MacTech Group Agenda
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
2:30 to 4:30 — Room B16-B Hillsborough Bld.
1) Announcements – 5 min
a OIT supports only version 10.8.5 or newer of Mac OS X after Dec 31, 2014
b OS X versions that shipped with Intel Hardware: support.apple.com/kb/HT1159
c Vintage and Obsolete Apple Products: support.apple.com/kb/HT1752?viewlocale=en_US
d Apple Education Support Line 800-800-2775 use this number only. Always verify Apple Care Coverage with purchase info.
e OIT does not have a support policy for Boot Camp. & OIT does not support Classic mode at all.
f Mac Collection Licenses and Media info at www.ncsu.edu/software/available-software/product.phpsoftware=106
g Kaspersky Endpoint Protection for Macintosh – www.ncsu.edu/it/antivirus. Antivirus for campus.
h OIT Macintosh Support Web Site go.ncsu.edu/mac for updates.
i Unity Macintosh Workflow uses /Users/$uid$ in the Active Directory configuration with a local home on each machine
j Modified Unity Macintosh Installs are supported by the unit which has made the modifications.
k OIT supports only Apple, Intel (i386) hardware for Mac OS and software. Only unmodified iOS is supported.
l Please remember to check prices at www.apple.com/education/pricelists/ to verify best price with NC State Marketplace
m Authorized NC State personnel wanting to get access to training and tools for Apple Certified Technician should register at gsx.apple.com Email Everette_Allen@ncsu.edu for Sold-to Account number and approval.
n UNC Combined Pricing Initiative (CPI) oit.ncsu.edu/it-purchases/background-unc-cpi
o Casper Suite Enterprise service https://nc.jamfcloud.com/ (or go.ncsu.edu/mdmadmin)
p MacTech moved to quarterly schedule. Next meeting May 2015
2) Security Issues Flash, 10.10.0/1, AppleTV, printers, etc.- 30 min
I was alerted (thanks Larry R.) about this weeks US-CERT (www.us-cert.gov/ncas/bulletins/SB15-040) with content about OS X, iOS and AppleTV security issues along with the latest round of Adobe Flash & Adobe PDF insecurities. This reminded me to talk about security and the need to limit exposure. It is now Best Practice to disable/remove the Internet Plug Ins for Adobe Flash, Adobe PDF Reader, and Oracle JAVA. The applications (Flash Player, Adobe Acrobat Reader , and the Java Runtime) can still be used for *local content* i.e. not displayed in a web browser. Additionally, if Google Chrome is deployed it must be patched separately because it has it’s own support for these technologies with different code requiring additional update.
Discussion
3) Two Casper Courses in March – 10 min.
Free Casper Training Courses:
a) Repeat of : OIT-Managing OS X Yosemite with Casper Suite
Thursday, Mar 12, 2015 — 01:30 PM – 04:30 PM — Hillsborough B3
webapps.ncsu.edu/classmate/workshop/index/details/workshopId/347
b) OIT- Casper Best Practices for Packagers
Thursday Mar 26, 2015 — 2:00 to 4:30 pm — Hillsborough B3
webapps.ncsu.edu/classmate/workshop/index/details/workshopId/351
Discussion
4) New Apple Hardware Predictions – 10 min
Just wanted to touch on the predictions of new hardware. Latest rumors point to April for Apple Watch and March for some laptop updates.
Discussion.
5) OIT NetBoot Service Update – 10 min
The image for nuke.nbi should now be installing OS X 10.10.2. The pave.nbi is unchanged but we will be working to update it over the next few weeks. Any feedback on this service?
Discussion.
6) AutoPKG Update- 10 min
OIT continues to test AutoPKGR which is in early test of a headless mode which will allow us to setup an Application Update Pump in a hardened machine room. We have put resources in place to prepare for automatically feeding nc.jamfcloud.com with latest packages. There are still software issues with the way .jss recipes work ( require creation of self-service policy and group) that will be lifted in next version. We are waiting on update of JSSImporter and AutoPKGR to test and move that service to production. Discussion
7) Casper slowness and Casper Admin errors- 10 min
OIT is working with JAMF Software to deal with an issue that is causing slowness in nc.jamfcloud.com and causing some folks to get errors when using Casper Admin or Casper API access. JAMF believes that one of the servers in the JSS pool has Tomcat issue and they are working to resolve those. Discussion
8) Q&A – 10 min
You ask we try to answer
Next meeting – Tue. Mar 10, 2014 in Room B16-B Hillsborough from 2:00-4:30 pm .
MacTech – 2nd Tuesday each month: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
MacPolicy – 2nd Tuesday in Feb, May, Aug, Nov.
Neither MacPolicy or MacTech will not meet in July.
All meetings will be held in B16-B Hillsborough Bld unless otherwise announced.
Please mark your calendar.