Alan Siu's Blog

  • Avoiding a .csv error with PrinterGenerator

    PrinterGenerator is one of the automated scripts for adding printers to Munki. It’s pretty cool—you just put together a .csv of your printers and their IP addresses, and then run the script on the .csv, and all the pkginfo files for the printers will generate. I did run into one snag, though, which is using…

  • Enable SSH for only one user via command line

    If you want to enable SSH for only one user using the command line on a Mac, run these three commands: Make sure the group exists sudo /usr/sbin/dseditgroup -o create -q com.apple.access_ssh Add user username to the group sudo /usr/sbin/dseditgroup -o edit -a username -t user com.apple.access_ssh Turn remote login on sudo /usr/sbin/systemsetup -setremotelogin on…

  • PowerSchool Custom Pages Exporting Tables to .csv Using jQuery

    Someone on Stack Overflow made a jsfiddle to export existing HTML tables to .csv using jQuery. It does not, however, translate directly to PowerSchool custom pages, because PowerSchool has its own implementation of jQuery that’s a little funky. I’ve done a little playing around with it, and this tweaked code seems to work. For the…

  • PowerSchool custom pages and REGEXP_LIKE

    In general, if you test a SQL query in SQL Developer against your PowerSchool database, that same SQL query should work in a PowerSchool custom page using ~[tlist_sql][/tlist_sql]. It does not, however—I discovered just now—work if you include a REGEXP_LIKE as part of your query. Will work fine in SQL Developer… just not in a…

  • If a Keynote won’t open with Keynote…

    Not guaranteed to work, but try opening it with Preview.app instead.

  • Using OldMunkiPackages to automate cleaning out old Munki packages from your catalog

    In all honesty, I haven’t tried Spruce for Munki, which seems to have a pretty cool feature set. I wanted a simple tool to just clean out everything but the newest version of each package. So if Firefox 44.0.2 is there and Firefox 45.0 is also there, I want Firefox 44.0.2 cleaned out. I also…

  • Finding the file location of an open document in Mac OS X

    I know to some Mac veterans, this will be a Captain Obvious post, but I’ve been using Macs for over a decade, and I didn’t know about this little trick. If you have a saved file open, and you want to know where it was saved to, find the title of the file at the…

  • PowerSchool custom pages tlist sql queries for specific courses

    Usually if you’re doing a tlist_sql query on a PowerSchool custom page, any SQL query that actually works in SQL Developer will work on the custom page. I found an odd one today, though—if you have a SQL query that actually works in SQL Developer that uses course names (e.g., ((course_name=’Name of One Course’) OR…

  • Run scripts at logout using Offset

    There is an excellent open source (Apache-licensed) tool called Outset that will run scripts for Mac computers once at boot, every boot, once at login, every login, or on demand. You can add and remove ignored users (users you don’t want to run those scripts for). And all you have to do, once Outset is…

  • Using Outset to deploy scripts to Mac clients

    Why this guide? Okay, this isn’t terribly groundbreaking stuff for seasoned Mac Admins, but for the beginners and intermediates among us, I’m trying to write the layperson’s guide to Outset. What is Outset? Outset is basically a set of launch daemons (to run at boot) and launch agents (to run at user login) that will…

  • Clearing the Munki client download cache

    This rarely happens (in fact, in the year I’ve been using Munki so far, this has happened only once), but you may once in a blue moon get a corrupted download (especially for a large installer). Here is an example of what that looks like: Mounting disk image ExtremelyLargePackage-1.2.dmg… ERROR: Error: “hdiutil: attach failed –…

  • Using https / self-signed certificates and basic authentication with Munki

    If you want to go full throttle… The Munki Wiki has some detailed instructions (and a script) to set up your own certificate authority and then issue (and revoke) client certificates: Using Munki With SSL Client Certificates If you want something secure but simple If you want something a little bit simpler but not straight…

  • Keep Mac laptop carts up-to-date with Munki and NoSleep

    What’s the problem? NoSleep nuances A work-in-progress solution What’s the problem? Munki is a great tool for keeping laptops and desktops up to date. For normal laptops, I basically have Munki check in every hour or so (as it does by default) but not bother the user for 14 days. So unattended installs can happen…