Use The Terminal to Setup Apple Remote Desktop Computer Info #1

Computer Info #1 from the Command Line

Part of my client management process involves using the “Computer Info #1″ field in Apple Remote Desktop 3 (ARD) to store the physical location of each machine on my network.  This helps me quickly identify a machine when I’m looking at a list of several hundred Macs.  Currently, I enter this information manually on each computer when they’re re-imaged over the summer.  I’m always looking for ways to do reduce the number of steps in my imaging process, so I’ve been trying to find a terminal command that I can use to push out this setting to multiple machines at once through ARD.

After much searching, I found my answer:

/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -configure -computerinfo -set1 -1 your info goes here

Use ARD’s ‘Send UNIX Command’ feature and send this to the machine(s) you wish to update.  Enter the information you’d like in place of your info goes here. If you’d like to enter a space between words, use a backslash and a space like this: First\ Word

ARD allows you up to 4 fields of computer info, so just follow the convention for those as well (-set2 -2, -set3 -3, etc).  I’ve tested this with OS X 10.4, 10.5 and 10.6 with success.  It was unsuccessful on a machine running OS X Server 10.3 (an old eMac running as a CD-ROM server, serving up disk images).  To find out more command line options for setting up and configuring Apple Remote Desktop, enter the following command in a terminal window (you’ll be asked to authenticate as an administrator):

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -help

Even though doing this manually only takes a few seconds, it certainly adds up when you have to do it a few hundred times.  I can also now do this at the time of imaging, or any time without having to control the remote screen through the GUI.  I may eventually automate this and incorporate it into a post-flight script as part of my imaging workflow.  If I do, I’ll be sure to post the script.

A Workaround for removing Western Digital’s SmartWare Virtual CD Partition

UPDATE 2:  A Mac OS X version of the firmware update and VCD Manager are now available here.  In my own test updating my MyBook Essential 1TB, both utilities worked perfectly.  See the comments below for more information.

UPDATED: It appears that Western Digital has released a firmware update and a utility called VCD manager, which will prevent the Virtual CD from mounting.  Both pieces of software are Windows only, and are available here.  Thanks to robert and Section8 for posting this in the comments below.

I recently purchased a 1TB Western Digital MyBook Essential from Amazon.  It comes pre-loaded with WD’s StupidWare SmartWare software, which is their cross platform answer to Apple’s Time Machine.  A decent effort, but of no concern to me.  I wanted to use the drive my way, so I partitioned and formatted it, but could not get rid of the SmartWare partition.  I did some research and found it’s a part of the drive’s firmware and mounts as a virtual CD every. time. the drive. is. mounted…After trying gparted in Ubuntu Linux, Disk Manager in Windows XP and a host of boot/partition live discs (Easeus Disk Copy, Ultimate Boot CD, Hitachi Feature Tool), I gave up on being able to access that ROM portion of the disk and thought of alternate solutions.

I remembered that I have the simple, but very handy DoSomethingWhen system preference pane installed.  DSW allows you to perform a few basic actions when a volume is either mounted or unmounted.  I use this to automatically run an automator workflow I wrote to back up my primary flash drives when they are inserted.  I created a new rule that will automatically eject the WD SmartWare virtual disc (VCD) when it is mounted.

It’s not the optimal solution I was looking for, but at least it takes the burden of always ejecting the VCD, off of me.  I’ve contacted Western Digital and asked if they have plans to publish a firmware update with the ability to remove this software.  If I ever get an answer, I’ll be sure to post it.

[Download DoSomethingWhen]

Fix ARD Crashing with Multiple Instances

I use Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) to connect to my servers at work.  I have another copy of ARD installed on one of the servers as well, and occasionally I’ll need to use ARD on my local machine to connect to a server remotely, and then run another instance of ARD on the server, all within the instance of it running on my desktop.  If you’re having trouble following, that’s like calling someone and telling them to call other people for you.

There’s a security preference setting in ARD to disable you from doing exactly this, so as to prevent someone from controlling or viewing your screen when you are using ARD.  Somehow, this setting managed to enable itself.  You’ll be presented with a window stating “You are not authorized to control this computer.  Apple Remote Desktop or another administration application is currently running.” This is highly irritating since it kills your remote session and the only way to fix it is to issue a killall “Remote Desktop” terminal command remotely to that machine, or to get physical access to the machine and quit ARD.

After a little digging in .plist files, I found the entry I was looking for.  Right click (or control+click) on the Remote Desktop application and select ‘Show Package Contents.’  This will open a new Finder window.  Open the ‘Contents’ folder, and then open the file called ‘Info.plist‘  Find the entry in this property list called “LSMultipleInstancesProhibited” and change its value to “No.”  Save the file, relaunch ARD and you should be good to go.

Enable OS X Dock Magnification on the Fly

I accidentally discovered that in OS X Leopard, if you have dock magnification turned off, you can temporarily enable it by holding Shift and Control while moving your cursor over the dock.

This does not appear to work at all in Tiger, and I’ve only tested it in OS X 10.5.6, so it’s possible it may not work below that.

Change Twitterrific’s Default Protocol

Twitterrific by The Icon Factory

We have a web filtering appliance installed as part of our network at my place of work.  Among the many functions it performs, packet shaping and filtering is one of the most important, and most annoying.  In our setup, port 443 (https) isn’t heavily restricted, so I use port 443 where available for any software I want to bypass the appliance and its rules.

Mail.app, iChat, Mailplane, etc all have options in their preferences to set alternate ports, while Twitterrific does not.  However, through a simple .plist hack we can tell Twitterriffic to use https traffic.  Navigate to and open the following property list file:

~/Library/Preferences/com.iconfactory.Twitterrific.plist

If it does not already exist, add a new Child property and call it “protocol” (all lower case, no quotes).  Set the class to String, and the value to “https://” (again, without the quotes).  Quit Twitterrific if it’s open, relaunch and voilá, you’re now connecting to Twitter over the secure http protocol.

Your results may vary if your LAN administrator blocks Twitter packets, or has other means of restricting traffic on port 443, but it’s worth a shot.

Tags: plist edit

Add a Little Retro to Your Google Notifier

I use the Google Notifier for Mac to alert me when my gmail account has new messages and lately, I’ve grown tired of the standard OS X notification sounds that it lets you use.  I wanted to use my own sounds so that I can more easily distinguish this aural alert from other notifications.

Google Notifier lets you choose from the Mac’s standard notification sounds, or two custom tones that Google supplies.  We’re simply going to replace one of these tones with our own. Read more…