Posted on in System Administration
If you've ever had to administer a Mac OS X system from afar, you know how difficult it can be to manage network settings. The Network Preference Panel under System Preferences is a great tool if you have remote access to the <acronym title="Graphical User Interface">GUI</acronym>, but …
Posted on in System Administration
While doing further research for my OS X Caching Only Name Server series, it has come to my attention that a couple of my methods (specifically relating to Startup Items and starting the daemon) are outdated. Although these methods may have been acceptable in pre-Tiger versions of OS X, Mac …
Posted on in System Administration
This information is really geared for pre-Tiger versions of OS X. In OS X 10.4 (Tiger), the BIND daemon is controlled by launchd and is pre-configured (although disabled). BIND Startup in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) has more detailed information. Although outdated, this article still includes useful information …
Posted on in System Administration
Before we can start running BIND on OS X, we have to make a few configuration changes. Although BIND is pre-installed in Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), it's not ready to run right out of the box. We've already created our Startup Item, but now we need to cleanup …
Posted on in System Administration
By default, Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) comes with BIND 9 pre-installed and pre-configured to operate in caching-only mode. Unfortunately, the operating system is not configured to start the server at boot time, or even use the server if it was running. In this series of articles, we'll create …
Posted on in Software
This is a little off-topic for this website, but I had to pass this widget along for any Mac OS X users out there. The MLB Schedule widget from Logan Rockmore Design is a simple widget that displays the 5 day schedule for any MLB team. It will show the …
Posted on in System Administration
The true beauty of Mac OS X is Darwin, the BSD-based UNIX that runs under the hood of every Mac OS X computer. Having UNIX handy is what attracted me to OS X, and I know plenty of other administrator-types that have followed suit. Every UNIX variant has commands that …
Posted on in system_administration
Because Darwin is BSD-based, it's no surprise that Mac OS X TCP Performance Tuning is very similar to FreeBSD TCP Performance Tuning. It is no longer necessary to enable RFC 1323 TCP Extensions (in fact, the option to do so is gone). Also, we'll set the TCP send and receive …
Posted on in Graphics Design
Important commands: sips
A few folks have asked me where I got the nice looking Software Update icon for my post regarding Apple's Security Update 2007-004. First, let me say, "Thanks for noticing!" Second, let me point out that Steve Jobs will probably be knocking on the door of the …
Posted on in System Administration
Posted on in Software
One of the features of Firefox 2 is Session Restore. By default, if Firefox needs to restart for an update (or crashes), it will restore your session to the state it was in at the time of restart. That means your tabs and windows will be just like you left …
Posted on in System Administration
Note: I recently had to prepare a Mac mini for use as a network testing device. The system was installed in a remote location and only reachable via SSH.
Important commands: hdiutil, installer, softwareupdate, shutdown
When preparing a system for production, there are three main tasks that need to be …
Posted on in System Administration
