mac, system, administration, apple, OS X, sudo Mac system administration - Tech-Recipes

Mac system administration tutorials

OS X Lion: Fix Blank Wallpaper in Spaces

contributed by Jimmy Selix on March 5, 2011 under Apple Mac, Mac system administration

This tech-recipe will explain how to fix the blank white screen on the non default Space. Opening the Desktop and Screen saver preferences and setting the wallpaper will not set the blank space but the previous/default Space 1. Lets fix that!

Convert OS X Lion DMG Installer to a Bootable USB Thumb Drive

contributed by Jimmy Selix on February 28, 2011 under Apple Mac, Mac OS X Leopard, Mac system administration

This recipe will explain how to make a USB Thumb Drive bootable with the OS X Lion Developer Preview installer on it and in turn allow you to install Lion on a Mac without an optical drive (ie Macbook Air line). We will need a copy of the installer dmg (not provided) and a 4GB USB Thumbdrive or Memorycard Reader w/memory card and a Mac to convert the dmg to a bootable usb thumb drive.

OS X: Edit a file using TextEdit as root or superuser

contributed by qmchenry on June 24, 2010 under Mac system administration

Editing some files on an OS X system requires superuser or root permissions. Typically, this is accomplished using sudo (which lets authorized users assume superuser powers, cape and tights optional) and vi. To the uninitiated, vi can cause intestinal distress and hair loss. An alternative is the use of TextEdit, the graphical text editor application, but under normal circumstances, you can open a system file like hosts but cannot save it. Following the steps in this recipe, you can edit a system file using TextEdit and put off learning vi for another day.

OS X Leopard: Flush or Clear the DNS Cache

contributed by qmchenry on December 4, 2007 under Mac system administration

The command used to flush the DNS cache changed in the upgrade to OS X version 10.5, Leopard. The new command is just as easy to run, if not to remember.

OS X Leopard: Create new user account with parental controls

contributed by qmchenry on October 19, 2007 under Mac system administration

Mac OS X Leopard includes new Parental Controls to help protect your children from computers (or help protect your computer from your children). In Apple’s way, this process is simple, but there are some options to consider. This recipe describes adding a new user account that will be under Parental Control and discusses some related concepts.

OS X: Change your PATH environment variable

contributed by qmchenry on October 2, 2007 under Mac system administration

When you run a command from a UNIX or UNIX-like shell, the shell looks for the executable file using the directories listed in your PATH variable as a map. For convenience, adding directories to this environment variable means you don’t have to go hunting for a file each time you run it. Following these directions will allow you to add a directory to the search PATH.

OS X: Easily edit hidden configuration files with TextEdit

contributed by qmchenry on October 1, 2007 under Mac system administration

In OS X, hidden files (those starting with a period like .profile or .bashrc) can be a challenge to edit because they are, well, hidden and don’t show up in Finder windows. While there are tricks to make hidden files visible in Finder windows, I prefer to keep my hidden files hidden. I also prefer to edit them using vi, but I know that many folks are likely to think ’six’ instead of ‘editor’ when presented with vi. What follows is a simple way to edit a hidden file using TextEdit without making any changes to the system.

Setup Mac OS X host to print to Windows shared printer

contributed by qmchenry on August 28, 2006 under Mac system administration

Life is so much better when we all get along, especially when heterogeneous computer equipment can just work together. Integrating a Mac running OS X 10.4 to support printing to a shared printer on a Windows host is described in this Tech-Recipe.