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Configure NetInstall Services In macOS Server 5.4 for High Sierra
The NetBoot service allows administrators of Apple computers to leverage images hosted on a server to boot computers to a central location and put a new image on them, upgrade them and perform automations based on upgrades and images. Since the very first versions of macOS, the service has been called NetBoot and so the name remains at the command line, but is listed as NetInstall in the Server app. In the Server app, Apple provides a number of options surrounding the NetInstall service, based on Automator-style which we’ll explore further in this article. The first step to configuring the NetInstall service is to decide what you want the service to…
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Before You Upgrade to macOS Server 5.4 on High Sierra (macOS 10.13)
The latest version of the Apple Server app is out (macOS Server 5.4), and before you upgrade, there are a few points to review: As always, make a clone of your computer before upgrading. During the upgrade to High Sierra, if the operating system is running on a solid state drive, the drive will automatically upgrade to APFS. You cannot share APFS volumes over AFP, so if you’re running file services, make sure you’re aware of that. You can choose not to upgrade to APFS using the command line to upgrade a server. Even though the file sharing services are not in the Server app, you can still configure ACLs…
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Configure NetInstall Services In macOS Server 5.2 for Sierra
The NetBoot service allows administrators of Apple computers to leverage images hosted on a server to boot computers to a central location and put a new image on them, upgrade them and perform automations based on upgrades and images. Since the very first versions of OS X, the service has been called NetBoot and so the name remains at the command line, but is listed as NetInstall in the Server app. In the Server app, Apple provides a number of options surrounding the NetInstall service, based on Automator-style which we’ll explore further in this article. The first step to configuring the NetInstall service is to decide what you want the service…
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Episode 3 of the MacAdmins Podcast Now Available!
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Is Imaging Dead In OS X?
I love answering a question with a question. Is asr still in OS X? Is NetInstall still in OS X Server? Can OS X still NetBoot? Does System Image Utility still work? The answer to all of these is yes. Therefore, the answer to “Is imaging dead” is clearly no. Is it on its way out, maybe. Debatable. Is it changing? Of course. When does Apple not evolve? What have we seen recently? Well, the rhetoric would point to the fact that imaging is dying. That seems clear. And this is slowly coming out of people at Apple. The word imaging is becoming a bad thing. But, as a customer…
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Keynote From JAMF Nation
In case you were there and would like a copy, here’s the slides from the presentation I did this week at the JAMF Nation User Conference 2012. If you weren’t there, then perhaps they will help you in some way. JNUC2012 The session was recorded so I’ll try and post when it becomes available for download.
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What Changed On My Mac?
According to Wikipedia, fsevents is an API from Apple that allows applications to register for notifications of changes to a given directory tree. This means that when something changes, an application (or daemon/agent) can see the change and take action or track what happened. For Linux, there’s a similar tool in iNotify. This time of the year, a lot of imaging and packaging is going on at schools and companies around the world. A lot of people are also moving various settings out of images and into either post-flight packages, automations or managed preferences of some sort. In OS X, it’s easy to make a change on a computer and…
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Automated Regression Testing Mac OS X Clients Using Sikuli
Imaging can be a complicated task. Many imaging environments have a lot of scripts, packages, base images and other aspects of automation. The more of these that you have, the more potential combinations you have for the state of a system once they’ve been run. This gets complicated when you want to make sure that each possible combination of images will have a consistent result when installed. For example, take something simple, like a property list. Each possible combination of packages, scripts images and even managed preferences might have a different impact on that poor property list. A simple defaults command can often give administrators the ability to see what…
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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.