Macintosh-Admin

As of today, OpenDNS has added Deluxe & Enterprise plans to it’s free Basic service. I’ve been using OpenDNS’s free service for quite some time now and it does a good job of offering reliable, fast DNS with a few added bonuses such as phishing & botnet protection, typo correction, content filtering (if needed), and stats.

The Deluxe plan starts at $9.95/year, is ad-free, and includes the following features above and beyond Basic:

• Up to 50 whitelist/blacklist domains (up from 25)
• A whitelist-only mode
• Advanced customization options
• Archived stats & logs for 1 year (up from 2 weeks)
• Email technical support 9-5 (Pacific) on weekdays (in addition to opendns.com/support)

According to the press release, “Notable features included in OpenDNS Enterprise include”:

Malware Site Protection to secure networks from online threats, Delegated Administration to allow multiple administrators across multiple locations to administer accounts, Block-Page Bypass functionality, which makes OpenDNS cloud-based Web content filtering more flexible and allows administrators and trusted individuals to bypass filtering when necessary, and more comprehensive reporting and statistics offerings, including a daily PDF report of network activity delivered via email.

Obviously, that’s in addition to the Basic & Deluxe features. You’ll have to call for Enterprise pricing.

[Via OpenDNS]

Along with other new products and a refresh of the Mac mini line, Apple has now come to their senses and is offering a Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server! For $999 you get a Mac mini w/2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB RAM, and—get this—the optical drive has been ditched to make room for a second hard drive, so two 500GB 2.5″ 5400-RPM SATA hard drives. Oh, and Snow Leopard Server, of course.

It seems like this is going to be a great deal, especially assuming that the $599 Mac mini is spec’d with 2.26GHz processor, 2GB RAM, and $160GB hard drive, and SuperDrive. I’ve been using a Mac mini as a server for years and would love to add one of these to my network.

Update: They note that you can use the MacBook Air SuperDrive (USB) if you need an optical drive. I’ve always found a MacBook in FireWire Target Disk mode to be more than adequate, in a pinch.

Topicdesk has updated their spamtrainer utility to version 1.9.5 adding Snow Leopard Server compatibility. spamtrainer automates the process of training SpamAssassin’s bayes database by allowing users to redirect spam & ham messages to designated mailboxes which are used as training material.

[Via Topicdesk Newsletters]

Apple released the following updates to Mac OS X Server last night:

Mac OS X Server 10.6.1

Improvements include:

• Resolves an issue that could cause Server Admin or Server Assistant to report a duplicate serial number in use on a server with multiple network interfaces. (Originally fixed by Network Registration Update 1.0.)
• Improves reliability of services that use Grand Central Dispatch.
• Security improvements consisting of an updated version of the Flash Player plug-in.

Further information can be found in Knowledge Base article HT3811 and the Updater is available for download.

Security Update 2009-005

Security Update for Mac OS X Server 10.4.x and 10.5.8 improves security in the following areas:

• Alias Manager
• CarbonCore
• ClamAV
• ColorSync
• CoreGraphics
• CUPS
• Flash Player Plug-in
• ImageIO
• Launch Services
• MySQL
• PHP
• SMB
• Wiki Server

Further details can be found in Knowledge Base article HT3865 and the Tiger Server & Leopard Server updaters are available for download.

As always, let us know if either of these updates fix issues or break something.

For those of you who have a Twitter addiction (or even those who manage to only take healthy doses) and haven’t discovered this fact already, you can follow @macintoshadmn for the latest updates around here. We’re too busy for a ton of chatter so you’ll mostly see the automated posting of new articles, but if there’s something important we’ll let you know.

No worries if you’re not into Twitter, there’s also our RSS feed. Get in touch if you have any questions, suggestions, or submissions.

Tags: macintosh-admin, twitter

When I installed Snow Leopard on my MacBook the first thing I noticed was that my Server Admin Tools were missing (I keep them as a Stack in my Dock). I quickly searched the Apple site for a download to the new 10.6 Tools but was unable to find the proper download. I keep getting links to the 10.5 Tools which don’t work on Snow Leopard or with Snow Leopard Server.

Fortunately today Morgan was able to dig up the correct link. With Server Admin Tools 10.6 you can administer both OS X Leopard Server 10.5 and OS X Snow Leopard Server 10.6!

Server Preferences and Server Status widget
The Server Preferences application and Server Status widget are for remote administration and monitoring of your server and key services including file sharing, address books, calendaring, instant messaging, mail, web, and virtual private networking.

Server Admin
The Server Admin application is for remote administration of one or more servers. It can be used to install and setup Mac OS X Server on a remote computer, manage file share points, configure service settings, monitor server activity, and provide detailed logging information for each of the running services.

Server Monitor
Server Monitor is for the remote monitoring and management of one or more Xserve systems.

Workgroup Manager
Use Workgroup Manager to remotely manage users, groups, and computer accounts in advanced server deployments. Workgroup Manager is also used to set and manage preferences for Mac OS X users.

Podcast Composer
Podcast Composer provides a visual step-by-step approach to easily build powerful workflows for Podcast Producer.

System Image Utility
The System Image Utility application is for the creation and customization of NetBoot, NetInstall, and NetRestore images.

Xgrid Admin
The Xgrid Admin application allows administrators to remotely manage clusters and monitor the activity of controllers, agents, and the status of jobs on the grid.

QuickTime Broadcaster
Use QuickTime Broadcaster along with QuickTime Streaming Server to produce professional-quality live events. The QuickTime Broadcaster application can be used to capture live audio and video streams and transmit them to QuickTime Streaming Server for redistribution.

Download Server Admin Tools 10.6.

There’s a neat application on the iPhone App Store called TouchTerm which allows you to SSH in to your servers while on the go! I’ve personally found that this application has come in handy multiple times when a client needs a quick edit on one of their websites or if there’s a configuration error that needs a quick fix. I’ve also found it handy when the MySQL service or any of the services for that matter needs to be restarted. For 99 cents you really can’t go wrong!

The normal version of the application allows you to create server profiles so you can just tap them to connect rather then needing to input connection details every time you wish to connect to a server. I find this to be a really great time-saving feature. A new recent and much appreciated feature is the ability to use the application in landscape mode. This allows for the keyboard to be a bit bigger over the portrait mode.

The application support VT100 Terminal Emulation so that means you can run anything from top, to screen — really any console application!

There is a Pro version of this application includes all the same features as the normal version but also includes:

• Extensive Configurability: Customize almost any aspect of the TT Pro interface, and manage configuration profiles to provide different settings for different servers.
• Configuration Import/Export (Version 1.1): Import and export configuration settings, saved configurations, and keypads. This makes it easy to install “add-ons”, backup configuration data, share / download TT Pro ideas with the user community, and manually setup complicated or repetitive configurations using a text editor.
• Command Library: You can “re-program” the interface functionality to suit your needs by referring to actions you do frequently. Nearly every user-accessible action is available in TT Pro as a custom command. This includes sending characters or commands to the remote host, changing font size and color, launching interface elements, and sending e-mails. Over 50 commands in all! These commands (individually, or in sequence) can easily be associated with gestures, custom keypads, and even application events. This provides you with complete control over the TT Pro interface!
• Gesture Engine: TT Pro currently supports 94 different touch gestures, with more on the way. Each gesture can be customized to perform any of the available interface actions using the command library. Gesture Feedback also gives you instant, graphical feedback when a gesture is recognized, and “Practice Mode” allows you to quickly acclimate to the Gesture Engine. Finally, all aspects of the Gesture Engine are configurable. So you can now tailor settings for things like double-tap speed, swipe straightness, corner size, etc., in the way that is most comfortable for your usage in a particular context.
• Copy and Paste: Easily place and adjust selection markers by dragging them within the terminal view. Popup zoom windows around the cursor make character-by-character adjustments easy, even when using a tiny font.
• Auto-Completion: TT Pro includes the ability to index and remember everything you have typed or seen as output, and provide a popup list of available completions. Auto-Completion can be configured to launch whenever completions are available, or only when explicitly requested.
• Graphical Filesystem Navigation: Never type “cd” on your iPhone again! FS Navigation Mode presents a graphical, table-based interface for quickly navigating directories with a single tap.
• E-mail Integration: Mail the contents of the clipboard, the current terminal screen, or even the entire buffered contents.
• Custom Keypads: Create and use any number of custom keypads. These keypads can be overlaid on the terminal view and used in conjunction with, or instead of, the standard iPhone keyboard. You have complete control over all the labels and actions associated with these keypads.
• Integrated Help: TT Pro is a complex program, with powerful configuration tools and hundreds of ways to customize the interface just for your needs. To assist you along the way, integrated help is available through all stages of the customization process. Our online (iPhone-accessible!) guides and tutorials also help you quickly become familiarized with TT Pro.
• Advanced Features: TT Pro includes several advanced features and options, such as control over SSH compression and encryption settings, and the ability to import private DSA/RSA authentication keys.

I haven’t got the Pro version myself, but I am thinking about getting it just for the ability to use the private DSA/RSA keys, and the graphical filesystem navigation abilities.

Check out the TouchTerm home page here and check out the normal and Pro versions of the applications on iTunes!

There were reports of Server Admin complaining of invalid serial numbers after upgrading to Mac OS X 10.5.8 Server, most of which were from servers with multiple different physical ethernet ports with IP addresses on the same subnet. A few people were reporting that this was happening to them with ports on different subnets and even when using Link Aggregation, but it sounded like heeding Apple’s note that multiple physical network interfaces on the same subnet may cause routing issues solved the issue for most.

Well, Apple has since released Mac OS X Leopard Server 10.5.8 v1.1 and Network Registration Update 1.0 (for Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server 10.6) which resolve the issue, so there was definitely a bug there. I’ll put together a separate post regarding multiple physical network interfaces on the same subnet.

[Via AFP548]

I’ve been having a lot of trouble unraring several larger (5+GB) files with TheUnarchiver and RARExpander GUI applications so I generally always just moved the rar’d files over to my Linux machine and run unrar on there and then move it back over, obviously one step to many!

Fortunately you can easily install the unrar application on your server or even just normal OS X client. Visit the RARLab website and go into their downloads section. There is one download which is Command Line Only and made for Mac OS X. Download that and then uncompress it. You should have a new folder called ‘rar’. While in command line navigate into that folder and run:

sudo install -c -o yourusername unrar /bin

This will install the binaries needed into the correct places. Now since my normal everyday account isn’t an account with administrator privileges I first had switch to one that was and then ran that command. Once completed (the install should take a few seconds if that) you can test it out by running:

unrar

If you’re shown a list of options then it worked!

I’m not really sure as to why GUI applications have trouble unraring large sized files, but unrar seems to be able to handle them just fine!

Here’s a quick and easy way to restore a Subversion backup you may have made. Quickly, this is how you make the dump:

sudo svnadmin dump /path/to/reponame > /tmp/reponame.dump

if you want to restore that backup, type in:

sudo svnadmin load /path/to/reponame < /tmp/repo1.dump

Source.