When I took over doing support while we look for someone to replace our network admin, I was excited, for a moment, about playing with Mac OS X Server. For a quick moment. The first thing I know, I get a phone call from a remote user who cannot reach the server with ftp. I fire up Workgroup Manager and Server Admin to make sure the user’s account is active, and that ftp is in fact running, and that the firewall is not blocking any of the ftp ports. Everything is a go. I reset the password, and think that was the problem. I ask the user (on the phone) to try and log in, but no luck. I then bust out Cyberduck (my new favorite FTP client..thanks Ken!) and try to connect. No go. “Server shut down” Wild. I stop and start the service a few times, look at the logs…everything looks fine. I start to remember how much I love Mac OS X Server. Don’t worry, I am sure “it will be fixed in 10.4″. Right.

At this point I decided to … [more]

I have been looking for good Mac (not MAC) OS and UNIX training opportunities and think I finally came up with the missing piece, Big Nerd Ranch. Over the years, I have looked for good training for Mac OS X/Mac OS X Server, Apache, PHP, and other web technologies, but have often come up empty handed or less than satisfied. So if you are looking for some decent training, here is what I would recommend:

• Hands on training for Mac OS client or Mac OS X Server and want to get certified: http://training.apple.com/
• Hands on training for UNIX or advanced Mac OS X:http://www.bignerdranch.com/
• Web based UNIX/Linux training: http://oreilly.useractive.com/courses/sysadmin.php3
• Web tutorials on HTML, XML, SOAP, XSL, SQL, etc: W3Schools (where I learned XTHML and CSS)

[tags]Apple, training, Big Nerd Ranch[/tags]

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/But-Macs-Are-Slower-Right-36964.html

I have finally reached the point in my career where I need certification. Back in the Mac OS 7-9 days there was no certification programs for us Mac geeks, but now we face job competition with all the UNIX geeks too. Apple now offers certification, but after taking a class on Mac OS X Server for 5 days, I left feeling pretty let down. I know how to add users, and I am pretty comfortable to all the services. What I needed was something more in-depth. That was 3 years ago. Now I am working to get my "Linux/Unix System Administration Certificate" from O'Reilly/the University of Illinois. As technical as I am, I was not sure how much I would like taking classes via the web, but the more time I put in, the more I enjoy it.

O'Reilly and the U of I offer a few certifications that I would recommend anyone who like me, has the skills, but no certification to "prove" it.
[tags]UNIX, Linux, certification, O'Reilly[/tags]

Thanks to a friend that is always pointing out cool apps...I recently started using GeekTool. There are 3 modes to GeekTool...file mode, shell mode, and image mode. I use GeekTool for a few things...file mode to tail my web acces log on my web server, and image mode to load the gauge graphic for XGrid@Stanford. You can also use shell mode to run scripts or UNIX commands to monitor processes or get information on your computers/servers. It is definately a cool tool and I recommend it!

I like to keep my finger on the pulse with Apple products as well as with their documentation. Apple makes this easy with offering mailing lists that are dedicated to all their products. If you want to keep up specifically with all new and changed documentation, Apple has a great list for you: Daily Knowledge Base changes.

Apple's description of the list:
"The Daily Knowledge Base changes mailing list announces new and modified documents in the AppleCare Knowledge Base. Each e-mail contains the titles of new and modified documents with links to them. E-mail from this list may also contain hints and tips to get the most out of your Apple products with links to Apple Discussions, Customer Installable Parts, custom support pages, and more."

So if you want to make sure you keep up to date, subscribe to the list, it is low volume and very helpful!

So you need to install a search engine on your site. Keeping with my open source solutions, I have decided to go with ht://Dig. As soon as Apple decided to go with UNIX as a back end to their OS, I was excited because I could finally use ht://Dig (and another classic program called Mailman) I will always be grateful to both communities (ht://Dig and Mailman) because I learned so much about compiling and not to be afraid of source files. I have used ht://Dig for a few years with minimal complaints. You will need to compile ht://Dig, so make sure you have Apple's Development Package (Xcode).

No need to re-create the wheel, so to compile/install ht://Dig, follow these directions. Before you actually compile everything, you will need to apply a patch that came out since the instructions were made. download the patch: ftp://ftp.ccsf.org/htdig-patches/3.1.6/htnotifyNull.0 and change the actual ntnotify source file with the corrected variables. After you have applied the patch, you can then complile the source while following the directions from the link above.

To customize the result pages, you can edit the html ... [more]

What a morning. Surprise surprise...I decided to install Mac OS X Server on my PowerBook to play around with the Apache conf (since I legally own two copies that just sit in my drawer). Ever since Mac OS X Server 1.0 came out I was excited to use Mac OS X Server. I loved AppleShare IP, and was ready to learn something new. Yeah, you are right, how many times can I tell this story?

To the point: you have web sites that need to be hosted in a Mac environment...what do you do? Two options (not including Darwin): Mac OS X Client, Mac OS X Client. I took my standard Mac OS X Client conf file and went line by line to see how the conf file was modified for Mac OS X Server. I will give credit to Apple for cleaning up the conf from 10.2 to 10.3, but man, it still leaves a lot of room for improvement. First of all....let me break down the conf files that Mac OS X Server uses.

1. httpd.conf - The main configuration file that should contain all the basics. I have not figured ... [more]

If you did not notice, I have a thing for wierd and often funny Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server error messages. I periodically update the image on the right hand side that is a screen shot of an error I have received. Keep looking for new and exciting errors.

PS. The "You cannot continue to log in at this time" error was produced upon startup, as the log in dialog box popped up in the background. Fun!

If you have mission critical servers, you know that a backup is essential. I do not want my mission critical web server to go down. Along comes rsync.

How to set up rsync to synch my boot drive (and make it bootable) as well as synch my data files (html/php files):
First, you will to set up passwordless ssh between your servers. This is a good tutorial, except make sure step #5 is actually: /var/root/.ssh/cat id_rsa.pub >> authorized_keys2 . Now you are ready to send data from your main server to the backup(s).

Data
I have a daily cron job to run my data rsync script.
The script is: time sudo rsync -a -vv -z -e ssh "/Volumes/www" "root@10.0.0.1:/Volumes".
(where /Volumes/www is the location of all my data files and 10.0.0.1 is the IP of my backup web server)

Boot drive (that is bootable)
I have a weekly (I chose weekly because if I apply an update to something that proves not to work, I know I have some flexibility) (and yes I always apply updates to a test server first) cron job to run my boot script.
The script is:time sudo rsync -a --exclude /dev/* --exclude /afs/* ... [more]

I was recently asked to defend my decision to run OS X Client on my Xserve and I thought others might like to know why as well.

• Changing the IP. I have written about this before. I have a mission critical web server. I want to upgrade the OS or the hardware, so for maximum up time, I configure my new server with a temporary IP, then when everything is ready and tested, I shutdown the mission critical server, change the IP on the new server, and everything and everyone is happy. Less than a minute of downtime. I am sure OS X Server is nice for people who do not have mission critical servers, but look in the mac-osx-server listserv archives, and you will see changing the IP is not as easy as Apple would like to think. (No, not even the changeip command works correctly. How am I supposed to upgrade any hardware or software when I need to test it first before I put it in production when I cannot use a temporary IP? I have tried changing the IP in Mac OS X Server 10, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3 ... [more]
  

So you have a web server and one/some domain names. You want to have all requests to domain.com to go to www.domain.com. most companies have this redirect in place (Apple is an example). I was stumped when I first set out to do this...so here is what I learned from our friends on the Apache mailing list.

< virtualhost *:80 >
ServerName www.domain.com
ServerAlias domain.com
Redirect permanent / http://www.domain.com/
< /virtualhost >

< virtualhost *:80 >
ServerName www.domain.com
ServerAdmin webmaster@domain.com
DocumentRoot /Volumes/www/domain.com/documents
< /virtualhost >

This set up in Apache will then redirect all domain.com requests to www.domain.com.
You cannot beat mailing lists' support!
[tags]apache, vhosts, redirect[/tags]

It is time to build another web server, and this time I will write about what is on it. I have built this configuration on the original iMac all the way up to the latest Xserve with success, so it is possible to make a cheap web server out of an older computer. To further save money, you could use all the apps with a different OS like FreeBSD, Darwin, NetBSD, OpenBSD, etc (I like the BSDs) which are free.

• OS: Mac OS X
• Web Server: Apache
• Web Server Benchmarking: Siege
• Web Authentication Apache Module: mod_auth_mysql
• Database: MySQL
• Database Management Software: phpMyAdmin
• Scripting Language: PHP
• Search Engine: ht://Dig
• Web Calendar: phpiCalendar
• Tasks Management Software: (to keep track of all this) Tasks
• WebMail: Squirrelmail
• News: phpNews
• Blogging: WordPress

Well it is WWDC time and Apple has released information about my friend and your's Mac OS X Server, the new improved version. We finally get mobile home directories, I am really excited about that, but then Apple talks about "Certificate management"....gee I wonder if you can rename the cert files (when you serve more than one site) and have apache start? That might be too much to ask, but I am glad Apple thinks it is something to mention. I also wonder how they are going to address the change ip issue. Time will tell, but I will not hold my breath. I would love to go somewhere, most likely a school district, set up Mac OS X Server to serve exactly like Apple thinks it should serve and have everything just work. I know it can, but if you try anything different...you will find problems. (see past posts) Mac OS X Server scares me for serveral reasons, but none more than the idea of UNIX admins looking at Apple's awesome hardware and then being completely disappointed with the OS when trying to customize it. (you know, ... [more]

Well...one look at the "Safari cannot connect to localhost because your computer is connected to the internet" message I received yesterday while trying to view my web site while on the train and I about lost it. After I hacked the apache conf, that was enough for me to put up the white flag when dealing with Mac OS X Server. Apple needs to hire me or some other apache/mac based person to tweak the apache conf in Mac OS X Server. I am so frustrated at this point I am going to throw Mac OS X client on my Xserve so I can get away from Apple's "weird trying to be helpful GUI". I have written to the engineers, had them duplicate the problem, and then not fix it.
I do want to use Mac OS X Server, but not in the state it is now. So close Apple...so close, just hire me and I will help you obtain "Industrial Strength" status with web serving.

I often perform the same tasks over and over and yet forget some little thing. This post is a reminder for me.

General Apple hints.

• What to do when you get the "Do not enter sign". (besides wonder how to describe it while searching for a solution)
• Starting up in target disk mode: hold down "t"
• Starting up in single user mode: hold down Apple +"s"
• How to set up open firmware password protection
• Command to check for user preference errors: sudo plutil -s ~/Library/Preferences/*.plist

Mac OS X Server hints, aka Industrial Strength hints.

• Don't change Mac OS X Server's IP
• When installing SSL certs on OS X Server (at least in 10.3 and below), if you change the cert file location from anything but the default, you will also need to change it in all your sites or Mac OS X Server will not be able to restart apache.
• Apple: "Well Known" TCP and UDP Ports Used By Apple Software Products
• Server Monitor not working after a clone? Make sure it is by adding: hwmond:respawn:/usr/sbin/hwmond # Hardware Monitor daemon to /etc/watchdog.conf

Tutorials and general resources.

• That web site I am always trying to remember, but never bookamrk: ... [more]
  

Is it common to change a server's IP? I suppose yes and no. Yes, say you decide to move to a data center or your office moves or you want to configure a server to replace another server already using the IP you want for DNS reasons or you just need to reorganize your subnet. Yes, a change in IP is possible. Apple, thanks for figuring that out. I have been using Mac OS X Server since it first appeared on the scene and the sight of a "wheel" user really jarred me. Until now (Mac OS X Server 10.3.x) changing the IP was difficult at best. I called myself a "professional Mac OS X Server installer" for awhile because of needing to change the IP.

Every new version of Mac OS X Server promised ways of changing the IP with ease. Somewhere along the line, I think with Mac OS X Server 10.2 Apple even included an option in the install to use a temporary IP. Hmm, last week when I configured my Xserve (many times) the option was no longer available. Darn...it worked so well! ... [more]

Installing and configuring Mac OS X Server is like being Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry has a great life, but there are always problems in the details...and the problems are unbelievable unless you see them yourself. I am still in pain from the install, the reinstall, the clone, and now onto the second clone. Apple: we love the Xserve. We love Mac OS X. But how did you screw up your "industrial strength" server OS? Let us modify the config files without worrying about the GUI eating our changes! I know I am very fortunate to not have to work with some other server OSes, but please listen to the users and let us help you build a truly "industrial strength" server. I would make this posting more humorous, but until I get a good install working, I will remain...not as happy as I could be.