• Mac OS X,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  Network Infrastructure,  precache

    One-liner To Grab Which macOS Caching Server You’re Using

    There’s a macOS tool called AssetCacheLocatorUtil located at /usr/bin/AssetCacheLocatorUtil. The output is in… stderr. Because stderr is so fun to work with (note that sed -i only works with stdin). So, to update the caching server(s) you are using and only print the IP address of those, you’d do the following: /usr/bin/AssetCacheLocatorUtil 2>&1 | grep guid | awk '{print$4}' | sed 's/^\(.*\):.*$/\1/' | uniq If you use Jamf Pro and would like to use this as an extension attribute, that’s posted here: https://github.com/krypted/cachecheck. I didn’t do any of the if/then there, as I’d usually just do that on the JSS.

  • Mac OS X Server

    Install The Server 5.2 App On macOS Sierra

    The first thing you’ll want to do on any server is get all software updates installed on the server (done using the App Store app). Then setup the networking for the computer so you’re not changing IP addresses and stuff like that, once the server is installed. To do so, open System Preferences (aka the Settings app, some day) and click on the Network System Preference pane. You will almost always want to use a wired Ethernet connection on a server, but in this case we’ll be using Wi-Fi. Here, click on the Wi-Fi interface and then click on the Advanced… button. At the setup screen for the interface, provide a good…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Scripted Country Geolocations Using OS X’s Built-In ip2cc

    Recently I was working on a project where we were isolating IP addresses by country. In the process, I found an easy little tool built right into OS X called ip2cc. Using ip2cc, you can lookup what country an IP is in. To do so, simply run ip2cc followed by a name or ip address. For example, to lookup apple.com you might run: ip2cc apple.com Or to lookup Much Music, you might run: ip2cc muchmusic.ca The output would be: IP::Country modules (v2.28) Copyright (c) 2002-13 Nigel Wetters Gourlay Database updated Wed May 15 15:29:48 2013 Name: muchmusic.com Address: 199.85.71.88 Country: CA (Canada) You can just get the country line: ip2cc…

  • Mac OS X Server

    “Address already in use” When Trying To Bind Open Directory Master

    From time to time you’ll see an error that “daemon: bind(8) failed errno=48 (Address already in use)” when trying to promote a Mac OS X Server to be an Open Directory Master. The address in question is usually fine and the DNS usually checks clean with changeip: changeip -checkhostname However the error recurs no matter what you do, even if you try and change the name of the Open Directory Master or the address you still usually end up seeing the same error. If it isn’t the address or the name then could it be the port? If you run lsof to see about that whole ldap port: lsof -i…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server

    Setting Up And Using Web Services in OS X Mountain Lion Server

    Configuring web services is as easy in OS X Mountain Lion Server (10.8) as it has ever been. To set up the default web portal, simply open the Server app, click on the Websites service and click on the ON button. After a time, the service will start. Once running, click on the View Server Website link at the bottom of the pane. Provided the stock OS X Server page loads, you are ready to use OS X Server as a web server. Before we setup custom sites, there are a few things you should know. The first is, the server is no longer really designed to remove the default…

  • Network Infrastructure,  VMware

    Change the IP/Host Name on ESX iSCSI Initiators

    Setting up iSCSI to work with ESX is usually a pretty straight forward affair. But like with many things, change can be hard. But sometimes things get moved to different subnets or storage gets replaced. To configure a vSphere client to connect, select a virtual machine and then click on it and click on the Configuration tab. From there, click on Storage Adapters using the Hardware panel. From the Hardware Panel, click on an initiator and then click on Properties and then click on Configure. Then provide the new name or IP. Make sure that the name is unique and then if needed provide an iSCSI alias. Then change the IP settings…

  • iPhone

    5 Free Network Troubleshooting Tools for iPhone and iPod Touch (and iPad of course)

    There are a number of ways to troubleshoot network connections on (or using) an iOS device. These can be common troubleshooting steps that you might run from the command line or a third party app on a desktop computer or they could be specific to testing the network environment for an iOS device. Some of these apps are even free. Ping Lite One of the most common tasks that most administrators routinely do to test both DNS resolution and connectivity is pinging something. Ping Lite comes with a function to show your IP, a ping tool, a tool to ping the subnet, the ability to run trace routes and for…