Jun 25

Resetting Mac OS X Software Updates server catalog URL

By MarkNo Comments

I seem to have had various occasions since beginning my journey with Mac OS X Server to clear, flush, erase, reset (or whatever else you want to call it) the Managed Preference I push out to my Macs to set the Software Updates server, or catalog URL as I believe it’s called, to point to my Mac OS X Server. The latest reason being one of the hard drives in my mac mini server has blown up and I needed the latest 10.6.8 update on my MacBook.

Every time I’ve needed this I seem to spent around 20 getting frustrated at hunting through various pages found on google with a version of how to do this and so this time I’m recording it here ready for the next time I need it.

So to be clear, I’m using Mac OS X Snow Leopard on the machine I’m running this on and I’m deleting the managed preference, from my managed client environment, on a client Mac that tells Software Update to use my updates server instead of the Apple one. Deleting it will force Software Update to go back to using the Apple server for updates. Obviously the next time preferences are refreshed this will be put back but the following is useful if the server is temporarily unavailable for some reason or you need to reset a previous managed preference.

Logged in as an administrator, open up Terminal and enter the following at the command line followed by ENTER…

sudo defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.SoftwareUpdate CatalogURL

I usually just run Software Update without a reboot and it uses the Apple updates server. If you do reboot first remember that if you haven’t removed the Managed Preference from the server and the server is still up and running, and connected to the network, the setting will most likely be set again reversing the above command line.

Hints and Tips
Apr 13

Been trading since March 2009!

By MarkNo Comments

Ok the title is a slight lie, technically I started being self employed in March 2009 however I was still employed until around the end of April so guess I started properly trading in April.

It’s been a pretty amazing couple of years for me, in just two short years I’ve managed to kick out the bad habits forced upon me by working in an enterprise sized company.  Managed to find a couple of customers who are actually interested in me helping them taking their business systems to the next level rather than treating me like another IT gimp to be kicked around the office whenever the mood takes them.  I’m almost half way through an ICT degree.  I’ve achieved a Certificate in Business Studies and a Microsoft qualification.  And finally thanks to the help from an ex colleague, and friend, about to release a service that I’ve been wanting to developer for about 18 months.  Almost makes the sleepless nights and hair loss worth while.  Can’t wait to see what the next two years brings.

 

News and Information
Nov 12

Mac OS X Server Print Server

By MarkNo Comments

Nothing really exciting to report here, add a queue for a network printer (LPR), enabled all the protocols as will need SMB for Windows clients and LPR with Bonjour enabled as I’ve found from experience it’s easier just to let the users install whatever printers they want and Bonjour makes this a breeze.

Only things that stumped me a little was the ‘kind’ or printer model, by default Server Admin decided my printer was a Generic PostScript printer, which is probably can be but PostScript can be very slow to print, the way to set the real model is after adding the print queue, on the server it’s self go into Preferences -> Print & Fax and you’ll find your printer in there, set the type in the options and that’s it.

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Nov 11

Mac OS X Server Software Updates Service — UPDATE

By MarkNo Comments

Found out the URL wasn’t valid for Snow Leopard, so wasn’t working. The correct URL should be ….

http://hostname.yourdomain.private:8088/index-leopard-snowleopard.merged-1.sucatalog

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Nov 11

Time Machine Backups for Users

By MarkNo Comments

Just quickly enabled backup on the server both for the server it’s self and for client computers. Very simple, usual place for the server side, i.e. System Preferences on the server it’s self and select the relevant disk.

User backups not much different, I’d already deleted the default Share Points in the AFP service, one of which is ‘Backups’. Note the Share Point can be called anything really but if you want Server Preferences to work properly, it seems to need to be called Backups.

Whatever name you call it, make sure the ‘Enable as Time Machine backup destination’ checkbox is checked and that’s it, the disk will then appear to any Mac on your network when on the client computer you do Select Disk in the Time Machine preference.

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Nov 10

Mac OS X Server Software Updates Service

By MarkNo Comments

Fairly easy to set this up, basically just turned the service on using Server Admin and set the options to auto copy All New updates and remove expired. Main config issue was to configure the clients.

Firstly, I created a Computer Group in Workgroup Manager called ‘Desktop’, click on the icon on the right with the dots on it which seems to browse the network and allowed me to add my clients to the newly created group as below.

Also created a ‘Mobile’ group for MacBooks as you can see. I then created the ‘Client Computers’ group and added the ‘Desktop’ group and ‘Mobile’ group to the Client Computers group, this will allow me to set preferences to my desktops and macbooks while excluding the server it’s self.

Finally, clicked on the ‘Client Computers’ group and picked Preferences from the toolbar and set the Software Update as follows.

I know that update 10.6.2 came out on the 9th Nov that my clients don’t have yet, so will wait a couple of days and see what happens, hopefully it will just ‘work’ and I won’t have the hair pulling out sessions I’ve had in the past with Microsoft WSUS and Configuration Manager !

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Nov 09

Mac OS X Server as DNS Server

By MarkNo Comments

Default install seemed to only create a primary DNS zone for the server hostname only, i.e. hostname.mhcg.private in my case. As I want to use this server as my main DNS server, I changed the zone to mhcg.private, not forgetting to change the Zone under Nameservers too.

From reading the Getting Started guide, it seems to suggest that had I not had a DNS server already, which I do as I’m currently using a Windows 2003 DC for this, then the Setup Assistant might have done this for me automatically.

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Nov 08

Reinstall Mac OS X Server without a CD Drive

By MarkNo Comments

Well I said I didn’t get the DNS details and I was right, as I used my internet domain name, things weren’t all good with the server. For a start as I don’t have that zone in my current DNS server and as Setup Assistant setup Open Directory, it used that as the realm which I really didn’t want. I came to the conclusion that I really wanted to use mhcg.private as my DNS zone, I did try to change this myself in the DNS settings but from various Googling on the point seems the general feeling on chaining the DNS name after running Setup Assistant is a bad idea and I think after the 6 hours of hair pulling I’ve just been through, I’d agree so rebuild time.

No CD/DVD drive of course in the mac mini server, I was just about to plan a visit to my nearest Apple Store for an external SuperDrive when I remembered how I’ve installed beta versions of Snow Leopard from the Apple Developer Connection, namely by ‘restoring’ a disk image to an external USB drive, then booting the mac mini while pressing the option key and selecting the USB drive as the boot device, so I made an image using Disk Utility of the supplied Mac mini server CD and restored to a spare USB drive.

As I’d had to physical move the mac mini into another room with a monitor, keyboard and mouse I ran the installation through until the Setup Assistant appeared, at which point I powered off the box and re-sited it back with my other boxes without monitor etc. Back to remote config as originally then, you can do a remote install apparently but I couldn’t work out how to get that working especially as it was asking for the first 8 characters of my serial number, which I was entering correctly, but Setup Assistant was adamant it was invalid. Ran Setup Assistant exactly as before but with ‘hostname.mhcg.private’ for the DNS name this time. For the record I used Disk Utility within the installation routine (first screen in fact) to erase the ‘Server HD’ volume before attempting reinstall.

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Nov 06

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server Setup and Initial Config

By MarkNo Comments

New Mac mini server arrived, no monitor, keyboard or mouse so sited with my other server(ish) type boxes, time to try out the Remote Setup, first time I’ve tried this and all I can say is FANTASTIC ! Surely it wouldn’t be out of the bounds of possibility for Microsoft or Ubuntu to implement something like this, or maybe even HP for use with SmartStart??? Certainly beats stood around in a freezing cold server room. Yes I know HP have ILO for remote management, but you still generally have to swap disks and things, none of that with the Apple solution.

If you’ve never used remote setup on Mac OS X, in a nut shell you plug the new box into the network, switch it on then goto another mac, install the Server Admin tools from the included CD and run Server Admin. New machine is identified as ‘Ready for Setup’ (so long as DHCP is enabled on your network) and you run through the Setup Assistant just as you would if you were using the new box locally.

I ran through the Setup Assistant and picked ‘Administrator’ for the user it wants to create as it creates this as a local users so wouldn’t really want to use my own name for that as I indent to use Open Directory. Used my internet domain name (mhcg.co.uk) for Primary DNS and enabled all servers (Mail Server, Address Book Server, iChat Server, some other services that can’t remember right now) and used the second disk ‘Macintosh HD2′ for the services data store. As a side note, the main/first disk is called ‘Server HD’ and is where Mac OS X Server is pre-installed. You don’t need to enable all the services but as I’m going to be trying them all out over the coming weeks, thought it be easier to turn them all on now. One of the questions is around user names, I picked the option to create users and groups which enabled Open Directory as a Master server.

Once the setup is complete, server is then up and running and appeared in the Shared area of Finder on the remote mac I was using. Everything is configured from what I can see using Server Admin, seems fairly straight forward although I’m a bit confused over the DNS details right now, I’m sure it’ll make sense over the next few days.

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