The script written above was originally intended for an environment that did not have a software update server available. Therefore, managing what updates got deployed was not really feasible.
The purpose for writing the script was because of the fact that teachers would often not run updates, or there would be only one teacher per building that would run them. As such, it was written to be a timesaver for those teachers (and for myself), as well as to make sure that at least SOME updates would be installed. Granted, a few updates from Apple have had less-than-desirable results, but those have been few and far between.
We never added any cron entries for this script. We simply dropped it into /etc/periodic/daily so that it’d kick off at the default of 3:15 AM. This time was perfect as it was early enough in the day that it would not affect school hours or affect the required nightly bandwidth for other school-related functions.
However, I am working on a new endeavor involving backups for FileVault-enabled user accounts, and we’re intending to use launchd for that. Your link proves quite helpful in that regard, so thanks! 🙂
Not quite. If I send a message using my Mac server as my smtp server, and the only recipient is outside of my Mac server (say, GMail, for example), the message still gets blocked. It’s only if I cc myself on my server that the message goes through, or if I immediately send a separate message with my account on the server as the recipient does the message go through.
I’ve made some progress, but still not quite there. Here’s a bizarre behavior…
Using my Mac server’s SMTP server…
Wrote a message on my phone to an address not on my network (say, for example… a Gmail address). Clicked Send, and it comes back with Server not responding. Left that message in the Outbox.
Wrote another message on my phone to an address that IS on my network, clicked Send.
Both messages got delivered and were received with no problem.
Outbox is now empty. Wrote another message to the same gmail account, cc’ing an address on my network. Message goes through just fine and are received on both accounts.
You could have them download putty, ssh into the server (or another Mac configured to accept LDAP logins) and have them change their password that way. It’s cheating, but… It’s quick and dirty.
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