PKGImage
PKGImage is a modular system deployment tool for leopard (10.5).
Now released here: http://www.apple-scripts.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=16
Read more›Using Managed Preferences in the DSLocal domain
So this has recently been discussed on the MacEnteprise list, but we thought we'd try and collate these ideas into a real world example.
Most of you should be aware of how you can use MCX to manage preferences for your directory service. Generally these days this is done by either running Open Directory, extending the schema for Active Directory or a standard OpenLDAP installation, or running a "magic triangle" setup where your client machines are bound to both an Open Directory setup and an Active Directory/OpenLDAP setup.
You might think that apart from these scenarios that you don't have any options for MCX management, but that's not true at all. We do have another option. Put MCX controls into the local directory service.
Read on for some practical examples….
Read more›Using avelsieve to edit Sieve filters in SquirrelMail on 10.5
Leopard Server has all of the pieces installed for sieve filters for server-side mail filtering, but if you want to use the SquirrelMail filter interface to allow users to add filters, then you have to do a little work. We've provided a pkg to install the avelsieve package that allows you to install it the plugin to SquirrelMail, but it is a bit incompatible with 10.5 Server.
Read on to see how to resolve it….
Read more›SNMP Primer Article
This is a bit of perhaps tooting my own horn, but since the content is so apropos, I hope that won't be too big of a deal. Anyway, a few days ago, i finished an article that is an SNMP primer, both as a general look at SNMP, and some tips on using it with Leopard/Mac OS X 10.5 Server.
The article is called, appropriately: A Primer to SNMP on Mac OS X 10.5 and Mac OS X 10.5 Server
Hope it proves useful.
Read more›Force local computer to home sync back
We're testing the following process to see if we can force a user's local computer will copy back to their home folder remotely. Been working with an Apple rep on this and we were successful in doing this on a test account. Please backup before you try this.
Read on for more…
Read more›Leopard DNS – The Gui, The Bad, and The Ugly
One of the biggest complaints I heard from other consultants and support folks about Mac OS X Server 10.4 was about how bad it was to work with the DNS GUI. They pined away for Panther or relegated themselves to hand coding their zone files. With Leopard come some welcome changes and a nasty bug.
Read on for more…
Read more›Creating a Network Enabled BartPE disk for Intel Macs
So you got your Macs all pimped out with a bootcamp partition and dual boot. However, what do you do when you start having problems with Windows partition and want to edit some system files, do a virus scan without being booted from that Windows partition, or do repairs on an unstable system?
BartPE allows you to create a bootable CD that contains just enough of Windows XP to get you up and running you to do some diagnostics on your Windows partition. You still have to have a Windows XP license to create a BartPE disk, but if you are repairing a Windows install, then you probably already have the license.
The one drawback to a generic BartPE CD is that networking does not
work on Intel Macs due to missing network drivers. We know that these
drivers are on the BootCamp driver disk, but since they are all
executable (.exe) files, it is difficult to know how to include them.
We'll
walk through the steps of creating a BartPE disk with network drivers
so that you'll be able to boot up from the CD and have read/write
access to the NTFS partition.
Click Read More to see the steps to create the CD.
MOSXSWebPassword 1.5
An updated version of my WebObjects application that allows for user password changes and resets from a web page, released September 10, 2007.
Read more›Creating an Adobe CS3 Installer with pkgGen
For those who have yet to create one, here is a introductory guide on how to create an Adobe CS3 .pkg installer ( in lieu of the slient install ) with little to no fuss, and more importantly no real manual interaction with all the associated files. I have modified a perl script from Geoff Franks that was created for parsing Microsoft Office update log files to now parse the output of logGen
I encourage the community to send back code additions and bug reports.
Here is the link to the pkgGen Article on my companies blog
Read more›Creating stable and unstable branches with Apple’s Software Update Server.
Recently we've seen a few updates that have caused some stability problems from Apple, notably some of the wireless drivers with recent Santa Rosa based MacBook Pros.
If you're running an Apple Software Update Server for your Mac clients, and you should, as it gives you a point of central control of available updates, as well as saves on bandwidth costs…. then it's somewhat frustrating that all your users have exactly the same packages available to them.
Ideally you want to be able to have a group of guinea pigs who are happy to live on the edge, and only once you've performed QA on an update do you allow it to be available to your clients. Apple's Software Update Server doesn't allow you this functionality out of the box, but we're going to show you how you can achieve a simple setup of an unstable branch that contains every single update, and a stable branch that only contains the updates you've enabled via the Server Admin GUI.
Read on….
Read more›
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