There are four ways to create users in Mountain Lion Server. The first is using the Server app, the second is using Workgroup Manager, the third is using the Users & Groups System Preference pane and the fourth is using the command line. In this article we will look at creating users in the Server app. To do so, open the Server app and connect to your server. Then click on the Users entry in the ACCOUNTS list. The list of users is displayed, based on the directory domain(s) being browsed. A directory domain is a repository of account data, which can include local users, local network users and users…
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Setting Up & Troubleshooting An Open Directory Replica In OS X Mountain Lion Server
Yesterday we looked at setting up an Open Directory Master in OS X Mountain Lion Server. An Open Directory Replica keeps a copy of the Open Directory database available for users even when the Master goes offline. But it can also take a part of the load from the Open Directory Master and when using the new Locales feature, balance network traffic. To get started with an Open Directory Replica, first enable SSH, now disabled by default. Next, use the changeip to check the host name. While the Server app is cool, it caches stuff and I’ve seen it let things go threat shouldn’t be let go. Therefore, in order…
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Setting Up an Open Directory Master in OS X Mountain Lion Server
Open Directory has never been so easy to setup for a basic environment as it is in OS X Mountain Lion Server. It’s also never been so annoyingly simple to use that to do anything cool requires a bunch of command line foo. No offense to the developers, but this whole idea that the screens that were being continually refined for a decade just need to be thrown out and started fresh seems to have led to a few babies thrown out along with them. Not often as I’m kinda’ digging most of the new config screens in OS X Mountain Lion Server, but with Open Directory, it’s just too…
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Changes in Mountain Lion Server
Mountain Lion Server is now available on the OS X App Store and as with the last few updates there are some things missing that you might be expecting and depending on. First up, three major services are gone: Podcast Producer, RADIUS and dhcp. You can still do dhcp as you always did with OS X client as those features work on OS X Server, but the more granular controls available in OS X Server are now gone. The biggest impact of dhcp is probably in testing NetBoot services when there are network issues and you need to prove to network admins that it’s the network and not your server……
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Integrating Mac OS X Lion Server's Profile Manager With Active Directory
Over the years, the terms Magic, Golden, Triangle, Augments, Directory, Domains and Active have given the administrators of Mac OS X environments fits. So when you think about using Active Directory to manage iOS devices through the Profile Manager service, built into Lion Server, you may think that it’s a complicated thing to piece together. You may remember those days when you had to manually craft service principals because xgrid wouldn’t play nice with Acive Directory, or you might think of twisting augmented records to support CalDAV. But you’re gonna’ have to forget all that, ’cause getting Profile Manager to talk to Active Directory is one of the easiest things…
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Talking A Look Under Apple Configurator's Hood
Apple Configurator has now been in my grubby hands long enough for me to start looking at it a little deeper than I did in the introductory article I did awhile back. Architecturally, Apple Configurator keeps its data in ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.configurator. Here, you’ll find a directory called IPSWs, another called Resources, file called AppleConfigurator.storedata and another called Users.storedata. The IPSWs directory is where operating system versions, per model of iOS are stored. These look something like iPad2,1_5.1_9B176_Restore.ipsw, which is iOS 5.1 for a standard iPad 2. iPad 1, the retina display iPad, as well as each iPod Touch and iPhone 4 each have their own entry as well. The IPSWs…
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Upgrading Open Directory From Snow Leopard Server to Lion Server
I don’t believe in upgrading major operating systems for servers in place. There, I said it. If I’m doing an upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion, I’m about 99.9% of the time going to do so with a clean install. Before I do so, I’m going to export all the data from my old server and when I’m done with the fresh, clean, loving installation, I’m going to import that data back into my server. Actually, before I import the data, I’m going to install all of the point releases, application updates and security patches. That’s my process for production servers. Open Directory isn’t very different. I Archive and Restore…
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Using ServerBackup to Backup Lion Servers
ServerBackup is a new command included in Lion Server, located in the /usr/sbin/ServerBackup directory. The ServerBackup command is used to backup the server settings for services running on a Lion Server. The command is pretty easy and straight forward to use, but does require you to be using Time Machine in order to actually run. In the most basic form, ServerBackup is invoked to run a backup using the backup command. Commands are prefixed with a -cmd followed by the actual command. As you might be able to guess, the commandlet to fire off a backup is backup. The backup command requires a -source option which will almost always be…
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Server.app and Open Directory Rebuilds in Lion
Server.app in Lion is a pretty good app for most tasks. But I find myself frequently doing things that I don’t think developers intended me to do. One such item is setting up and tearing down Open Directory to test various iterations of enabling a master. I frequently use slapconfig to destroyldapserver: slapconfig -destroyldapserver Doing so almost immediately allows me to demote an Open Directory master to a stand-alone server and then repromote the server to a master or replica for testing purposes. If you do this, then Open Directory cannot be set back up using Server.app. The fix is to use Server Admin to repromote your server back to…
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Directory Services Scripting Changes in Lion
opendirectoryd Scripting directory services events is one of the most common ways that the OS X community automates post-imaging tasks. As such, there are about as many flavors of directory services scripts are there engineers that know both directory services and have a little scripting experience. In OS X Lion, many aspects of directory services change and bring with them new techniques for automation. The biggest change is the move from DirectoryService to opendirectoryd. In Snow Leopard and below, when you performed certain tasks, you restarted the directory services daemon, DirectoryService. The same is true in Lion, except that instead of doing a killall on DirectoryService, you do it on…