Archive for September, 2004

Server-side Mail processing for Cyrus

Enables vacation messages and mail filters with OS X Server 10.3.

One of the things that can make rollout plans go much smoother is automation. Through imaging and scripting I recently cut a rollout from 24 steps to 4!

One thing here that can get you is AD binding, as it acts funky when trying to run as a post-restore script or as a startup item. Based on work by Michael Bartosh, I’ve put together a login hook that can do your AD bind and name your Mac on first login.

Heavily commented, you can download the script and take a look to see if it can help you shave steps off of your rollout.

You can download it here.

The MacEnterprise.org (formerly MacOSXLabs.org) group will be presenting a “ADmitMac” WebCast

Tuesday, September 21 at 1:00 pm EDT. Paul Nelson, V.P of Engineering at Thursby Software Systems, will be presenting on ADmitMac, a tool that integrates Macintosh machines into Microsoft networks.

For the case study we have Michael Perbix, a Telecommunications Specialist from the Lower Merion School District, presenting on his experience in integrating their mostly-Mac environment with an existing Active Directory infrastructure using ADmitMac.

For more information on how to watch this WebCast, please visit the MacEnterprise.org webcast web page:

http://www.macenterprise.org/webcasts/webcasts_next.html

Note that the broadcast ID needed to view the webcast has changed to ‘macenterprise’!!

Jeff Greene
macenterprise.org (macosxlabs.org)
Webcast Coordinator

Set up your server as a NAT router to do transparent web proxy caching.

Update: New URL. Find the new Squid/NAT/IPFW/DNS document here.

If you ordered an X-Server without a video card, but need one here’s a down-n-dirty tip:

If you have an old B&W PowerMac lying around, swipe the video card from it and use it in the upper slot. It works fine, won’t void your warranty and gives you the basic functionality you need to manage the beastie!

Ed. Note: I think most Apple PCI video cards, note not AGP, should work in the Xserve, but nice to know of a specific example. Having said that….running it headless isn’t hard to do, either.

Use the security command to access keychains.

Read the man page, but usage is pretty easy. It’s especially handy when you need to find out your IPSec shared key and you only have an ssh connection.

Do note that if you use the interactive mode that there isn’t any way of getting out besides using control-c.

The Berkeley DB tools that should have come with the OS

Michael Bartosh has a pkg installer for the Berkeley DB utilities that are necessary to roll your Cyrus and OpenLDAP transaction logs in addition to performing other housekeeping chores for any bdb database.

Check out the rest of his site for other OS X Server news and downloads.

Not quite OS X Server, but since most of us do some kind of imaging…

Check out this command:

sudo pico /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/Versions/A/Resources/EngineDefaults.plist

This command is on one line, remember.

Does anyone know of other defaults this concept hold true for? (This determines what settings are used for "ByHost" plists, which are used by OS X to reset certain preferences after imaging).

How to get Squid on another machine to authenticate to an Open Directory LDAP server.

While this example shows how to do this with a Red Hat box, the process is pretty much the same for any Unix/Linux.

How to kerberize your OS X Server when using AD for authentication.

I was going to write up my own, but Michael has done a great job of documenting all this and there’s nothing I can add. For what it’s worth I prefer the Unix-centric method halfway down the page.