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…. 

Sponsored by IronGate Server Management & Consulting, in association with Digital Transitions the next OS X Integrators Birds of a Feather gathering is taking place at MaRS Discovery District on College St. at University Ave., Toronto, Canada on Wednesday February 6th from 7:00PM-9:00PM.

In this session Steve Hayman will be talking about the state of scripting in Mac OS X 10.5, including recent changes to Applescript, Automator, and other scripting tools. Among other things we'll show off some of the ways that scripting lets you extend Apple Remote Desktop to simplify some common tasks. Why wait for Apple to add the features you need when you can script many of them yourself? 

Registration and more details of the event are available on Apple's Seminar Website 

The next MacEnterprise webcast, Leopard Server's Wiki: Easy group collaboration and communication, will take place on Wednesday, January 23rd 2008 at 10:00 am PST (1:00 pm EST). Join Apple's Nader Nafissi, Senior Product Manager, as he provides an overview of features and services in Mac OS X Server v10.5 Leopard's Wiki Server.

For information on how to participate go to the participant information page. 

The login ID for Wednesday, January 23rd 2008 is Wikiserver

The login passcode for Wednesday, January 23rd 2008 is 212128

 *Please note the day change to Wednesday*

For more information on how to view the webcasts, please visit:
http://macenterprise.org/content/blogcategory/113/96/
 
Go to the following web page 5-10 minutes prior to the webcast start time:
http://webcast.training.apple.com/

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….

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.

In migrating one of our servers from 10.4 to 10.5, we run into a couple of problems, some of which were easily solved, some we're still working on. In particular, this issue regarded using the RT ticket tracking system from Best Practical. It's not the prettiest, but it's good and inexpensive and works nicely on Macs (thanks to MacPorts).

Unfortunately, as we were trying to get our system moved to Apache2, we noticed that the perl code we were using was aborting when it called libraries loaded up with CPAN. After a bit of work trying to figure it out, we determined that the problem is that Apache2 runs as a 64-bit binary and the mod_perl is therefore also compiled as 64-bit. If you're running on a 32-bit G4 or a Core Solo or Core Duo (but not Core 2) intel, this isn't going to be a problem. However, if you're running on a 64-bit CPU (Core 2 or G5), this requires that all loadable perl modules also be compiled for 64-bit. Unfortunately, CPAN on the Mac compiles all modules for 2-way universal, PowerPC and x86, but just the 32-bit variations.

In order to get these modules working on a 64-bit machine, you'll need to make sure that all your CPAN modules are compiled with the 64-bit architectures as well. This is as simple as adding the ARCHFLAGS to have all 4 architectures when executing CPAN.

Example:

setenv ARCHFLAGS '-arch i386 -arch ppc -arch ppc64 -arch x86_64'

Do this before executing your cpan installs and you'll be all set.

The MacEnterprise.org group will be presenting a Webcast on DeepNines on Tuesday, November 27th at 1:00pm EST (10:00am PST).  
 
This webcast will focus on the innovative methods DeepNines has developed to keep networks safe and critical content accessible.  In working with educational institutions, financial, banking and oil and gas customers, DeepNines has observed that people have very clever ways of getting around traditional network firewalls and content filters.  In response, they've developed a solution that runs on the Apple Xserve with Leopard that eliminates any undesired access to the web; either via proxies, p2p, games, streaming and other unwanted content. Join Greg Jackson from DeepNines, who will demonstrate the different kinds of techniques people use and show how their solution provides superior protection to traditional methods of internet security, and also eliminates unwanted or “bad” traffic that bogs down and congests the network, while prioritizing the good traffic
 
 
The webcast ID needed to view the November 27th 2007 webcast is "MacEnterprise"
The passcode for the November 27th 2007 webcast is "721486"
 
For more information on how to view the webcasts, please visit:
http://macenterprise.org/content/blogcategory/113/96/
 
Go to the following web page 5-10 minutes prior to the webcast start time:
http://webcast.training.apple.com/

Sponsored by IronGate Server Management & Consulting, in association with Digital Transitions the next OS X Integrators Birds of a Feather gathering is taking place at MaRS Discovery District on College St. at University Ave., Toronto, Canada on Thursday November 22nd from 7:00PM-9:00PM.

In this session we're looking to carry on from our previous session on the fundamentals of Directory Systems. We plan to cover integration methods to allow authentication against a 3rd party directory structure while retaining management of your OS X workstations from Open Directory's managed client settings. This seminar series aims to introduce administrators and technical co-ordinators to real life implementations of OS X and OS X Server, in a wide range of practical situations. Presentations are given by industry experts and/or system administrators, in a format which fosters open discussions and group collaboration.

Registration and more details of the event are available on Apple's Seminar Website.

If you're on the Mac-Managers mailing list, best to read this.

The Macintosh Managers mailing list has been operating since 1991, and like any system with over 6000 days of uptime a little cruft has accumulated … it could use a reboot. That will happen this coming Friday, November 16th, 2007.

Read on for more….

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…