Love working with Chuck Joiner. It’s great to record these podcasts, and always have a blast hanging out with Chuck. This episode is covering my latest book on OS X Server. Stoked to get the chance to do this again! To check out the book, click here!
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Bash: Check That A Script Is Running As Root
Pretty much every script I’m working on these days must be run as root. Checking what user is running something is pretty straight forward, as there’s a built-in shell variable for $USER that contains the user running a script. To see this real quick, simply run the following: echo $USER You can then put this into your scripts. I’ve been using the same block of code for decades, which can be run in a script by itself if you’d like to paste this into one. if [[ $USER != "root" ]]; then echo "This script must be run as root" else echo "You are root" exit 1 fi Note: Keep in mind…
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Goodbye Certified Apple Server Training!
I remember way back, long ago, before the iPad, and before the iPhone, Apple had official certification training for OS X Server. I think I got my first certification around 10.3. Over time, additional courses appeared. There was an Xsan course, there was an OS X Server course, and there were plans for more. At the height of the Apple certification program, you could get the following for a full on systems administration plethora of acronyms, including ACDT, ACTC, ACSA, and ACMA: Mac OS X Support Essentials v10.6: Prometric #9L0-403, removed on May 31, 2012 Mac OS X Server Essentials v10.6: Prometric #9L0-510, removed on May 31, 2012 Mac OS X…
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Using the Caching Service Command Line Interface
The Caching Server in OS X Server 5 is pretty simple, right? You open up the server app and then click on the On button and you’re… off… to… the… races… Yup. There are also a few options that you can configure using the Server app. You can configure which IP addresses (or networks) are able to access your server. You can configure where the cache is stored. You can configure the amount of Cached used. And you can clear out that cache. Boom. Including the ON button, you’ve only got 5 things you can do here. Pretty easy. To script kicking off the service as just a proxy that…
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Disable The iCloud Options In Caching Server For OS X Server 5
I’ve written a couple of articles about the Caching service in OS X Server 5 for El Capitan. As of OS X Server 5, the Caching service now caches local copies on the computer running the Caching service of iCloud content. This allows you to cache content once and then have it accessed by multiple devices faster. I’m torn on this option. On the one hand, I love the fact that I can cache things and on the other hand I find it frightening that a random user can cache things I might not want them to cache on behalf of another user. I know, I know, they’re encrypted with…
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Use dnsconfig in OS X Server 5
DNS is DNS. And named is named. Except in OS X Server. Sometimes. The configuration files for the DNS services in OS X Server are stored in /Library/Server/named. This represents a faux root of named configuration data, similar to how that configuration data is stored in /var/named on most other platforms. Having the data in /Library/Server/ makes it more portable across systems. The current version of BIND is 9.9.7-P2. Traditionally, you would edit this configuration data by simply editing the configuration files, and that’s absolutely still an option. In OS X Server 5 (for El Capitan and Yosemite), a new command is available at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/DNSManager.framework called dnsconfig. The dnsconfig command appears simple at…
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Install macOS Server On A Mac Running macOS 10.12 (Sierra)
The first thing you’ll want to do on any server is setup the networking for the computer. To do this, open the System Preferences and click on Network. You usually 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 static IP address. Your network administrator can provide this fairly easily. Here, make sure you have an IP address and a subnet mask. Since we need to install the Server app from the Mac App Store, and that’s on the Internet,…
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Demote An Open Directory Server In OS X Server 5
OS X Server, Server 5, El Capitan Server can have problems with Open Directory. Sometimes, you just need to reset your directory service. You can demote and restore the server if needed. But buyer beware, you may end up screwing things up while the directory server is being demoted and you’re restoring a backup. Or if you haven’t built out the directory server, you may end up just demoting the server and starting over. In this article, we’ll look at demoting the server. To get started demoting the Open Directory master, first open the Server app and then click on Open Directory. From the Open Directory screen, click on the minus button…
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Promote an OS X Server 5 Open Directory Replica To An Open Directory Master
You’ve got Open Directory running and humming beautifully in OS X Server 5 (running on OS X Yosemite or OS X El Capitan). You show up to work and the hard drive has died on that perfectly configured Open Directory Master. Luckily, you have a replica and you have an archive of your Master. You can restore or you can promote your Replica to a Master. What to do? Well, I can’t tell you what you should do, but I can tell you that Apple has planned for this. Here, we’re going to look at promoting that Replica to a Master. Because after all, hard drives fail. Let’s look at…
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Configure the Calendar Server In El Capitan Server
Configuring Calendar Server in OS X Server 5 (running on El Capitan or Yosemite) is a fairly simple and straight forward process. The Calendar Server is a CalDAV Server, leveraging HTTP and HTTPS, running on ports 8008 and 8443 respectively. To enable the Calendar service in OS X Server (Server 5), open the Server application and click on Calendar in the SERVICES section of the sidebar. Once open, click on Enable invitations by email to enable email notifications of invitations in the Calendar Server. Provide the email address and then click on the Next button. At the Configure Server Email Address screen, provide the type of incoming mail service in use, provide the…