MacAdmins Conference

It seems like the whole Mac Admin community is moving towards installation-based deployment methods — and rightly so — but there are still many good reasons why you might want to build an image for deployment. Whether that image is minimal (“thin”), monolithic, or something in-between, this session will explore the tools you can use to create images modularly, including the latest addition to the Mac Admin’s toolkit, AutoDMG. If you are still using the “golden machine” method of image creation, there’s never been a better time to transition to more modern methods; this session can help!

Key Concepts:

Advantages of modular image creation over capturing a “golden machine”. Advantages/Disadvantages of deploying with an image. Principles for selecting what should be a part of an image and what is best left to other deployment methods. Ways to organize your packages (including InstaUp2Date). Possible workflows for modular image creation (using AutoDMG, SIU, InstaDMG).

Foundational Lecture – 75 Minutes

 Anthony Reimer, University of Calgary

Anthony has been the Head Technician of the Integrated Arts Media Labs at the University of Calgary (Canada) since 1996, supporting work with Macintosh computers and other digital technology in Music, Art, Drama and Dance. He regularly gives presentations on technology to artists and non-artists alike at conferences like the MacIT Conference, the Penn State MacAdmins Conference, and the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic. Anthony is an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator and has a Masters Degree in Music (Wind Conducting) as well as BMus and BEd degrees.

Managing Mavericks’ FileVault 2 with fdesetup

With the release of OS X Mavericks, Apple has added new capabilities to the fdesetup utility first introduced in Mountain Lion. This tool offers a number of command-line abilities for administrators to manage FileVault 2 and Apple’s changes for Mavericks have made it even more versatile.

In this session, we’ll cover how how FileVault 2’s cryptographic keys work as well as examine fdesetup’s major functions in OS X Mavericks.

 Key Concepts:

1. How cryptographic keys work together to unlock FileVault 2’s encryption

2. How attendees can use Apple’s fdesetup tool to manage FileVault 2 on OS X Mavericks

Intermediate Lecture – 75 Minutes

 Rich Trouton, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Rich Trouton has been doing Macintosh system and server administration for over fifteen years and has supported Macs in a number of different environments, including university, government, medical research and advertising. His current position is providing support for Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia.

As Apple continues to push into the business world, good knowledgable system admins are in higher and higher demand. But as demand exponentially grows, the pool of talent isn’t keeping pace. I believe this isn’t for lack of desire, but lack of guidance. Even the most knowledgeable of Mac help deskers or even Windows sys admins may find themselves lost when trying to get to that next tier of Mac Systems Admin status.

Should they start by learning “Terminal”, get a dozen certifications, or join the Apple developers program and proceed to bash their head through a wall trying to learn Objective-C?

This session aims to provide a guiding star for these next steps. What is and isn’t worth focusing your learning energy? Where are the best learning resources? Is it necessary to learn everything in command line, or is the GUI ok?

 Key Concepts:

• Learning Strategies
• Resources for Mac Admin Knowledge
• Areas to focus on to make a well-rounded Admin

Foundational Lecture – 75 Minutes

Brendan Lutz, Ground to Cloud Solutions, Inc.

I’ve been involved with Apple professional services for over 10 years now with experience in various business sizes as well as education. In 2013 I left the constraining walls of an office to found my own Apple consulting business. As a managed service provider, we focus on brining business into the future of cloud computing and management. We specialize in custom deployments of Casper and other enterprise class tools.

Managing multiple Munki installations can be time consuming. With multiple sites, downloading huge software packages over the Internet is slow. Surely there must be a way to have the administrative benefits of running a single instance of Munki whilst getting the speed of downloading the software from a local server?

This session will look at how I tackled this problem by automating the configuration of the remote cache repositories, dynamically configure the clients based on their location and how we empowered our clients by giving them detailed information on their Mac estate with Sal (the Munki Puppet).

 Key Concepts:

•  Configuring Linux web servers with basic Puppet
• Advanced Munki usage, with pre and post flight scripts written in Python
• How empowering users to make their own decisions has benefited our deployments

Advanced Lecture – 75 Minutes

 Graham Gilbert, pebble.it

Graham is the Lead Engineer at pebble.it in London, and is the creator of Crypt, a FileVault 2 escrow solution, and Sal, a reporting solution for Munki. He has a slight obsession with automating all of the things. He’s on Twitter at @grahamgilbert