[MacTUG] initial observations with Maverick on a lab computer (using profile manager, etc)

[Donald Duff-McCracken]

I might move to Mavericks for my lab, sooner than later. The “Free” part is a big factor but I am also going to test 10.9 server to see if profile manager is a bit more polished, which is my hope.

At any rate, I have updated one of my test lab machines from 10.8 to 10.9, still using the 10.8 profile manager server, and I am pleasantly surprised to see that it is generally working . I have not done exhaustive tests but I changed my “Login Window Message” and that updated successfully. It is possible that some other settings may not work with 10.8 Server, but I plan on moving to testing 10.9 server and really would not plan on deploying 10.9 clients with 10.8 server — after all one of my motivations for doing an early upgrade is that I hope there are improvements in 10.9 server. So I will only be playing with 10.9 client & 10.8 server for a day or so before I start seeing how 10.9 client & server play together.

As I mentioned I found a few interesting little problems so far (all of which I have overcome) but I will share:


1. My User Template Preferences were wiped out: I just ran the updater on an existing 10.8 mac and almost all the gunk I had squirrelled away in the Prefs folder was deleted. This is not a big deal when I deploy 10.9 I will do it from a fresh install with the appropriate plists in the User Template. For the time being I reran the Composer Package I use to deploy the User Template prefs and all the ones I care about (Finder settings, dock etc) seem to work fine.
2. Speaking of user template, I need to add one more plist if I do not want the annoying “sign in to iCloud, give us your apple id, etc” message to show up. The com.apple.SetupAssistant.plist controls this. (Note. This file exists in 10.8 but I have never needed to put it in the User Template to bypass this process.)

At any rate, I will likely build a server as 10.9 over the next few days and start playing with it. I will play with both 10.9 and 10.8 clients. If it seems robust with 10.8 clients I may upgrade it even sooner (with a clone of it as a 10.8 server). Why? I find the 10.8 server is rough around the edges, and one of the nice things about profile manager is that once your clients are set up the way that you want them to be, it is a rather “safe fail” design. I.E., once the client macs have the profiles they need the server is not really essential until the profile-based settings need to be changed.

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Donald Duff-McCracken
Technical Services Manager
Mapping, Analysis & Design
Faculty of Environment
University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 x32151
https://uwaterloo.ca/environment-computing/about/people/donald-duff-mccracken

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