• Mac OS X,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    More Information About DHCP Leases in OS X

    You can obtain a pretty decent amount of information about leases your OS X computer gets just by looking in the Network System Preference pane, for each interface. However, you can get a little lot more information, as with most things, from the command line. First, we’re going to take a look at en0 on our host and see what the MAC address is: ifconfig en0 ether Now, we can look in the /var/db/dhcpclient/leases directory to see a list of all of the leases we have running on our system. Based on the MAC address of our computer, we should see a file there that starts with the name of…

  • Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    Adaptive Firewall Statistics for OS X Server

    I wrote up afctl (the command line tool to manage the OS X Server Adaptive Firewall) awhile back here https://krypted.com//mac-security/a-little-more-about-afctl-in-os-x-server. One thing I didn’t touch on is statistics. There’s a nice little command called hb_summary located in /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/CoreServices/AdaptiveFirewall.bundle/Contents/MacOS that provides statistics for blocked hosts. To see statistics about how much the Adaptive Firewall is being used, just run the command with no options: /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/CoreServices/AdaptiveFirewall.bundle/Contents/MacOS/hb_summary The output provides the following information (helpful if plugging this information into a tool like Splunk): Date Date statistics start Number of hosts blocked Addresses blocked Number of times each address was blocked Last time a host was blocked Total number of times a block was…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Xsan

    Use A Serial Interface with Promise Arrays

    Many of us use a Keyspan Serial adapter to manage devices with serial ports on them. Those who find you need to console into devices but hate the fact that you have to either use Zterm (which is no longer maintained) or boot a Windows Virtual Machine will find an application called goSerial pretty handy. GoSerial makes a Keyspan serial to usb adaptor, connected with a null modem cable, useful. You will be in CLI heaven in moments. goSerial can be downloaded here. You can also use the screen command. The screen command will open a virtual terminal and provide the functionality of an old DEC VT100 terminal. Screen is…

  • Mac OS X

    iconutil

    Sometimes you just have to convert an iconset file to an icns file. And who knew, Apple was kind enough to give us a command to do just that in OS X! To use the iconutil command, run it with the -c option which indicates that the file will be converted. The -o indicates the file to convert a file to. Let’s use the myfile.iconset as the source file and then mynewfile.icns as the target file. The command would be as follows: iconutil -c myfile.iconset -o mynewfile.icns

  • Mac OS X,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  Ubuntu

    Managing Core Dumps

    The core dump is a memory image of a processes in-core state that is written to the /cores directory by default and is named core followed by a . and then the pid number. So if a process with pid 87 crashes a file is written by default at /cores/core.87. The feature can be turned off using sysctl, along with the kern.coredump MIB, setting it to 0 (by default it’s 1). sysctl kern.coredump=0 To turn it back on: sysctl kern.coredump=1 Additionally, you can change the path that the files are written into, using sysctl along with the kern.corefile MIB. The corefile is an expression that by defualt writes core.%P where…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Ubuntu,  Unix

    Leveraging The Useful Yet Revisionist Bash History

    Not, this article is not about 1984. Nor do I believe there is anything but a revisionist history. Instead, this article is about the history command in OS X (and *nix). The history command is a funny beast. Viewing the manual page for history in OS X nets you a whole lotta’ nothin’ because it’s just going to show you the standard BSD General Commands Manual. But there’s a lot more there than most people use. Let’s take the simplest invocation of the history command. Simply run the command with no options and you’ll get a list of your previously run bash commands: history This would output something that looks…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Remove the Delay For the Dock To Pop Up

    I recently started hiding my Dock. I haven’t done that in over a decade, but I was ready for a change. But I’m not the most patient person in the world and waiting for the Dock to pop back up became a bit of a drag. So I looked around in com.apple.Dock and found an autohide-delay option. Setting that to -float 0 restored some sanity back into an already hectic enough world: defaults write com.apple.Dock autohide-delay -float 0 Then restart the Dock: killall Dock When you kill the Dock, it’s gonna’ reopen all the stuff you might have minimized down there. Well, this was close, but then this turned out…

  • certifications,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Apple Pro Training Series for ACTC

    Arek Dreyer and Ben Greisler have been at it again. The latest editions of the Apple Training Series books are now out, providing a guide to getting certified with OS X Server. I haven’t gotten mine yet, but I suspect that the book, as with the previous books, will be excellent. To quote the book description: The only Apple-certified book on OS X Server on Mountain Lion, this comprehensive reference takes support technicians and ardent Mac users deep inside the server for the latest operating system, covering everything from networking technologies to service administration, customizing users and groups, and more. Aligned to the learning objectives of the Apple Certified Technical Coordinator…

  • iPhone

    SimpleMDM Now With Apps

    SimpleMDM has updated their Mobile Device Management solution (my original writeup is here) to now include the ability to manage apps. The apps functionality really comes in two flavors. The first is the ability to load up an app. This is handled handed by clicking on Settings in the right hand navigation bar and then at the Settings pop-over, clicking on Apps. Here, you can load up an internal, enterprise app or an App Store app. Once you’ve loaded an app you can deploy it to devices by clicking on a group and then using the contextual menu to “Assign Apps.” Simple, as the name implies. The second aspect of…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mass Deployment

    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.