I wrote an article on using the profiles command awhile back, available at https://krypted.com//mac-security/profile-manager-and-profiles/. There is a nifty new feature in the profiles command in Mavericks, where you can configure profiles to install at the next boot, rather than immediately. Use the -s to define a startup profile and take note that if it fails, the profile will attempt to install at each subsequent reboot until installed. To use the command, simply add a -s then the -F for the profile and the -f to automatically confirm, as follows (and I like to throw in a -v usually for good measure): profiles -s -F /Profiles/SuperAwesome.mobileconfig -f -v And that’s it. Nice…
-
-
Connect to Currently Logged In User Using ARD
When you’re kickstarting ARD/Screen Sharing, you might notice times when you are asked if you want to connect to the local logged in user or to a new session, which shows the login window. In most cases, I want to connect to the console user, or that locally logged in user. To go right there, instead of seeing the OS X login window, you can use the defaults command to write a VNCAlwaysStartOnConsole key (boolean, true) into com.apple.RemoteManagement.plist in /Library/Preferences, as follows: defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteManagement VNCAlwaysStartOnConsole -bool true The newer features here are pretty cool and really nice to have, but I’ve now added this to a lot of my…
-
Getting Ready For MacTech
As I prepare my talk for MacTech it occurs to me I should probably post something about it. MacTech Conference is a 3-day, immersive, technical conference specifically designed for Apple IT Pros, Enterprise, developers, and programmers. With presentations from some of the best and well-known experts in the community, MacTech Conference has two separate tracks: one focuses on programming / development, and the other on IT/Enterprise and consulting. Sessions will focus on both desktop and mobile, as well as OS X and iOS. See http://www.mactech.com/conference/ https://krypted.com/ is a media sponsor of MacTech Conference 2013, November 6-8 at the Manhattan Beach Marriott in Los Angeles. As a sponsor, we have a deal for…
-
Show File Extensions
In OS X, we don’t see file extensions by default. However, in a number of environments it’s very useful to have them. To see them in the Finder, send a boolean AppleShowAllExtensions key to the NSGlobalDomain as True, then restart the Finder. defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleShowAllExtensions -bool true; killall Finder To change back to not seeing extensions: defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleShowAllExtensions -bool false; killall Finder
-
Resolve “rootDSE not found” Error in Open Directory
Occasionally, when we go to install an Open Directory Replica for a new Open Directory environment, where the Master is running 10.8.4 we run into an error that: NSMutableDictionary *_getRootDSE(const char *): rootDSE not found At the GUI this just looks like: This could mean that you need to check the SSL box in the Directory Utility for the replica. You’ll know that’s the case if the Replica appears in the Server app but is still throwing errors when trying to work. This could also be an issue where the Master can’t get a version or the DSE from the Master. Assuming you already checked IP/DNS, let’s see if the…
-
Disable Outgoing Mail Sound In Apple Mail
There are so many reasons that disabling the outgoing mail sound in OS X might be a good idea for some. To disable the sound, write a key called MailSentSoundPath with the contents of a path to the new sound into the com.apple.mail defaults domain (in this case we’re just not gonna’ send it any real data so it doesn’t play a sound): defaults write com.apple.mail MailSentSoundPath /devnull The close Mail and open it again. Try sending yourself an email and the sound should be gone. To enable the sound again, just delete the MailSentSoundPath key: defaults delete com.apple.mail MailSentSoundPath
-
Change Your Default Search Engine Back on iOS
Recently, Safari on my iPhone started finding things I searched for using Yahoo! rather than the previously default Google search engine. Now, I’m not gonna’ hate on Yahoo! here. I actually left it for weeks so I could see the differences and nuances here and there. From the different way it displays movie times to image handling, I just didn’t exactly love Yahoo! (although it gets better all the time). So I decided to switch it back. If you decide to switch back, you do so by first opening the Settings App and then scrolling down to and tapping on Safari. From the list of available options, select Google,…
-
MDSChannelPeerCreate and Shared Volumes
These two errors: com.apple.AppleFileServer[8123] MDSChannelPeerCreate: (os/kern) invalid argument MDSChannelPeerRef MDSChannelPeerCreate(CFAllocatorRef, CFDictionaryRef): (os/kern) invalid argument I see them frequently when we’re using dynamic or shared storage (e.g. Xsan or removable media) to share volumes between multiple computers and then share those shared volumes to clients through a network sharing protocol (e.g. afp or smb). They usually mean that the system doesn’t have enough permissions to do those MDSChannelPeerCreate processes. Therefore, we need to open those permissions up a little and then let the file sharing services restart. I usually do it this way: serveradmin stop afp serveradmin stop smb chown -R root:staff /Volumes/VOLUMENAME/.fseventsd chmod -R 770 /Volumes/VOLUMENAME/.fseventsd chown -R root:staff /Volumes/VOLUMENAME/.Spotlight-V100…
-
Is My Apple Computer Under Warranty?
Apple has a site used to check the warranty agreement of Apple hardware. You will need your serial number. To obtain that, click on the Apple menu and then click on About this Mac. From there, click on the greyed Version line until you see the Serial Number. You could also click on the More Info… button to see the Serial Number. Once you have the serial number, navigate to: https://selfsolve.apple.com/agreementWarrantyDynamic.do?newid=y. From there, enter the serial number to see the warranty status as can be seen here. You can also build this type of functionality into scripts or other systems. To do so, just inject the serial number as a sn= in…
-
Show All Files During Migration
When doing a data migration in OS X, you find that you often want to build a list of files on the source and the target media and then compare the two lists. When you do such a copy it’s important to verify that the data is all there. To find all the files on a drive, use the find command. If you’re in the working directory of the volume you’re transfering files from, the following command would show you all of the files on the volume: find . -name "*" To dump the contents to a file, use the > followed by the filename. So to list the contents…