deploying proxie settings

[jd20075]

hi all

 

is it possible to deploy our sites proxy settings to all macs on our network with currently have 300 macs a mix of macbooks and imacs we have a xserve and apple remote desktop any advice welcome

 

many thanks in advance

 

jd20075

[AntonioRocco]

Hi

 

The XServe need not be involved as it makes no sense to install Apple Remote Desktop on it as you'd have to VNC to it to use it. What would be the point unless you have a display, keyboard and mouse attached to it?

 

Enable Remote Management on every mac you have. You can't do this remotely. You will have to visit each mac in turn to enable the setting. You'll find it in the Sharing Preferences Pane. Make sure you enable all the options.

 

Install Apple Remote Desktop on any one of these Macs that you decide to use as an 'administrator' mac. Make sure the local administrator's name and password is the same for all 300 workstations.

 

Switch on all 300 workstations. ARD does not traverse subnets easily so you will have to add the macs to your List from the Scanner part of ARD by searching each of your subnets, or the subnet the macs are likely to be in. Once you 'see' them all, select them and click the Observe icon. Provide the local administrator's name and password. Do this for all the workstations. Once added select them all and click on the UNIX Icon. Click on the Template popup menu and select Network Setup > Web Proxy.

 

Read what's presented carefully and for the "networkservice" part of the command amend it to either be Ethernet or Airport depending on how your clients are connected to your network. For the domain make it the Proxy Server's IP Address. The last part of the command should be fairly obvious. Make sure the command is ran as "root". The command may fail if some of your clients are on a Wireless network whose VLAN/subnet is far removed from the wired one.

 

Apple make available (for free download) many Administration Manuals on their website. The one for Apple Remote Desktop is here:

 

Apple - Support - Manuals

 

The one I think you may want is here:

 

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/ARD3.2_AdminGuide.pdf

 

It's for ARD Version 3.2 but don't worry as it will still be applicable for the version you have.

 

HTH?

 

Antonio Rocco (ACSA)

[morganw]

This should be possible by running a script with Apple Remote Desktop (or I think Apple Remote Desktop has a button labeled "Unix Command" that might just let you type commands in directly.

 

You probably want something like:

 

networksetup -setwebproxy "Built-in Ethernet" newproxy.domain.com 80

 

"Built-in Ethernet" is a network service which should apply to any wired connection

 

networksetup -listallnetworkservices

 

should list all network services, any other type of connection (like airport) will have a separate service that you need to specify the proxy details for as well.