I’ve been asked about Mac IT sysadmin training ideas, and I thought perhaps sharing some initial ideas might help other aspiring Mac IT sysadmins.
It’s hard to recommend a training site or specific place for Mac IT training these days. It used to be that you could sign up for a Unix SysAdmin or bash scripting class and that would be most helpful. And those both are helpful but Mac IT specific technologies are discussed at Mac IT conferences such as MacTech in LA (and periodically in other cities), PSU Mac Admins (Penn State), MacIT (San Jose), MacSysAdmin in Sweden, MacDeploy in Calgary and MacDevOps:YVR in Vancouver. As well as Apple sponsored camps for ACNs (Apple Consultants). Some of these conferences post their video online for free (PSU, MacSysAdmin and MacDevOps) so these are great resources to learn from.
The most important is local meetups, and right now we’re not hosting anything in Vancouver. But I do want to start some local meetups here to encourage fellow Mac Admins to help each other out learning MacDevOps skills and getting into the greater Mac IT sysadmin community. There are great meetups in many cities across North America and the world. Finding out where they are means looking at afp548.com for info, or check out Watchman Monitoring’s new Mac Meetup site: http://www.macmeetups.com/find/, or check on Jamf Nation (https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/index.html). Lots of options.
Here in Vancouver we are also contemplating some more in depth workshops for the next MacDevOps:YVR conference and perhaps sooner than that. How to get started with Mac IT technologies and how to build a beautiful Mac Admins community by being a part of it, and sharing what you know with others.
Anything you all want to learn specifically? What do you want to know about? Let me know.
Yes, Apple has restored the ability to set a user and system umask in OS X 10.10.3. This is a huge fix for users of shared storage. Xsan and all SANs where users want to be able to share files, projects and all things without using ACLs or any LDAP directory. This is great. I am jumping up and down. So happy. So many people wanted this. Anyone using shared storage have been demanding this since the upgrade to Yosemite. 10.10.3 is out today and we will be happy.
A new kind of conference for Mac IT professionals looking to get into DevOps. You’ll hear some about new automation tools, and get a chance to try new things in the computer lab. Join us! Registration limited to 75.
The cost is $99. Food is included on the day of the conference including a light breakfast and lunch. Register here.
Call for Submissions!
MacDevOpsYVR is seeking presenters from across the Pacific Northwest and beyond to participate in this one-day conference for all things Mac!
If you have an idea for a specific talk, workshop or panel related to deploying Macs in enterprise, corporate or educational environments, we want to hear from you.
Recently Munki v2.01 was released and now more than ever with the help of other apps it is easier to automate software deployment. With help with AutoPkg (and AutoPkgr) you can quickly set up a Munki server to deliver software to all your Macs. In the time it takes to download one new app and update each of your client workstations you could instead put it in your Munki repo and have it ready to deploy to everyone.
Munki allows you to automate software deployment. When you have more than one or two Macs to ensure that they are up to date with security, Flash, Java or other app updates you being to realize that an automated system can save you time and maybe even your sanity. You don’t backup manually, of course, you automate it. When it’s important and you want it done right, then some planning ahead of time and automation will make your life much easier.
If you have not yet set up a Munki server then follow along as I walk you through setting Munki 2.01 with AutoPkgr 1.1 in part 1 of this blog post of Munki and AutoPkg. In part 2 I will go into further detail of how to use MunkiAdmin (Mac app) and Mandrill (a node.js web server) to edit and maintain your Munki set up. Pros and cons of each method will be touched upon. Using the command line in the past was required but I will show you how some really good apps and web services can help you maintain your automated software deployment workflow.
Note: Munki requires only a web server to deploy software, while traditionally the munki tools ran on a Mac. You can put your software repo on any web server. I will show you the set up on a Mac for the purposes of this blog post.
Steps to a basic Munki server set up on a Mac running 10.8, 10.9, or 10.10:
3. Set your Munki repo to some folder (for example, /Users/Shared/munki_repo)
Munki repo
4. Set up web services on OS X by manually editing httpd.conf document root to your Munki repo or with Server.app, setting your munki_repo as where you store your site files.
Server.app Website document root munki repo
6. Add recipes to AutoPKGr and choose apps. Set a schedule for AutoPkgr.
Configure AutoPkgr
7. Check for apps manually the first time, and let AutoPKG download them to your repo
Configure AutoPkgr schedule
8. Check your repo for a manifests folder, and if it is not there, create it
Munki repo manifests
9. Download icon importer, move to /usr/local/munki folder, run against your repo
cd /usr/local/munki ; sudo ./iconimporter.py /Users/Shared/munki_repo/
iconimporter munki repo
Next, go to the icons folder in your repo, pick a fav icon and rename if necessary (some have more than one icon with name with “_1, _2, etc”).
10. Open MunkiAdmin and add packages to catalogs as needed, edit package info (add developer and category info, descriptions etc as needed), then create a client manifest.
11. Choose apps to install for clients (choose from installs, optional installs, uninstalls)
Done. Your munki server is set up and ready for clients to connect. Next up, in part 2, we will look at Munki’s client facing app, the Managed Software Center. We will also look at how to use Munki Admin (Mac app) and Mandrill (a node.js web server) to edit and maintain your Munki set up. Pros and cons of each method will be touched upon. Using the command line with Munki was required in the past but the Munki ecosystem has grown and there are some really good apps and web services can help you maintain your automated software deployment workflow.
MacTech conference in LA, Nov 5-7, 2014. Grand unification theory of Mac geekdom. IT N3rdz united to share knowledge and make the Mac IT world a better place.
Talked about “backups and storage” at the MacTech bootcamp 2014 in Seattle. Case studies of media storage and project archives to focus the discussion around backup technology best practise.
