Mac Administration !"The Fundamentals

“Being an Admin is EASY!” –Nobody

Brian Meehan Director of IT"Allendale Columbia School @binarydaze

Dennis Wurster Computer Systems Engineer Eastman

School of Music @wildeep

Them: “Hey… You’re the admin now.”

Deployment"

Management"

Service"

Sanity"

Standardize"

vo·cab·u·lar·y [vōˈkabyƧˌlerē]

See also:

Phase I: Deployment"In The Door and On The Desk

•  Imaging / “Thin Imaging” / Gold-Master

•  Reference Build/Unified Build

•  MDM - Mobile Device Management

•  VPP - Volume Purchase Program

•  Site Book

Vocabulary"

Procurement"•  Who is your local Apple rep? •  Know your team •  3rd Party Purchasing

ID Management"

•  Volume Purchase Program •  Device Enrollment Program •  Developer Account

(Personal) (Corporate)

VPP Admin (Institutional) vpp.itunes.apple.com

1

A Family of Apple IDs

GSX and Deploy gsxapp.apple.com

2

Developer ID developer.apple.com

3

App Store Purchases vpp.itunes.apple.com

4

Deployment"•  Boxes Everywhere! •  Documentation

Credit to Anthony Reimer/AFP548.com

Strategy •  Have lunch with your Apple Rep •  DeployStudio •  Know Your Apple Numbers

Phase II: Manage Managing the User Experience

Vocabulary"•  ARD •  Profiles/MCX •  APNS •  Licensing

Remote Management"•  Apple Remote Desktop

The DRY Principle"Don’t Repeat Yourself

Centralized Directories"

•  Workgroups and Domains •  Binding •  Authentication, Authorization and

Accounting

Systems Management"•  The User Experience •  System Location •  System Characteristics •  Software installation & licensing

Strategy •  Meraki Systems Manager •  Apple Remote Desktop

Phase III: Standardize Managing the Admin’s Experience

Vocabulary

•  Receipts •  Packaging/PKG •  Repository •  Patching Schedule

Acquiring Software"•  Software Sources

•  Traditional Download •  App Store

•  Installer Types •  ZIP, Disk Image (DMG), Package Files (PKG) •  .app Bundles

Distributing Software"•  Apple SUS •  Caching Server •  Munki •  JAMF Casper Suite & Air Watch

Patching"•  What is patching? •  Patching schedules •  User permissions

Fight for your Rights"

Strategy •  Install Munki •  Patching Schedule •  Review your Usage Agreement

Phase IV: Service Everything breaks eventually

Vocabulary •  SLA - Service Level Agreement •  SNMP - Simple Network Monitoring

Protocol

1. The place where requests are processed. 2. Software for logging and managing service requests.

Help Desk n.

A Good Help Desk...

● Manages the Chaos of requests ● Defines a process, and shapes

expectations

A Sample Ticket"

Monitoring

•  Proactive vs. Reactive •  How you doin’? •  Find trends with logs

Dashboard Example

Alerting

•  Something happened… now what? •  It’s HOW bad? •  Follow the escalation path •  Document!

Strategy •  Install Spiceworks •  Integrate with Active Directory •  Monitor a network device •  Configure email alerts

Phase V: Sanity Staying Organized & Current

Conferences MacAdmins Penn State" July"MacSysAdmin" Sweden" September"MacTech" Los Angeles"MacIT" San Francisco" March"JAMF Nation" Minneapolis" October"

User Groups

● MacDMV ● MacEnterprise

Live Online Resources

##osx-server MacAdmins Monthly

MacMgrs MacEnterprise

NYCIST

Multimedia Resources

Podcasts Cmd-Ctrl-Power, Out Of School, Mac OS Ken

Online Training Lynda.com

Books & Magazines Peachpit Press, MacTech Reference Apps MacTracker, ReviseIT

TIPS - Scheduling"

●  Get a big calendar, map out ‘important’ days to your environment. (Map out your vacation days, too!)

●  Get a regular schedule to meet with your supervisor, or anyone who ‘green-lights’ projects/initiatives.

●  Get a regular schedule to train your users (brown-bag sessions, or something more formal)

TIPS - Organization"

●  Set up remote access for yourself, if no one else. Make sure you can access your critical infrastructure. This will save your sanity, and some gas money.

●  Document what you do. This is especially helpful in justifying your existence at budget time, and perhaps when asking for more staff.

●  If you’re not good at organization (most of us aren’t), find someone who is and ask for their help.

TIPS - Miscellaneous "

●  Don’t name machines based on room number or user’s name!

●  Get rid of your old stuff! ●  If you can’t afford ‘best practices’, use ‘better-than-

yesterday’ practices.

Summary"●  Every admin starts somewhere ●  Learn the ‘Theory of Operation’ first, then apply it to

your organization. ●  Help is nearby!

Thank You!""

Q & A"

http://j.mp/psumac35"