How To Refresh MCX Preferences on a Mac

From Terminal type:  sudo mcxrefresh –n [user short name]

eg:  sudo mcxrefresh –n tsmith

For further info see the man page, "man mcxrefresh

You can also delete the  /Library/Managed Preferences folder

Here is a list of MCX refresh commands for each OS:

http://krypted.com/mass-deployment/refreshing-managed-client-cache/

Mac clients can not do LDAP (GAL) lookups

An office reported that Mac clients were unable to do LDAP (GAL) lookups from Entourage or Outlook 2011.

All the clients were using the local DC for LDAP; if this was changed to another DC the clients could do lookups just fine.

It was found that the local DC was not a global catalog server.  When this was fixed, lookups worked.

Here is the TechNet article on determining whether or not a DC is a GC  it:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc786686%28WS.10%29.aspx

com.apple.launchd[1] (org.samba.winbindd3733) Exited with exit code: 1

A 10.5.8 server dropped all SMB connections and the Console log was filled with these errors:

Mar 29 12:36:37 ... com.apple.launchd[1] (org.samba.winbindd[98460]): Exited with exit code: 1
Mar 29 12:36:37 ... com.apple.launchd[1] (org.samba.winbindd): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds
Mar 29 12:36:47 ... com.apple.launchd[1] (org.samba.winbindd[98461]): Exited with exit code: 1
Mar 29 12:36:47 ... com.apple.launchd[1] (org.samba.winbindd): Throttling respawn: Will start in 10 seconds

Work-around (but not a full fix as it doesn't address the root cause)

Open Terminal and log in as sudo -s and type:

launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.samba.winbindd.plist

Then edit /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.samba.winbindd.plist
and the following:

This keeps the winbindd daemon from launching at startup, which it  isn't doing anyway, to re-enable it  change "true" to "false".

How to check a user's password from the command line using DSCL

Here is the command for checking a user's password via DSCL:

dscl /Active\ Directory/domainname authonly username

(where "domainname" is the name of the AD domain and "username" is the short name of an Active Directory user)

No output indicates that the user's password was verified. 

DHCP Error while importing scope "Option 6"

While importing a DHCP scope from a Windows 2003 to 2008 server I encountered an error:

"Error while importing option "6"."

This is a reference to the scope options in DHCP.  Option 6 is the DNS server, option 15 is DNS Domain Name, etc.

To remedy this particular error delete the offending options form the DHCP's "Server Options" and then attempt the import again.

Export (2003/2008): netsch dhcp server export c:\[filename.txt] all
Import: netsch dhcp server import c:\[filename.txt] all

More details on the error can be found here:

http://mykbit.blogspot.com/2010/03/error-while-importing-option-6-while.htmlhttp://mykbit.blogspot.com/2010/03/error-while-importing-option-6-while.html

How to force a 10.6 client to generate a Kerberos ticket at login

Refer to this Apple KB article:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4100

You need to add the string:

builtin:krb5store,privileged

Under the key:

system.login.console

In the /etc/authorization file

Generating a kerberos ticket from the command line in OS X

kinit [user name]

You will be prompted for the user's password