Archive for category: Server

Five years ago, it was not uncommon to see many cabinets full of Xserves fulfilling serving roles in the enterprise.  Today those servers are on their last legs and warrant replacement by modern hardware and software design. Luckily there isn’t much of a need of OS X Server by IT […]

On my blog, I have written a 3 page blogpost about virtualizing OS X using vSphere on Mac hardware. In the blogpost I try to answer the below questions: What is required to virtualize OS X? Which hardware is supported, and which hardware works? How to license OS X in […]

For many reasons, you may find yourself needing to start a new Mavericks Open Directory server from scratch. In this article, I’ll go over how to import your existing users from an older Open Directory server and import them to your new Mavericks server. I will also use a tool […]

When we last caught glimpse of our heroes, MacSysAdmin Conference was still around the corner and there was nothing automatic about damage. Here in episode four, Ed Marczak turns the (significantly less echo-y) microphone on Graham Gilbert for a reverse-interview, and juicy confessions emerge, like their shared, scandalous predilection for… […]

One of the biggest announcements from Apple with OS X Mavericks was not part of the WWDC 2013 keynote.  Instead, it is buried deep in a technical document on Apple’s site.  This is the announcement that the Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) is being deprecated in favor of Server Message Block […]

One of the issues Mac admins have with OS X’s Configuration Profiles system is that using OS X Server to build a Profile allows only subset of the management “scope” that is provided using MCX / Managed Preferences. Specifically, any configuration profiles made with Profile Manager are the equivalent of […]

Working with Open Directory can be a great experience…until it isn’t.  When your database goes up in flames (or perhaps if), it can be frustrating and maddening.  Charles Edge has an article posted on what to do when your OD database decides to spontaneously corrupt itself. Nate WalckNate is a Systems Reliability Engineer at Dropbox, […]

Virtualization is an extremely useful tool to have at your disposal.  If you have ever wanted to transfer a physical machine’s OS X install to a virtual machine, you know that VMWare does not make a tool for doing so.  They provide one for Linux and Windows, but not for […]

Justin Rummel has a writeup on how to enable various log files on OS X server and where to view them at.  Pretty good look at how you might go about logging for the sake of security, troubleshooting or even curiosity. Nate WalckNate is a Systems Reliability Engineer at Dropbox, Inc […]

Paul Suh did a session at MacIT 2013 on Certificates, specifically in regards to Open Directory serving as a PKI.  The session was only 45 minutes long, so he could not go into great detail.  Thankfully, Paul has written a three part article that covers using an Open Directory-based PKI so […]