February 2023 – MacAdmins Meeting

10 Feb February 2023 – MacAdmins Meeting

February 15th, 2023 – University of Utah, MacAdmins Meeting

The University of Utah, MacAdmins Meeting is held monthly virtually on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 11 AM Mountain Time. Presentations cover Apple technology and integration in a heterogeneous university enterprise environment. This month’s meeting will be held on Wed, February 15th, 2023 at 11 AM MT and we will provide live broadcasts and archives that will be made available 2-3 days after the meeting.

iTerm2 Overview – George Nachman, Developer

iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal and the successor to iTerm. It works on Macs with macOS 10.14 or newer. iTerm2 brings the terminal into the modern age with features you never knew you always wanted or lacked from the macOS default Terminal application.

• Multiple Panes
  
  It supports multiple panes as compared to the Terminal. You can work on different projects or run different commands inside different panes, in the same window. You can slice vertically and horizontally and create any number of panes in any imaginable arrangement. Unlike Terminal, you don’t need to keep switching tabs during your session. Simply split panes vertically and horizontally to keep going. The shortcut to split a pane horizontally is Shift + Cmd + D and to split vertically, press Cmd + D. Notice how inactive panes are slightly dimmed so it’s easy to see which is active. 
  
  

• Autocomplete

  Just type the start of any word that has ever appeared in your window and then Cmd+; will display a list with suggestions. The word you’re looking for is usually on top of the list!
  
  
  
  
  

• Triggers
  
  iTerm2 supports user-defined triggers, which are actions that run when text matching a regular expression is received. You can use it to highlight words, automatically respond to prompts, notify you when something important happens, and more.
  
  
  
  

Any many other features and customizations, for more details, see iTerm’s features page. This presentation will give a detailed overview of the features with demonstrations of iTerm2.

About George Nachman

George is a software engineer and has been coding since he was 8. He wrote his first terminal emulator in high school. Three decades later, he finds himself doing the same thing. He enjoys woodworking and is progressing toward my goal of building all the furniture he owns from scratch. He grew up near Washington, DC, and now lives in the bay area and likes long walks on the beach.

• Video – To view the archived presentation video, click here.
• Slides – To view the archived presentation slides, click here.
  
  
  

Malware Scanner XProtect Remediator – Howard Oakley, The Eclectic Light Company

For many years, macOS relied on two tools for the detection of malware, XProtect, and MRT, the latter also capable of removing known malware. MRT found fame in July 2019 when Apple used it to remove a vulnerable web server installed as part of Zoom. In April 2022, MRT was effectively discontinued and replaced by a library of scanning modules inside a dummy XProtect app, dubbed XProtect Remediator. These run when a Mac using macOS Catalina or later is inactive and awake, looking for signs of known malware infection. When detected, malware is remediated (removed). Updates are normally released every fortnight and respond to changing threats. Being faceless, the user isn’t informed of its detections or remediation, but in macOS Ventura, those are accessible to third-party software through Endpoint Security. Tests with live malware show XProtect Remediator can be highly effective and provide worthwhile protection.

This presentation will give an overview and analysis of XProtect Remediator.

About Howard Oakley

Howard writes for Mac|Life and MacFormat print magazines, and for his own blog, The Eclectic Light Company, from which he also provides a wide range of free software utilities, including lightweight virtualization apps for both macOS and Linux guests on Apple silicon Macs.
He first came to computing when training as a medical practitioner in the 1970s. His early interests were in numerical processing using maths coprocessors, and parallel computing with Transputers. From 1989 he developed CAD/CAM software for sailmaking and the design and manufacture of paragliders, initially running on Mac System 6. He also started writing technical articles for the UK magazine MacUser, which continued until it ceased publication in 2015, just after he had retired from medical practice. He has been a registered Mac developer since 1989. His current interests are in the technical documentation of macOS, recently including XProtect Remediator, and investigating core allocation strategies and the performance of Apple silicon chips. He was among the first to offer lightweight virtualization apps for M1 Macs. In addition to publishing medical research in thermal medicine, particularly local cold injury, in the 1990s he published research in machine learning using genetic programming. Howard lives on the Isle of Wight, UK, just a couple of miles from the waters of the English Channel.

• Video – To view the archived presentation video, click here.
• Slides – To view the archived presentation slides, click here.
  
  

Bitwarden for Apple Teams and Enterprises – Gary Orenstein & Devan Weed, Bitwarden

Sure there are built-in tools for password management, but how about a team-wide solution to secure and safely share credentials? One answer is Bitwarden. Bitwarden is a freemium open-source password management service that stores sensitive information such as website credentials in an encrypted vault. The platform offers a variety of client applications including a web interface, desktop applications, browser extensions, mobile apps, and a command-line interface. Bitwarden offers a free cloud-hosted service as well as the ability to self-host. Client features include 2FA login, passwordless login, biometric unlock, random password generator, password strength testing tool, login/form/app autofill, syncing across unlimited platforms and devices, storing an unlimited number of items, sharing credentials, and storing a variety of information including credit cards. And security options include zero-knowledge encryption, end-to-end encryption, AES-CBC 256-bit to encrypt vault data, and bug bounty program.




This session covers the benefits of choosing a cross-platform solution to manage and share sensitive information across an organization, and how administrators can enable a secure workplace.

About Gary Orenstein

Gary is the chief customer officer at Bitwarden leading the go-to-market efforts across customer success, marketing, and sales. He is an avid fan of software productivity tools and a dedicated Mac user.

About Devan Weed
Devan is the Head of Growth at Bitwarden leading efforts to help new users and businesses discover the value of password management and get on board! She is a longtime Mac user and a big fan of technology’s power to advance the way we connect with each other.

• Video – To view the archived presentation video, click here.
• Slides – To view the archived presentation slides, click here.
  
  

Open Discussion

Questions, comments, problems, and fixes.

Directions

Due to the coronavirus (aka Covid-19) crisis, this meeting will not be meeting in person but will currently be done virtually using Zoom video communications architecture.