More bandwidth!

admin — Mon, 07 May 2012 18:28:48 +0000

To continue offering premier Los Angeles Mac hosting, CloudMac has increased bandwidth on colo and dedicated Mac mini’s.

$30/mo includes colo for your Mac mini and 500GB monthly transit on a 1Gbps (1000Mbps) port. We feel everybody needs fast connections so we only offer 1Gb ports for all customers on our non-oversubscribed network.

Pricing details are available here: http://cloudmac.net/pricing/

Create ISO from folder

admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:14:03 +0000

Sometimes it is necessary to create an ISO image from a folder. The syntax is below. Thanks to mattberther.com for the info.

hdiutil makehybrid -o ~/Desktop/image.iso ~/path/to/folder/to/be/converted -iso -joliet

OS X Server DNS TTL

admin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:53:14 +0000

For some reasons, you may want to modify the TTL (Time to Live) of a DNS Server.

The default TTL is 10800 seconds (3 hours). To modify the TTL, edit the following file on your OS X DNS Server and replace $TTL 10800 with the $TTL value you desire. Please note using a TTL value of 0 (zero) is not supported by some systems and is not advised.

The DNS cache on the client systems may need to be flushed to honor the new TTL. This is done on OS X by using the “dscacheutil -flush” command.

vi /var/named/zones/db.cloudmac.net.zone.apple

Here is an example config file:

dns1:~ root# cat /var/named/zones/db.cloudmac.net.zone.apple
 ;GUID=D521C96D-AA85-4438-A1BC-8B1D7987DCD0
 ;selfResolvingHostname=0

$TTL 300
cloudmac.net. IN SOA dns.cloudmac.net. netopps.cloudmac.net. (
     2011112804    ;Serial
     86400         ;Refresh
     3600          ;Retry
     604800        ;Expire
     345600        ;Negative caching TTL
 ) 

cloudmac.net. IN  NS dns.cloudmac.net.
dns1 IN  A 10.22.100.30
mail IN  A 10.22.100.31
cloudmac.net. IN  MX 0 mail.cloudmac.net.
dns1:~ root#

Run the dig command to confirm the TTL information reflects what you entered:

dns1:~ root# dig mail.cloudmac.net @10.22.100.30

; <<>> DiG 9.6-ESV-R4-P3 <<>> mail.cloudmac.net @10.22.100.30
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 983
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 1, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;mail.cloudmac.net.        IN    A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
mail.cloudmac.net.    300    IN    A    10.22.100.31

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
cloudmac.net.        300    IN    NS    dns1.cloudmac.net.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
dns1.cloudmac.net.    300    IN    A    10.22.100.30

;; Query time: 1 msec
;; SERVER: 10.22.100.30#53(10.22.100.30)
;; WHEN: Mon Nov 28 16:47:32 2011
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 85

dns1:~ root#

More info is available by following the links below:

Time to live (TTL) – Wikipedia.com

DNS Round Robin – Wikipedia.com

dscacheutil – developer.apple.com

Some Xserve’s

admin — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:50:38 +0000

Host your Xserve with CloudMac for only $80/mo. This price includes the following:

$0 Setup Cost
Static IP Address
Remote Reboots via our managed power infrastructure
500GB bandwidth per month on a 1Gbps (1000Mbps) port
Month-to-Month term, no commitment

Your server will be hosted in our primary datacenter in Los Angeles (One Wilshire).

Gigabit connections for all customers

admin — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 19:33:49 +0000

All existing and new customers will be upgraded to 1 gigabit per second (1,000 Mbit/s) links to the Internet. Previously, there was a $15/mo upgrade cost for bumping up from 100Mbps. We decided all customers should have fast access to the Internet and offer this for no additional cost. $30/mo gets your Mac mini in the One Wilshire data center with 250GB transfers on a 1Gbps port.

If you require faster connectivity we offer link aggregation (802.3ad) for multiple 1Gbps links (native support for OS X and Mac Pro’s / Xserve’s), as well as 10Gbps offerings.

We are advocates of transferring data to and from your servers at the fastest speeds possible.

May 1000Mbps uplink Promotion

admin — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 22:39:26 +0000

Gig-E uplink promo: All customers signing up before May 31st receive a free upgrade with a Gigabit (1000Mbps) uplink port!

OS X Server 10.6.6 Update Released

admin — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 21:28:22 +0000

Apple releases OS X 10.6.6 Server and Client today. Here are are the updates:

This update includes the Mac App Store, a new application you’ll find in the Dock. The Mac App Store includes the following features:

Discover Mac apps: Browse featured apps, top charts, and categories; or, search for something specific. Read detailed app descriptions and user reviews, and flip through screen shots.

Buy and install: Easily purchase apps with your iTunes account. Apps install in one step and are quickly available from the Dock.

App updates: The Mac App Store keeps track of all your purchased apps and notifies you when free updates are available.

Additional improvements

Fixes a DNS resolution issue for Mac OS X Server v10.6.5. The system now properly resolves a DNS alias (CNAME) that points to a host in a .local domain.

Improves Mac OS X Server security. For more information about the security content of Mac OS X Server v10.6.5 see this article.

Includes all the improvements in the previous 10.6.1, 10.6.2, 10.6.3, 10.6.4 and 10.6.5 updates.

Mac OS X Server v10.6.6 also includes all improvements delivered in the client Mac OS X v10.6.6 Update.

More information is available on Apple’s site: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4460

Google Voice available on iPhone

admin — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:01:18 +0000

Google voice is now available on the iPhone via the Apple Store:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-voice/id318698524?mt=8

More information on Google voice is available here:

http://www.google.com/mobile/iphone/

OS X Server 10.6.5 Update Available

admin — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 08:11:37 +0000

Apple released OS X Server 10.6.5 which addresses several key fixes.

One important fix is with Xsan, 10.6.5 “Improves reliability of fibre channel connections, resolving a potential Xsan volume availability problem.”

More information is available here:

OS X Server: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4249
OS X Client: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4250

We suggest updating to 10.6.5 to address Xsan stability.

Junos Pulse iPhone App for Juniper SSL VPN

admin — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 20:20:09 +0000

Juniper’s Junos Pulse App offers a secure, remote access client that allows enterprises to provide end users with secure access to corporate resources, while simultaneously conforming to existing enterprise security policies. Today, Juniper is the leading security vendor for mobility, secures the majority of smartphone traffic in the U.S. and has the industry’s market-leading SSL VPN solution.1 This app extends Juniper’s footprint for SSL VPN, which is already deployed in tens of thousands of enterprises worldwide enabling more than 25 million end users to remotely and securely connect their devices to corporate networks. The Junos Pulse App has been built for ease of use and seamless deployment so enterprises can enable their iPhone and iPod touch users to be as productive as possible.

The Junos Pulse App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 4.1 or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.

For more information, refer to Juniper’s press-center:

http://www.juniper.net/us/en/company/press-center/press-releases/2010/pr_2010_09_13-05_00.html

CloudMac offers SSL VPN connectivity via our Juniper infrastructure. For more information, please contact us via Email (contact@cloudmac.net) or iChat: cloudmacnet.