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

    Configure Alerts In macOS Server 5.2

    macOS Server 5.2, running on Sierra, comes with a few new alerting options previously unavailable in versions of OS X. The alerts are sent to administrators via servermgrd and configured in the 5th version of the Server app. To configure alerts on the server, open the Server app and then click on Alerts in the Server app sidebar. Next, click on the Delivery tab. At the Delivery screen, click on the Edit button for Email Addresses and enter every email address that should receive alerts sent from the server. Then click on the Edit button for Push Notifications. Here, check the box for each administrator of the server. The email address on file…

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

    Configure SSH, ARD and SNMP In OS X Yosemite Server

    SSH allows administrators to connect to another computer using a secure shell, or command line environment. ARD (Apple Remote Desktop) allows screen sharing, remote scripts and other administrative goodness. SNMP allows for remote monitoring of a server. You can also connect to a server using the Server app running on a client computer. To enable all of these except SNMP, open the Server app (Server 3), click on the name of the server, click the Settings tab and then click on the checkbox for what you’d like to enter. All of these can be enabled and managed from the command line as well. The traditional way to enable Apple Remote…

  • Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security

    A Guide To Using Mountain Lion Server (OS X 10.8)

    I’ve been doing a number of postings on how to use various features of the latest version of OS X Server. Given that WordPress is pretty much a reverse chronological listing of articles I’ve written, I thought I’d put together a listing of the pages that I’ve done for OS X Server 10.8 (Mountain Lion Server) in order to offer a more pedagogically aligned way of reading these posts. As such, here is the Table of Contents for these posts: Introduction What Changed 10 Impactful Changes Upgrading from Lion Upgrading from Snow Leopard Managing the Server Configuring Alerts Using Web Modules Enable Push Notifications Configuring Time and Time Services Setting Up…

  • Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Enabling ARD, SSH & SNMP On Mountain Lion Server Using serveradmin

    The traditional way to enable Apple Remote Desktop is using the kickstart command. But there’s a simpler way in OS X Mountain Lion Server. To do so, use the serveradmin command. To enable ARD using the serveradmin command, use the settings option, with info:enableARD to set the payload to yes: sudo serveradmin settings info:enableARD = yes Once run, open System Preferences and click on Sharing. The Remote Management box is then checked and the local administrative user has access to ARD into the host. The Server app will also have the “Enable screen sharing and remote management” option checked. There are also a few other commands that can be used…

  • Home Automation,  Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment,  Xsan

    Lights Out Managing Mac Mini Servers with Vera

    There is no Lights Out Management for a Mac mini Server (btw, am I the only one that noticed that these are now called Mac mini with Lion Server, where mini isn’t capitalized). While the Mac mini Server doesn’t have the Lights Out Management (LOM)/IPMI chips in it, there are a few things that we can control anyway. Convention would say that we’d get a NetBotz card for that spiffy APC we’ve got, which can do minor automation and even a little environmental monitoring. And there are a few other systems out there that can do similar tasks. But I’m a home automation nerd these days. So I decided to…