Server Cleanup 2.6 Posted

[Mark Gabrenas]

When it rains it pours. I have finally completed version 2.6 of Server Cleanup. As well as all the improvements in 2.5.3, I have included:

Added the ability to create custom actions in the new Advanced tab

Added the ability selectively turn off permission changes to individual folders when doing a Custom permissions change

Added the ability to save a set of custom permissions for repeated use

Added the ability to copy out files to 4 new folders, Pictures, Movies, Library/Application Support and loose into the Home folder

The Advanced tab allows you to create your own options in Server Cleanup, in case I haven't implemented your feature request. By using a combination of terminal commands and a few variables for user information, you can implement virtually any change to the user's home folders that you can imagine.

I also made two significant changes to the way SC handles permissions changes on home folders. First, when you are doing a Custom Permissions Change, you can deselect folders so that they are not included when you click Go. This way, if you have made significant permissions changes to an individual folder, you can skip it when you run SC, preserving the existing structure.

Second, I have added the ability to save a set of custom permissions and to call them back up again at a later date. If you have a set of permissions you normally apply to your user's home folders, you can now just call the set up from the menu bar, instead of having to set them all by hand each time. Currently you can only save one set of permissions.

And, I also managed to get the progress bars working better. They now do a much better job of indicating what is actually happening.

As always, you can get the new version from http://web.mac.com/bancher

Mark Gabrenas

Apple Certified Systems Administrator

m.gab...@mac.com

[Justin Redden]

Mark,

Do you have to do anything special to have the redirected caches folder create in the right place?  I redirected the Caches folder and it is saying that the Original Item does not exist.

-Justin

[Mark Gabrenas]

Shouldn't be anything special. Where is it saying that it doesn't exist, in the log? If you go to /tmp on the server, is there a folder with the user's user id? Does it happen with every user or just one in particular? I tested it again on my test server and it came up with no error, but this is a controlled environment.

Mark Gabrenas

Apple Certified Systems Administrator

m.gab...@mac.com

[Mark Gabrenas]

I looked over the code again and noticed that the portion that creates the user id folders in /tmp to link to did not do so with administrative access, so this MAY have caused it to fail. It doesn't on my server, but my permissions are probably different.

I posted 2.6.1 which gives the command admin access. Give it a try.

Mark Gabrenas

Apple Certified Systems Administrator

m.gab...@mac.com

[Justin Redden]

For my test account it worked fine.  Student Accounts were saying Firefox could not launch.  I will play around a little more and see what happens. 

Side note on this

My Faculty have the redirect working with no issue, but they mostly are on the same machine all the time.  My students which are on their own File Server move around and the redirect would always cause this issue with Firefox.  I rebuilt the server, but that account might just have to be created from scratch.   I am just getting a ton of login hangs.  My network admin says hte network is fine and efficient but I am convinced that there is something fishy going on.  We have a ton of switches and fiber hops.  Any tips?


-Justin

[Mark Gabrenas]

So it is creating the redirect in SC fine, but having issues when the clients are running it?

What OS are the clients on? If you login to a client machine and go to the /tmp folder, do you find a folder with their ID?

Mark Gabrenas

Apple Certified Systems Administrator

m.gab...@mac.com

[Justin Redden]

I am on 10.4.9.  There is not a folder with the users ID in the/ tmp folder. 

[tj]

Hi Mark,

Great Product. Takes the place of a lof of things I used to script and
makes life a lot easier.
However I am also having the same problem as Justin. Folders are not
getting created in the tmp folder with the user IDs, causing some apps
like Firefox and Safari not to launch.

Clients are a mix of 10.4.x and 10.3.9 - but it doesn't seem to matter
which particular machine a user is on. The problem is also not
consistent amont machines. For example I can log in as a user on one
machine and everything works just fine. I can then move to the machine
sitting next to it and the appropriate folders will not be created and
applications will not launch. On the affected machines it does not
matter which user I log in as, the folders still do not get created.
Suggesting to me this is more a machine issue then a user issue.

I have repaired permissions for the machines in question as well as
checked permissions for the /private/tmp folder as well as for the
symbolic link. Everything appears to be in order. I've also emptied
the tmp folder, recreated the tmp folder, and recreated the symbolic
link. I've even tried just creating the symbolic link and letting the
OS create the tmp folder. It still will not fix the problem. However
if I first log in as an administrator and create the appropriate
folder, named with a Users UID, in tmp and then log in as that user
everything works fine. So it seems as if, for whatever reason, some
machines are having problems creating the inital UID folders in tmp.

Thanks for you help and for creating this product.

Tom

On May 11, 2:22 pm, "Justin Redden" <jrr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am on 10.4.9. There is not a folder with the users ID in the/ tmp
> folder.
>

> On 5/11/07, Mark Gabrenas <m.gabre...@mac.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > So it is creating the redirect in SC fine, but having issues when the
> > clients are running it?
> > What OS are the clients on? If you login to a client machine and go to the
> > /tmp folder, do you find a folder with their ID?
>
> > Mark Gabrenas
> > Apple Certified Systems Administrator

> > m.gabre...@mac.com

>
> > On May 11, 2007, at 1:42 PM, Justin Redden wrote:
>
> > For my test account it worked fine. Student Accounts were saying Firefox
> > could not launch. I will play around a little more and see what happens.
>
> > Side note on this
>
> > My Faculty have the redirect working with no issue, but they mostly are on
> > the same machine all the time. My students which are on their own File
> > Server move around and the redirect would always cause this issue with
> > Firefox. I rebuilt the server, but that account might just have to be
> > created from scratch. I am just getting a ton of login hangs. My network
> > admin says hte network is fine and efficient but I am convinced that there
> > is something fishy going on. We have a ton of switches and fiber hops. Any
> > tips?
>
> > -Justin
>

> > On 5/11/07, Mark Gabrenas <m.gabre...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > > Shouldn't be anything special. Where is it saying that it doesn't exist,
> > > in the log? If you go to /tmp on the server, is there a folder with the
> > > user's user id? Does it happen with every user or just one in particular? I
> > > tested it again on my test server and it came up with no error, but this is
> > > a controlled environment.
> > > Mark Gabrenas
> > > Apple Certified Systems Administrator

> > > m.gabre...@mac.com

>
> > > On May 11, 2007, at 8:22 AM, Justin Redden wrote:
>
> > > Mark,
>
> > > Do you have to do anything special to have the redirected caches folder
> > > create in the right place? I redirected the Caches folder and it is saying
> > > that the Original Item does not exist.
>
> > > -Justin
>

> > > > As always, you can get the new version fromhttp://web.mac.com/bancher

>
> > > > Mark Gabrenas
> > > > Apple Certified Systems Administrator

> > > > m.gabre...@mac.com- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Mark Gabrenas]

Hi Tom,

Server Cleanup doesn't actually CREATE the User ID folders in the /tmp folder on the clients. The OS should be doing that for you. If it is not, then something must be going on funny on the machine itself.

That said, I am not sure exactly what may be causing the OS to fail to create folders in /tmp. As I understand the system, this is what should be happening. I may have to talk to a few people I know to see if they have seen the issue.

Mark Gabrenas

Apple Certified Systems Administrator

m.gab...@mac.com

[Justin Redden]

I found that you have to use a login hook to create the folder with the user's ID number. 

[Justin Redden]

Check out:

http://jochsner.dyndns.org/NHR/Welcome.html

This will establish the Login and Logout hooks.

SC is still a much better utility in my opinion for managing this function  :)

[Mark Gabrenas]

All the clients I have looked at have created the folders in /tmp. I am curious now why some machines are not. I will have to look into this.

NHR does a better job in some cases, SC does a better job in others. It all depends on how you want to manage things. One thing you have to remember to do if you are going to use SC to redirect folders is to change the default template in /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj (or whatever language you are using) so that new users will get the redirection without you having to run SC again to create them. NHR does not have that limitation. But you have to remember to load NHR on all your computers, so......

Mark Gabrenas

Apple Certified Systems Administrator

m.gab...@mac.com