People who have managed Open Directory and will be moving to Synology will note that directory services really aren’t nearly as complicated was we’ve made them out to be for years. This is because Apple was protecting us from doing silly things to break our implementations. It was also because Apple bundled a number of seemingly disparate technologies into ldap. It’s worth mentioning that LDAP on a Synology is LDAP. We’re not federating services, we’re not kerberizing services, we’re not augmenting schemas, etc. We can leverage the directory service to provide attributes though, and have that central phone book of user and group memberships we’ve come to depend on directory…
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Basic Synology NAS Setup
Over the years, I’ve setup dozens of Synology Network Appliances for customers and friends. But I never thought of doing much writing in the NAS space, be it for ReadyNAS, Thecus, Buffalo, etc. The interfaces seemed to change too fast and my focus was always on the management and connectivity of Apple devices. Slowly, over the years, small business servers have gone from being something you could make a decent living to something that should probably be hosted in the cloud. Unless you have a design requirement that just can’t work in the cloud. And for that, there are a ton of options. Today we’ll cover the basic setup of…
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Configuring The New HomePod
Last week, Apple finally shipped my new HomePod (and by finally, I mean exactly when they said they would). And setting it up couldn’t have been easier. Even easier than setting up my first Echos. So here’s the deal. Plug in the HomePod and then when it boots up you’ll see an overlay on an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, etc). You’ll want to use the device that has an AppleID you want to use on the HomePod (e.g. the one that your Apple Music account is using). When you see the Set Up button, tap it. You can then select a location for the HomePod. This is important mostly if…
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Using The Messages Service In macOS Server 5.2
Getting started with Messages Server couldn’t really be easier. Messages Server in the macOS Server 5.2 version of the Server app uses the open source jabber project as their back-end code base. The jabber binary is located at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/private/var/jabberd directory and the autobuddy binary is at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/bin/jabber_autobuddy. The actual jabberd binary is also stored at /Applications/Server.app/Contents/ServerRoot/usr/libexec/jabberd, where there are a couple of perl scripts used to migrate the service between various versions as well. Setting up the Messages service is simple. Open the Server app and click on Messages in the Server app sidebar.  Click on the Edit… button for the Permissions. Here, define which users and interfaces are allowed to…
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Add New Records To MySQL Databases With The INSERT Statement
Sometimes you need to write a record into a table in a SQL database. The INSERT INTO statement creates new records in a table and can work in one of two ways. The first form does not specify the column names where the data will be inserted, only their values. When doing so, each value needs to be inserted in the columned order they appear, here the table being the name of the table you’re adding a record into and each value would be replaced with the contents of your value (don’t insert the string ‘value’ into each!): INSERT INTO table VALUES (value,value,value,...); If you don’t have every value to…
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Apple Configurator 2 Guide
Apple Configurator 2 is a great new evolution in iOS initial and configuration management. And there are lots of great options. And to help you wrap your head around all this new fun stuff, I’ve written up a quick and dirty guide for using Apple Configurator 2. It’s not completely done, but it will be shortly. Hope this help someone. Enjoy!
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Configure The New Apple TV 4
The new fourth generation Apple TV is everything I hoped the third generation would be. We have a touch remote with a Mic, great video, USB-C, and most importantly, an App Store! And while I have security concerns around the setup process, I am sure Apple has thought through the myriad of questions I have surrounding sharing Apple ID keys over bluetooth from a phone to the Apple TV to streamline the setup process. So about that setup process. Configuring the new Apple TV is pretty straight forward. To get started, get your phone out. Yes, your phone. Then unwrap the Apple TV and plug it into the HDMI port…
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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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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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Set Up Your New Apple Watch
You waited. And you tapped your fingers on the desk. And you sat and waited some more, for the UPS person. You stared at your mailbox. And then, after all of that, UPS showed up. And you signed. And then you had that box in your hands. The cardboard box, when opened, gave way to a sweet white box. You opened it by pulling the little tag off, and then you pulled the watch out of the box. You tried on the two bands. And you picked the one that fit you the best. So now what? Turn on the watch by hitting the button on the side and watch that beautiful…