The xsanctl command allows you to manage basic events on an Xsan. The following options are available to xsanctl: disksChanged – Causes the FSS to scan the available LUNs mount – Mounts a volume ping – Verifies FSS (File System Server) responsiveness sanConfigChanged – Causes the FSS to reload the volume configuration file unmount – Unmounts a volume These options are used following the xsanctl command and are then followed with any options they themselves may have. For example, if you want to mount a volume you would run the xsanctl command followed by the mount option/verb and then the name of a volume, like so (assuming volume name of…
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ODBC Administrator Tool?
Mac OS X Server admins may wonder where it went in Mac OS X 10.6. It’s not in the default installation any longer, but you can still get it here.
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Stop the Bouncing!
In Mac OS X, when an application is opening it will bounce in the dock. To tell it to stop doing so, you can edit the no-bouncing key of the com.apple.dock.plist file. To do so: defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -boolean-neg
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The Safari Kiosk
Saft is a tool that allows you to do a number of things in Safari for Mac OS X, but the one likely most often used is to run Safari as a Kiosk. Saft opens Safari, places its preferences into each users com.apple.Safari.plist (in ~/Library/Preferences) and then runs Safari with its own brand of fun. When used in conjunction with the Simple Finder, it’s a pretty powerful way to lock a system in such a way that only a key combination or two can be used to unlock it. Saft can also block adds using regular expressions, provide shortcuts that allow you to invoke sites with a keystroke and perform…
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Thawing Faronics
Once you have a quick and dirty deployment of Deep Freeze you’ll likely at some point want to make changes to the contents of your drive. You can thaw the partition in DFXControl when you need to make changes: Open DFXControl from /Applications/Faronics Provide the DF User Name as the user name provided earlier Provide the Password as what you provided earlier In Boot Control, change to Boot Thawed and click on the Restart button You can then make changes following the restart and refreeze when you’re ready to do so.
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Deep Freeze, All Quick & Dirty-like
Deep Freeze allows us to lock down a hard drive from allowing change, using 3rd party software and no server. Ideal for lab environments, although there are a number of strategies for using it otherwise. To get started, first download Deep Freeze from www.faronics.com and then extract the Faronics Deep Freeze for Mac .dmg file. To install and freeze the system: Open the DFX_4.51.2200.0365.pkg (or whatever the latest version of Deep Freeze is). Click on Continue at the Welcome to the Deep Freeze Installer Click on Continue at the Important Information screen Click on Continue at the Software License Agreement screen Click on Agree at the EULA statement At the…
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Mac OS X Command Line & Printing
Managing print queues can be an easy or a complicated task. But when troubleshooting queues, a great tool to have is an understanding of how Mac OS X, and more specifically, how CUPS is interacting with those jobs. Some basic print job/queue management commands: lpr—Send a print job to a print queue. lpq—Show the status of jobs sent to a print queue. lprm—Delete jobs from a print queue. lpc—Control print queues.
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Moodle 2.0
I’ve been experimenting with some of the new developmental stuff in Moodle 2.0. The first thing that struck me was that the navigation is much better. It’s uniform throughout the pages and it seems like a lot of attention was made to make the menus and how blocks appear and are laid out look and feel much better. There are also a number of new features for managing courses and blocks, including: Tagging Built-in Progress tracking Forced paths through a course Conditional course completion Enhanced testing and grading systems Built-in RSS aggregation Built-in blogging tool A backup program that was actually able to backup my whole Moodle environment Updated wiki…
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Mac OS X: Invoke a Command w/ ScreenSaver
Found this nice little tool called ScriptSaver today. Basically, when the screen saver in Mac OS X is activated and/or deactivated it will run an AppleScript. The AppleScript can call a shell script or you can write an application in AppleScript and choose it from within the script. The developer has also made some sample AppleScripts available for use with ScriptSaver. For my purpose I just wanted to kill Safari, so I used an AppleScript of: tell application "Safari" quit saving no end tell However, I could have just as easily have used
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Preserving the Chain of Custody for Mac OS X
One of the most important aspects of performing forensics work in Mac OS X is to write-block the volumes that you are inspecting in order to maintain the chain of custody for the evidence (or potential evidence). One way to do this is to use a physical write blocker so that when you plug a USB, SATA, eSATA or other type of drive into the write blocker you will only be presented with a read only volume on the computer. For example, some good write blockers can be found at Digital Intelligence. WeibeTech also makes a nice USB device for write blocking on the Mac. But this can get kinda’…