KBOX supports package distribution and inventory management for Mac OS X. KBOX is more commonly known though, for providing imaging, software distribution and inventory management for Windows environments. But the imaging is what’s missing in the offering for Mac OS X. So if you’re planning a KBOX deployment then consider going ahead and also planning a NetInstall, NetRestore or InstaDMG deployment to go right along with it for your Mac environment.
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Mac OS X: Disable fstab
To disable the fstab file for Mac OS X, open the /etc/fstab file and then comment out the following line: /- -static -nosuid
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Mac OS X Server: Software Updates
One of the first things you’ll want to do to a newly installed system is run a fresh software update on it to make sure it’s got all the latest patches since the media it was installed from was created. To do so, you can use the softwareupdate command. To get a list of available updates from the Apple servers (or whichever software update server you may be using): softwareupdate -list To install of the available updates: softwareupdate –all To install specific updates: softwareupdate -i <label>
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Mac OS X Server: Group Quota's
Group Quotas enable limitation of how much data a given group can write to a volume. The .quota.group file at the root of a given volume can be used to control quota settings. Note: the .quota.group file is hidden (as can be seen from the leading . in the filename. The edquota command can be used to enable Group Quotas on a per-volume basis. In this regard it is important to remember that an AFP mount is considered a volume to the client systems. Each different AFP Share Point is a separate volume to the client system.
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Mac OS X: SetFile
A couple of months ago I wrote about Using SetFile to Make Files Invisible. But today I’m going to discuss using it to change a few other attributes of a file. The options for SetFile include: SetFile -a can change attributes of a file, such as visibility, locked status, etc. SetFile -c can change the creator of the file SetFile -d can change the creation date of the file SetFile -m can change the modification date of the file SetFile -t can change the file type So let’s look at using some of these other options. First let’s take a file called logo.png on my Desktop (~/Desktop) and let’s change…
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Ubuntu: Installing Netatalk
Netatalk is an Open Source implementation of AFP. To get Netatalk you have to perform a custom build from the source code. To start: open system -> Administration -> Software Sources. Check the Source Code Box then click on close and click reload. Then open a terminal and type the following commands: sudo apt-get build-dep netatalk sudo apt-get install cracklib2-dev fakeroot libssl-dev sudo apt-get source netatalk cd netatalk-2* Next build the Netatalk package using: sudo DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS=ssl dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot sudo dpkg -i ~/netatalk_2*.deb echo “netatalk hold” | sudo dpkg –set-selections That’s it.
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Better Late than Never
New Apple security update. Not that it fixes everything it intends but it’s a good start… http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2647
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Mac OS X Server 10.5: Customizing Trust Time for the adplugin
You can use the adplugin to customize the amount of time a client is trusted by Active Directory. It can be done by using the following command: dsconfigad -passinterval 30
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Mac OS X Server 10.5: Using NATd to turn the Server into a Router
There are certain aspects of Mac OS X Server that it just isn’t that great at. One of them is acting as a router. It’s just a fact that an appliance by SonicWALL, Cisco, Watchguard and sometimes LinkSys will run circles around the speed and feature set of Mac OS X Server. So with that in mind, let’s look at how you would go about configuring a basic port forward on OS X Server if you decided not to listen to me on this point… 😉 You can use the /etc/net/natd.plist. The key you’ll want to edit is the redirect_port, one per port or a range of all in one key… …
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Mac OS X 10.5: Compressing PDFs
So remember that feature in OS X that allowed you to compress your PDFs. Well, it’s not really there any more. But it can still be done, as a client of mine, Bill, pointed out to me: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/compresspdfworkflow.html At the office, we’ve built another Automator workflow to allow you to go ahead and password protect PDFs. So there’s a lot of flexibility here…