User Support and Computing Services (Apple Support) Blog

07 Mar

Posted at 15:00h in Apple, Enterprise, Higher Education, Jamf, Management, OS X, Python, Radmind, Security by
4 Likes

OverviewFirmware Password Manager (FWPM) is my approach to the problem of managing firmware passwords on Apple computers. When I began this project there were no solutions, besides setting the password and never changing it. FWPM allows you to update your firmware passwords quickly and easily. It was originally written as a shell script, but it has been rewritten in Python with many new features. These include Slack integration and a variety of flags to support different management systems. Coinciding with this blog post, I'm releasing...

29 Feb

Posted at 23:31h in Apple, Firewall, Network, Security by
0 Likes

OverviewA firewall is a hardware or software network security device that sits at the juncture between two networks to control what information is allowed to pass between those networks. Usually, the two networks are an organization's internal network and the Internet. A firewall's primary role in information security is to protect computers on the internal network from intentional attacks. Internal network firewalls consist of internal computers and systems, and may be firewalled internally based on risk. A border firewall is intended to prevent unsolicited and...

26 Feb

Posted at 01:48h in Cross platform, JAMF Software Server, MySQL, Programming, Python by
0 Likes

Knocked My Socks Off!My coworkers and I attended our first JAMF Nation conference this past October. The last session I attended on the first day knocked my socks off. Bryson Tyrrell of JAMF showed off an iPhone ordering script he wrote in Python and Tk. I've written some Tk, but it was a long time ago and I remember it being an uncomfortable experience. It seems a lot has changed. His script included an image that would dynamically change based on user interaction. It was...

18 Feb

Posted at 19:39h in Apple, Enterprise, Higher Education, Information Technology, Meeting by
0 Likes

February, 17th 2016 - University of Utah, Mac Managers MeetingThe University of Utah, Mac Managers Meeting is held monthly at the Marriott Library @ 1 PM Mountain Time. Presentations cover Apple technology and integration in a heterogeneous university enterprise environment. Lunch is provided to the meeting, and we provide live broadcasts and archive of the presentations.If you have suggestions on presentations, questions or comments, please your the "Contact Us" option.How Packet Firewall (PF) Can Protect Your Enterprise - By Jason Miller, ThumbtackServer and endpoint security comes...

13 Feb

Posted at 01:12h in Apple, Bash, Enterprise, Higher Education, Information Technology, Jamf, Limit Descriptors, Management, OS X Yosemite (Version 10.10), Radmind by
0 Likes

OverviewIn this post we will be talking about file descriptors and increasing limit descriptors in OS X Yosemite. File descriptors are limited by the OS. This causes some applications and services to return errors. By increasing the limit of file descriptors we can reduce the amount of "too many files open" error. What are File Descriptors?A file descriptor is used by the kernel to represent an open file that it needs to refer back to. These files are placed into an array and given an integer. The integer...

12 Feb

Posted at 14:40h in Apple, Distribution, Security, Software, Xcode by
0 Likes

OverviewXcode is Apple's development environment. It's used to develop applications on Macs, iOS devices like iPhones and the Apple Watch. It also includes the new language Swift, which is becoming very popular in higher education. However, Xcode requires users to have "_Developer" group privileges to allow the debugger and emulators to work correctly. We give our users only the minimum privileges they need to get their work done and we take great pains to secure our environment. We felt giving every user "_Developer" rights was...

10 Feb

Posted at 23:10h in Apple, Enterprise, Higher Education, Information Technology, Meeting by
0 Likes

February, 17th 2016 - University of Utah, Mac Managers MeetingThe University of Utah, Mac Managers Meeting is held monthly at the Marriott Library @ 1 PM Mountain Time. Presentations cover Apple technology and integration in a heterogeneous university enterprise environment. Lunch is provided to the meeting, and we provide live broadcasts and archive of the presentations.If you have suggestions on presentations, questions or comments, please your the "Contact Us" option.How Packet Firewall (PF) Can Protect Your Enterprise - By Jason Miller, ThumbtackServer and endpoint security comes...

15 Jan

Posted at 20:48h in Apple, Enterprise, Higher Education, Information Technology, Meeting by
0 Likes

January, 20th 2016 - University of Utah, Mac Managers MeetingThe University of Utah, Mac Managers Meeting is held monthly at the Marriott Library @ 1 PM Mountain Time. Presentations cover Apple technology and integration in a heterogeneous university enterprise environment. Lunch is provided to the meeting, and we provide live broadcasts and archive of the presentations.If you have suggestions on presentations, questions or comments, please your the "Contact Us" option. Optimizing Deployment & Updates of Office 2016 for Mac - By Paul Bowden, MicrosoftGet an in-depth look...