IT

Updated[2]: For Security's Sake: Remove Diginotar CA Certificate

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Apple has released a security update for Snow Leopard and Lion that addresses this issue:

Snow Leopard: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1446
Lion: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1447

There is no update for Leopard, so, in that case, you should still follow the instructions below.

Apple's update simply drops these files into place (on Lion):

/System/Library/Keychains/EVRoots.plist
/System/Library/Keychains/SystemRootCertificates.keychain
/System/Library/Keychains/SystemTrustSettings.plist

So, no matter which updates you made to the Diginotar cert -- delete or untrust -- the Apple update will just plow over all of that with the right setting and updated certs.
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While ignoring how broken the entire Certificate Authority (CA) model is, here's what you should do right now: Delete the CA cert for Diginotar from your system. Why?

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/08/30/247730/Microsoft-warns...

Now, if you're an individual, this is simple: just remove it from your system. Since I largely focus on Macs here, that would be in the keychain. Open Keychain Access.app, search for "Diginotar" and delete the resulting certificate.

...and don't forget Firefox, which keeps its own list of CAs:

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/deleting-diginotar-ca-cert

But, what if you're a Sys Admin responsible for protecting a fleet of machines and you don't expect end-users to do this themselves? (Or, that you're going to personally visit each machine.) Automate it, of course! The security binary will help you do that:

sudo /usr/bin/security delete-certificate -Z C060ED44CBD881BD0EF86C0BA287DDCF8167478C /System/Library/Keychains/SystemRootCertificates.keychain

(You can first check for the existence of the certificate using security's find-certificate instruction.)

Of course, you're using a system management framework that will allow you to run this command on all the machines in your fleet, right?

Update: This turns out to be a little more complex than simply removing the certificate. While removing the Diginotar cert is still recommended, DigiNotar is cross signed by other CAs. Removing the Diginotar root only removes one of them (and there are 5 paths). Also, it seems that there are some bugs in Apple's certificate handling in some cases. So, what can we do?

Certainly, remove the Diginotar cert from your machines, as that does help the most egregious cases. From there, we have two options: Use FireFox 6.0.1, which uses its own root certificate store and is now protected against this. Secondly, we need to wait for a patch from Apple--the only one in a position to really address this. Only a patch from Apple can completely fix browsers and apps that rely on the system store, Safari, of course, being the biggest use case, with Chrome and Mail.app as two other Webkit-based apps that may rely on the system root store for certificate handling.

(Big thanks to Harald Wagener for review on this, and reminding me about using find-certificate.)

Reset Apple Software Update Service (SUS)

Honestly, there's no more finicky service under OS X Server than Software Update. Sometimes, you just need reset the service and start from scratch. Under Server 10.6, the best way I've found is to:

- Stop the service.
- Get a shell on the server and sudo up to root.
- mv /var/db/swupd /var/db/swupd.old
- mv /etc/swupd /etc/swupd.old
- mkdir -p /var/db/swupd/html
- chown -R _softwareupdate:_softwareupdate /var/db/swupd
- chmod g+w /var/db/swupd
- Use ServerAdmin to (re)set the preferences for the service
- Let 'er rip. (start the service)

Managed Prefs Presentation in NY

I've been meaning to mention: I'll be giving a talk about Macintosh managed preferences (related to the book) at the monthly Tri-State Chapter of the Apple Consultants Network.

This takes place on the 2nd of September at 6pm at Novaworks in NY. If you're an ACN member, I hope to see you there. If you're not and would like to attend, ping me via e-mail.

Mac Enterprise Managed Preferences Book Released

My book on Managed Preferences for Mac OS X has been released (Amazon Link).

Presentation: Dev Tools for Sys Admins, Wed, 2 Sept 2009

I'll be giving a presentation at the Tri-State meeting of the Apple Consultants Network titled, "Dev Tools for Sys Admins." I'll be recording this talk and have attached some resources here for those attending. Bring a laptop as portions will be hands-on.

Pedantic

The devil (angel?) is in the details. However, so many don't see this. If you're reading this blog, you're likely a tech-type. It's the techies that need to heed this creed as much if not more so than most. Well, I hope health care professionals follow this a bit more, but I digress. Technology only follows the rules we tell it, and has no way of doing as we simply expect.

I was reminded of this after seeing the following sign:

The New Book: Advanced System Administration

I'm extremely happy to say that I'm in the process of writing one of the official reference guides for Apple's high level ACSA certification: Advanced System Administrator, v10.5.

Entourage Blog: How Entourage Works

Microsoft got into the 'blog thing' pretty heavy about two years ago and I still keep finding some Microsoft blog that I haven't stumbled across quite yet. Most of them are quite good, too. This particular entry is useful, and more in line with what I tend to handle: How does Entourage Work? It steps through the various ports and protocols that Entourage uses when connecting to an Exchange Server.

Macworld 2008 Session Videos Posted

As mentioned in my initial posting, full video of Macworld sessions would be made available. Well, it looks like certain sessions have been made available. Thus far, only my collaboration session has been made available:

IT812: Using Collaboration Services on Mac OS X Server

Help Barracuda Defend Good Sense!

Thank goodness for good sense! The US Patent system is unfortunately broken, handing out patents in this digital age that make little sense, and show little understanding modern technology. Barracuda, as a company, is trying to stop Trend Micro, a patent troll.

Trend was granted a patent that covers scanning files that pass through a proxy. Huh?

Help Barracuda show prior art. Story here:

Linux World

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