Under Leopard’s WIki’s Covers
Introduction So, anyone with experience troubleshooting Apple’s wiki server in 10.5 will be familiar with the black art that is involved with nursing one of these beasts back to life. Unfortunately,...
View ArticleMac OS X: Show Only Active Apps in the Dock
The dock should have the applications you commonly need to get to. However, some simply want it to show them the applications that are open. You can do this by running the following command: defaults...
View ArticleEnable and Disable Root from the Command Line
In Tiger and below you used NetInfo Manager to enable and disable the root account in Mac OS X. However, in Leopard and above you use the Directory Utility. But you can also use the command line. In...
View ArticleSleeping Windows from the Command Line
Windows, like Mac OS X can be put to sleep, locked or suspended from the command line. To suspend a host you would run the following command: rundll32 powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState To lock a Windows...
View ArticleNew article on Xsan Scripting by 318
318 has published another article on Xsanity, for scripting various notifications and monitors for Xsan and packaged up into a nice package installer. You can find it here...
View ArticleESX Patch Management
VMware’s ESX Server, like any system, needs to be updated regularly. To see what patches have been installed on your ESX server use the following command: esxupdate -query Once you know what updates...
View ArticleTroubleshooting File Replication Pro
Check the Web GUI. To Check the logs via the Web Gui - On the server, open Safari and go to http://localhost:9100 and authenticate - Go To Scheduled Jobs and view the Logs for the 2 Way Replication Job...
View ArticleGreylisting and Snow Leopard Server
10.6 has introduced the use of Greylisting as a spam prevention mechanism. In short, it denies the first attempt for an MTA to deliver a message, once the server tries a second time (after an...
View ArticleReading Virtual Memory Stats
The vm_stat command in Mac OS X will show you the free, active, inactive, wired down, copy-on-write, zero filled, and reactivated pages for virtual memory utilization. You will also see the pageins as...
View ArticleNew CLI Options in Final Cut Server
For those of us who thought that the Final Cut Server 1.5.1 update was just a couple of minor bug fixes, there’s a little more than meets the eye. If you run /Library/Application Support/Final Cut...
View ArticleScreen Shots & ARD
For what it’s worth, we take ours from the command line. It helps keep proper track of the names screens. Simply open up a terminal window on a remote server via Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) and run the...
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Preparing for Exchange 2007
Make sure you have a fully updated Windows 2008 64bit install setup for the following commands to work. Note that Windows 2008 R2 will NOT work with Exchange 2007. Exchange 2007 has a lot of...
View ArticleScript for Populating Jabber Buddy Lists in iChat
Note: Uses a Jabber server hosted on yourfqdn. The 10.6 OS X ichat server has an autobuddy feature, but this feature only works with a user’s original shortname: if they have multiple shortname...
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MySQL Backup Options
MySQL bills itself as the world’s most popular open source database. It turns up all over, including most installations of WordPress. Packages for multiple platforms make installation easy and online...
View ArticleSerial Adaptors, screen and OS X
Many of us use a Keyspan Serial adapter to manage devices with serial ports on them. Those who find you need to console into devices but hate the fact that you have to either use Zterm (which is no...
View ArticleLion, SSH And Special Characters
At 318, we spend a pretty good bit of time SSH’d into Linux systems from Mac OS X. Therefore, whether we’re loosing our color settings when SSH’ing into Ubuntu or unable to transfer files via SSH, when...
View ArticleUpgrading VMware ESX 3i to ESXi 4.1i
Requirements: a. Workstation – Windows or linux based, either real or VM. b. The VMhost – Should be backed up, and running ESX 3i (3.5.0) c. new serial number for ESXi 4 1. go to vmware.com and find...
View ArticleConfiguring a Cisco ASA 5505 with the basics
The Cisco ASA 5505 is great for small to medium businesses. Below are the steps you will have to complete to configure your ASA to communicate with the internet. There are many more steps, options, and...
View ArticleAdding incoming and outgoing access rules on a Cisco ASA
To understand incoming and outgoing rules there are a couple of things to know before you can define your rules. Let’s start with an understanding of traffic flow on an ASA. All incoming rules are...
View ArticleAuditing Email in Google Apps
In order to address situations where a Google Apps admin needs access to a user’s mail data, Google provides an Email Audit API. It allows administrators to audit a user’s email and chats, and also...
View ArticleSetting up Netboot helpers on a Cisco device
Configure a Cisco device for forwarding bootp requests is a pretty straightforward process. First off, this will only apply to Cisco Routers and some switches. You will need to verify if you device...
View ArticleMacPorts new-ish tricks, and a new-ish trickster, Rudix
As the bucket-loads of package providers in Puppet may lead you to believe, if we do not study history we are doomed to repeat it. Or more to the point, there is no shortage of projects focused on...
View ArticleCreating a binding script to join Windows 7 clients to Active Directory
There are some different ways to join Windows 7 to a domain. You can do it manually, use djoin.exe to do it offline, use powershell, or use netdom.exe. Doing so manually can get cumbersome when you...
View ArticleA Bash Quicky
In our last episode spelunking a particularly shallow trough of bash goodness, we came across dollar sign substitution, which I said mimics some uses of regular expressions. Regex’s are often thought...
View ArticleDeployStudio Scripting Tips
I’ve given a presentation on my affinity for DeployStudio, yet with it being closed source, it’s sometimes like an enigma (wrapped in a mystery (wrapped in bacon)). However, a workflow exists to enable...
View Article(Sysadmin) Software Design Decisions
When approaching a task with an inkling to automate, sometimes you find an open source project that fits the bill. But the creator will work within constraints, and often express their opinion of...
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Configure network printers via command line on Macs
In a recent Twitter conversation with other folks supporting Macs we discussed ways to programmatically deploy printers. Larger environments that have a management solution like JAMF Software’s Casper...
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Sure, We Have a Mac Client, We Use Java!
We all have our favorite epithets to invoke for certain software vendors and the practices they use. Some of our peers go downright apoplectic when speaking about those companies and the lack of...
View ArticleAdd OS X Network Settings Remotely (Without Breaking Stuff)
So you’re going to send a computer off to a colocation facility, and it’ll use a static IP and DNS when it gets there, the info for which it’ll need before it arrives. Just like colo, you access this...
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Pulling Report Info from MunkiWebAdmin
Alright, you’ve fallen in love with the Dashboard in MunkiWebAdmin – we don’t blame you, it’s quite the sight. Now you know one day you’ll hack on Django and the client pre/postflight scripts until you...
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