. I haven’t needed to write anything else as it hadn’t changed since. The statshares option has an -m option to look at a mount path for showing the path to the mount (e.g. if the mount is called krypted this should be something like /Volumes/krypted): smbutil statshares -m /Volumes/krypted When run, you see a list of all the attributes OS X tracks for that mount path, including the name of the server, the user ID (octal), how SMB negotiated an authentication, what version of SMB is running (e.g. SMB_1), the type of share and whether signing, extended security, Unix and…
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Delete User Configurable nvram In El Capitan
A nifty little feature of nvram is the ability to delete all of the firmware variables you’ve created. This can get helpful if you’ve got a bunch of things that you’ve done to a system and want to remove them all. If you run nvkram followed by a -p option you’ll see all of the configured firmware variables: nvram -p If you run it with a -d you’ll delete the given variables that you define (e.g. boot-args): nvram -d boot-args But, if you run the -c you’ll wipe them all: nvram -c