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….  

The MacEnterprise.org group will be presenting a Webcast on Aqua Connect Terminal Server on Tuesday, August 21st at 1:00pm EDT (10:00am PDT).

Join Aqua Connect's CTO, Joseph Cohen in introducing terminal services for Mac OS X.  Discuss thin client support, how to deploy full feature OS X desktop to PC's and handheld devices, centralized installation and maintenance of programs, and other ways minimize your IT workload using terminal services for Mac OS X.

The webcast ID needed to view the August 21st 2007 webcast is "MacEnterprise" 

The passcode for the August 21st 2007 webcast is "066705"

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/>

Along with all the iApp/iMac announcements yesterday, Apple quietly released an internal hardware RAID card for the Intel Xserve as well as a PCI Express RAID card for the Mac Pro.

Read on for more details… 

The next MacEnterprise.org webcast, Lithium, will take place on Tuesday, July 17th 2007 at 10:00am PDT.

Please join us for this webcast where Lithium's CEO and lead developer will discuss how Lithium can be deployed as a single-app solution for monitoring Xserves, Xserve RAIDs, Mac OS X Server and now Xsan as well as all surrounding network and server equipment.

The webcast ID needed to view the July 17th 2007 webcast is "MacEnterprise".

The passcode for the webcast is "608760"

For more information on how to view the webcasts, please visit: http://macenterprise.org/content/blogcategory/113/96/

To view the webcast, go to the following web page 5-10 minutes prior to the webcast start time:
http://webcast.training.apple.com/

Clean up your PHDs and remove the trailer park of mobile homes you have lying around.

If you run a lab that uses mobile accounts , one of the problems that probably you deal with is the rabbit droppings effect: where users create accounts in the local netinfo database on your lab machines by virtue of logging in. Not only are their accounts cached locally but normally some part of the home directory as well. The normal reason for deploying such an environment is bandwidth concerns with using network accounts. You may re-image your lab enough that the effect is minimal but if your on say a quarterly system chances are these accounts are accumulating exponentially.

We all know about those little tear-off things in the bottom right hand corner of Server Admin, right? They're a very handy way of backing up your config before making a change. Just drag it off to your desktop, make your changes and if it all goes pear-shaped, just drag it back and sanity is restored. That's all well and good, but not exactly scriptable.

Enter serveradmin… 

I wrote a long article for TidBITS about SSL/TLS, attempting to explain it to a lay audience. I wrote another piece for admins on how to use CA.pl, which TidBITS didn't pick up, and a third piece on a couple shell scripts I wrote to help run a Certificate Authority, called cert.command & sign.command. I hope you find them interesting and useful.

1. TidBITS: Securing Communications with SSL/TLS: A High-Level Overview
2. Full Series (3 parts, with scripts): Securing Communications with SSL/TLS

Hidden deep in the bowels of the password server you will find some interesting, if seldom used, password policies that can be applied. Here Arek Dreyer takes a look at the weakpass_edit command and how it can help you refine your security policies.

Quota Monitor Menu

By Adam Gerson 

The Situation: You have a Mac OS X Server with network home directories and disk quotas enabled.
 
The Problem: The Mac OS Finder on client machines does not have very good support for warning users they are approaching their file quota limit. They end up all of sudden unable to save files with little or no explanation as to why.
 
The Solution: QuotaMonitorMenu places the user’s home folder quota status right in the menu bar. It will also pop up warnings at regular intervals. All warnings and text are customizable.
 
Download (Now with package installer!)
http://homepage.mac.com/agerson/QuotaMonitorMenu/QuotaMonitorMenu.zip
 
Screen Shot
http://homepage.mac.com/agerson/QuotaMonitorMenu/ScreenShot.png

If you would like the source code or have any questions please feel free to email agerson AT mac DOT com

Some tips and information on the AD plugin.

Read on for some ideas about setting up home directories and links to other resources.