Changes to Keychains in macOS Sierra

This article is related to macOS Sierra 10.12.1 and 10.12.2. Because i am still working on 10.12.3 beta update to find out all keychain changes.

Recently i upgraded my macbook from El Capitan to Sierra and found that my keychain update script has stopped working. Which really made me too confused about its functionality.
My script had a function in which i mentioned the manual path of the login keychain with the $user variable which was like :

1	\Users\$user\Library\Keychains\login.keychain

But after upgrade to macOS Sierra, it has stopped working because they have change the login.keychain name.

1	\Users\$user\Library\Keychains\login.keychain-db

This change has some issues right now. Like your old script with manual path would not work and it can cause some AD account lockout issues.

Custom Configuration of "System Center Endpoint Protection" for Macs

Many organisations have started using "Microsoft System Center Endpoint Protection (SCEP)" on their macs and replacing other antivirus (like, Symantec, TrendMicro, AVG and others) from it.

If i talk about Microsoft SCEP, it is basically a part of SCCM and it is managed by SCCM itself, it also works fine on macs without any problem and it can be installed on enterprise macs but its has many limitations. So according to me, you should test it, analyze it and check its all limitations and then consider it for your enterprise environment.

I am going to discuss about it in more details below with manual configuration which you can do when you plan to have it in your environment.

Operation not permitted "NSPOSIXERRORDOMAIN 1" on Safari

It started happen all of sudden that you are not able to access very specific things on intranet and internet on safari but things work normally on other browsers like Chrome and Firefox.

Solution:

Just check if you are able access them in Safari Private Window.

If yes, then your mac has something installed which is preventing safari to communicate with intranet and internet things.

Run this command in terminal and check its output.

kextstat -kl | awk ' !/apple/ { print $6 } '

My output was:

So, i tried to uninstall the things which were very less critical. Like uninstalled Virtual box and it fixed the issue. In your case, there could be some other thing which could fix it after uninstalling it.

Folder showing 24-Jan-1984 date and greyed out as well

Sometimes it happens that when you will mount any network folder or your local folder. You will see some folder which will be greyed out, non accessible and modified date would be 24-Jan-1984. It will look like as per the below screenshot.

Airtel huawei E3372 datacard fix for OS X EL Capitan 10.11

In my organisation we have Airtel 4G dongles which we assign to our users so that they work from home too. But these dongles were showing some problem after upgrade to new OS X El Capitan. After a deep research, drivers were not compatible and Airtel didn't have new drivers for OS X 10.11.

So here is the way to fix it and make it compatible device for OS X 10.11.

Installation

Go to Huawei Support Site (consumer.huawei.com).

Click on Support and Search for your device model. In my case, i searched for E3372.

Click on Your Device image and Click on Update on left bottom corner.

Download "Stick Mobile Partner(for MAC10.11)"

Extract it and Install it. (No rocket science in it.)

Macbook gets log out after when it is not in use

If your Macbook or Macmini or iMac gets logout when it is not in use or it is inactive for some duration. Below are the settings to get rid from this.

From Clients

Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General > Advanced... (right bottom corner)
Uncheck "Log Out After"

From Profile Manager

Microsoft lync keychain password pop-ups

Issue reported with fix Here and Here.

This issue is old and have been posted on many blogs, but i faced this issue first time with some of my users, not one or two. So i decided to create a script and made it available for users to use it if they are experiencing this problem.

Scrip:

Macbook doesn't sleep after upgrade to El Capitan

After upgrade my macbook to El Capitan (10.11.3) from Yosemite 10.10.5. I was experiencing as issue that my macbook doesn't go to sleep mode even after close the lid. It keeps doing some processing and drained my full battery.

Cause : While doing upgrade, some permission on "com.apple.PowerManagement.plist" gets corrupted and macbook/macmini starts behaving abnormally.

Solution : Here we have two solutions.

1) You can set "SleepDisable" boolean value to "NO" by below mentioned command.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist SystemPowerSettings -dict SleepDisabled -bool NO

If you want to undo this settings, then use this command.

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist SystemPowerSettings -dict SleepDisabled -bool YES

2) Delete "com.apple.PowerManagement.plist".
> Open Terminal
> Sudo rm -rf /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
> Reboot your mac.

Thankyou

Keychain Issue After Password Change

If you have a mixed environment in your organisation where you have macs and windows systems and authentication is from active directory. You could have seen this problem many times that if a user has mac and windows system both and he/she changes his password on windows system, user starts facing lots of problem on his mac systems. Like, keychain pop-up which asks to enter old password again and again. User is not able to access network resources and network drives.

So, here is the solution.

Schedule Backup of DeployStudio Custom Scripts and Workflows by launchd

Many time we have been faced this issue when we want to schedule any task on our mac servers. There is one inbuilt tool crontab but it doesn't work as per our expectations. So its better to use launchd to schedule tasks, it perfectly works in all scenarios. I have explained a simple task below which i used to take backup of DeployStudio server scripts and workflows and save them on a remote location.

Verify & Repair Permissions - El Capitan

As you all know, Apple has removed this feature in new OS X El Capitan. But if you have Macbooks or Macmini in your office and using them on enterprise level infrastructure. It could be a bad news for you because in many cases and troubleshooting we use "Repair Disk Permissions".

There is no need to feel sad because it is still possible by command line.

So open up your Terminal.app and use below mentioned commands to Verify and Repair Disk Permissions.

To Verify, Please use the below mentioned code.

sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --verify --standard-pkgs /

To Repair, Please use the below mentioned code.

sudo /usr/libexec/repair_packages --repair --standard-pkgs --volume /

Office 2016 Security Update 15.17.0

There are lot of fixes have been released in this security update of Office 2016. In older version on which i experienced lot of issues was 15.13.1, it had many issues after upgrade my system to El Capitan 10.11.2 from 10.11. So it was minor update but it messed up office version.

Issues which i experienced are mentioned below.

1. SSO error while activating Office 2016.
2. All MS apps where getting crashed while launching them.

Enable file vault by profile manager with IRK (Institutional Recovery Key) - El Capitan

It is really very easy to enable file vault on profile manager so your all connected devices will get these policies and enable fie vault by default.

I am going to explain each and every step to enable file vault by profile manager and its deployment process on enrolled devices.

OS X El Capitan – HFS+ Enabling Journaling Error

You can come across with this error while upgrading your macbook/macmini from Yosemite 10.10.4 to El Capitan 10.11.

To fix that, please follow the below mentioned steps.

• From above menu, click on Tools > Disk Utility.
• Select your Hard drive in which you are installing EL Capitan 10.11.
• Click on File > Enable Journaling.
• Try to upgrade now. It should work.

"Keychain First Aid" gone in El Capitan 10.11.2

Available for: OS X El Capitan v10.11 and v10.11.1

Impact: A malicious application may be able to masquerade as the Keychain Server.

Description: An issue existed in how Keychain Access interacted with Keychain Agent. This issue was resolved by removing legacy functionality.

So, it is a bug from Apple and might be will be resolved in next security or OS X update (10.11.3).

Source : https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205637

Show hidden files and folders in Mac OS X Finder

Like as Windows, OS X also has hidden files and folders.

To see hidden files and folders, use below command.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES

killall Finder

To disable it, please use below command.

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO 

killall Finder