Articles by: arekdreyer

Apple Releases Second Edition of Lion Server Advanced Administration

Apple released their new Lion Server Advanced Administration documentation. 

Has anyone yet analyzed what's new?

I filed an enhancement request asking for them to flag the differences. 

 

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Augmenting DNS Records Using dnsmasq

DNS can always bite you in the rear. in some case you run your own DNS server and you can correct the issues. In other cases, you're beholden to the powers that be to determine your fate. All is not lost, however, it is possible to run your own DNS proxy to override specific answers. It's not an ideal solution, and can certainly be accused of being a "hack" but it can be invaluable in some situations.

Read on for how to do this…

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Apple posted its Second Version of Open Directory Administration Guide.

There were some bugs in the first version of the "Mac OS X Server Open Directory Administration For Version 10.5 Leopard"  

Check out the new version. 

Open Directory Administration 

http://images.apple.com/server/macosx/docs/Open_Directory_Admin_v10.5.pdf

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New storage. New Xsan

When the Apple Store came back up after this morning's Tuesday outage, I thought the new $49 price tag on the shuffle summed up the changes.

But I was wrong. 

Xsan2 has been released. See apple.com/xsan

And we have a big change up at apple.com/server/storage

We don't have new Xserve RAIDs, not exactly. 

It looks like Xserve RAID has been replaced with Promise's "VTrak E-Class RAID" units.

It is the same 3U, but instead of 14 drives, the Promise holds 16 drives.

Instead of PATA, now we have the choice of SATA or SAS. (750GB for SATA and 300GB for SAS drives). 12TB raw capacity if you want one big dangerous RAID 0 LUN.

4Gb/s FC instead of 2Gb/s.

Dual active/active controllers.

And of course, it supports Xsan 2. 

 

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HOWTO: prevent weak or undesirable passwords with weakpass_edit

Hidden deep in the bowels of the password server you will find some interesting, if seldom used, password policies that can be applied. Here Arek Dreyer takes a look at the weakpass_edit command and how it can help you refine your security policies.

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Centralized and unsecure logging with syslogd

Get syslog to do your bidding and send logs to a remote machine.

A quick run-through on how to make syslogd be promiscuous and take logs from strangers.

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Script to remove redundant Office2004 fonts

Have you ever noticed that Office 2004 installs fonts all over the place? You can use this handy script by Arek Dreyer to remove them after they have been installed.

(Ed. note: You can remove the DoFonts file from the Office folder to keep it from installing them in the first place.)

Download the script here.

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Local-only mail on OS X 10.3 Server

Get your server to deliver mail to local accounts without running an SMTP server.

If you’re used to previous version of OSX, you might be dismayed when 10.3 server doesn’t act like you thought it should.

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