On Mac OS X 10.5, if you connect two different ports on a host to two different networks and assign them with two different IP schemes then only one can act as the default gateway.  This means that any incoming packets will all, by default, get responded to over the default gateway for the entire routing table.  You can customize your routing table using the route command but this can be tedious and doesn't always necessarily net the desired results. Snow Leopard makes all this much easier by including source based routing.

Read on for more...

As many of you have no doubt noticed, we had a bit of an issue with Google tagging us a a suspicious site. Here's what happened…

We had a Geeklog vulnerability get exploited and a hidden iframe imbedded into the comments and forums. We've spent the day cleaning and restoring things, and now we've submitted to Google to have us removed from the blacklist.

We've tightened up some security things and will move to a newer version of Geeklog ASAP.

Sorry for the interruption,

The Management

Welcome back everyone! In part 1 of this series we took a look at what Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) is, what it does, and how to get it working with the Mac OS X Server mail service. (If you haven't read part 1 click here and do it now. We'll wait for you.) Today in part 2 of the series we are going to continue to expand our EAS services by adding in the ability to remote wipe a device.

Read on for more…

Let the headline sink in for a second there. It brings up a lot of questions doesn't it? Things like how would I do that? Why would I do that? What will it get me? These are all good questions to raise! Over this two part series we will answer all of them and gain some functionality along the way. In part one we will discuss the what, the how, the why, and get EAS mail running on Mac OS X Server along the way.

Read on for more...

A new release of libsrvrmgrd-osx is out which now includes Nagios plugins to monitor and restart (in the event of failure) the following services:

• AFP
• DHCP
• Directory Services
• DNS
• FTP
• Jabber
• Mail
• MySQL
• NAT
• Netboot
• NFS
• Print
• Quicktime Streaming Server
• SMB/CIFS
• Software Update
• Web

 There is basic installation instructions available at the main website, when used in combination with the excellent guide by Gary Larizza it should hopefully be fairly straight forward to install. Any comments, suggestions or bugs would be very welcome.

Following up the client security guide, the server guide has now been updated for Snow Leopard.

Get it and the client guide here. 

Since its introduction in Tiger, sysadmins everywhere have been both elated and aggravated by portable home syncing. For a lot of people it is a fantastic solution, and one that Apple has continued to add granularity to with time. It's not hard though to hit upon situations though where PHD sync just makes sure your disappointment is evenly distributed. We are going to take a look at how to get around one of those situations today.

Read on for more...

Are you still down in the dumps that you didn't get to go to WWDC? Are you a registered developer with the ADC? Do you have a copy of iTunes on something? If so you're in luck!

Apple today posted the WWDC 2010 sessions in both SD and HD video form, along with slides, on the ADC iTunes U.

You can check it all out on the WWDC 2010 page.

Apple dropped a surprise on all of us today with new Mac mini units, including an update to everyone's favorite itty bitty server. Not only does the unibody Mac mini look sweet, but it got smaller and added features.

Those of us with media servers at home will be happy about the HDMI output, the SD card slot, and up to 8GB of RAM. For people racking the Mac mini it's smaller and has no power brick. As someone who once wired up a wall of 100 Mac minis, I can tell you that dealing with that brick was always the hardest part of the deal. Now that's gone!

Power usage is down too somehow, even with more features. Looking at the environmental PDF for the Mac mini with Snow Leopard Server it pulls under 10W when idle and maximum draw is down to 85W from 110W on the last model.

And the best part is the price didn't go up. Check out the new specs on Apple's page.

File downloads should now be fully functional with all files present.