Welcome to my blog

bug-fixes

Adobe Reader, Network Accounts & 10.6.8 Server

This is quite frustrating and for the System Admins trying to use Network Accounts, waiting for Adobe to fix this issue has been a waiting game that so far has not come to an end. The obvious solution of course that I tell my users is to use Preview instead of Adobe Acrobat Reader to read their PDF files. This does solve their problems in the short term however my users quickly point out that they need Adobe Acrobat Pro which causes the same issue. Since Preview is no substitution...

Jul 23, 2011

reviews

ssl-encryption

10.6.8 Installing SSL Certificates Correctly

What I struggled with for a while as a System Administrator with little experience in the SSL realm was that no matter how many ways I tried to install the certificate for use on my server users would still get warnings saying that the certificate was not trusted. Through some trial and error and luck I figured out the proper steps to making sure that all of your services and your users can use SSL without the heartache of untrusted warning messages. The steps to follow are simple:

Jul 16, 2011

mail-server rants

osx-sys-admin

10.6.8 Server high CPU usage, hwmond culprit

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.hwmond.plist which initially threw an odd error, looked at the list of loaded items by running launchctl list on the server and noticed that it was gone. I restarted my XServe and sure enough it had loaded itself. Figuring that there must be something in the OS automatically loading this on each reboot I started searching ways to modify or disable hwmond on my server. In my case I needed to stop the high CPU usage so badly that I was willing to make the tradeoff, of...

Jul 10, 2011

reviews

Solr, WordPress & OSX Server

The first step is to download all of the needed files, download the most recent version of Solr, and the Solr for WordPress plugin. The first part of the documentation here will be on how to install and get Solr running and then the second portion will focus on configuring the Solr for WordPress plugin. For this walkthrough I will be using the example application that comes with Solr. ** Before we proceed you need to open the port 8983 in your servers firewall and or hardware firewall appliance for...

Jun 28, 2011

leter-to-the-editor

Karl: Letter to the Editor

Hello Jon,

Jun 28, 2011

Backing up the OD Master

1. Backing up the OD Master with Bash #!/bin/sh NOW=$(date +"%m-%d-%Y") # Path to recovery directory (permissions should be 700 -- read-only root or admin) recover="/Volumes/ODBackup" # Backup Open Directory day=`date ''+%u''` od_backup="$recover/od_backup - "$NOW"" ts=`date ''+%F''` echo "dirserv:backupArchiveParams:archivePassword = 908239032" > $od_backup echo "dirserv:backupArchiveParams:archivePath = $recover/od_$ts" >> $od_backup echo "dirserv:command = backupArchive" >> $od_backup serveradmin command < $od_backup The above script when run on a daily basis through CRON or LAUNCHD will create a recoverable sparse disk image of your OD Master that you can use to restore from,...

Dec 20, 2010