Recovering Open Directory Databases
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.
Category: Servers and Services
Using Netatalk: AFP Services on a Linux Server
Let's face it, OS X makes a great stable client platform but the server components do not scale well. That is probably why most big companies rely on some other component to have the infrastructure and then us, the Mac admins, spend a lot of time on the integration.
Running Java 7 in a VMware Fusion 10.8.x VM
For those of you who do application testing inside of an OS X VMware VM, you may have noticed that Java does not work properly. Rich has a good summary of the status of running Java inside a VM and even a fix that VMWare has provided which patches Java so it will run properly.
Moving a physical OS X machine to a VMware VM
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 OS X.
Logging on OS X Server
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.
Casper in the Cloud
If you have ever wondered about hosting your Casper server in the cloud, check out this post on Justin Rummel's blog. He has some notes he made during a recent JSS setup on Amazon EC2 hosting. This is a very compelling setup if you have a fair amount of machines that are never on your network and can easily access the internet.
Setting up a basic Puppet 3.1.x master on OS X 10.8
Between OS X 10.7 and 10.8, some changes were made with how directory services functioned. This caused Puppet 2.7.x to not be fully functional on 10.8. Thankfully, these changes have been adjusted for in the latest version of Puppet (3.x).
Migrating OS X 10.6 Wiki to OS X 10.8 without Directory Data
Justin Rummel has an article showing how to migrate a wiki from 10.6 to 10.8 if you are missing the directory data. This could be handy if you only had the wiki data backed up. Check it out over on his blog.
MacIT 2013 Begins
MacIT 2013 has kicked off in Moscone West. The first session opened with some brief items that everyone should know regarding OS X Mountain Lion as well as an overview of conference sessions that cover some specific Mountain Lion topics.
Virtualizing OS X
Virtualization is becoming more prevalent in the enterprise (if not the standard for many places). How does one virtualize OS X and at what cost you may ask? You can do it for free, believe it or not, using ESXi. ESXi officially supports Mac Pros (the "newest" revision) and unofficially works on Mac Minis.