Using Mac OS X at NCSA

Introduction

This page is intended to help users get started using an Apple Mac running Mac OS X at NCSA. This page does not cover any version Mac OS prior to 10.3.9.

Software Updates

Apple regularly patches their software to address known security vulnerabilities. To make sure your Mac is updated with the latest patches and software, choose the "Software Update..." option from the Apple menu.

Email Settings

Many OS X users prefer to use a graphical email client like Mac Mail to read their email, rather than accessing their mail from a Unix prompt on one of the public servers.
Here are links to NCSA specific instructions for setting up common email clients for OS X:

Eudora
Mac Mail.app
Entourage

Printer Configuration

NCSA has several shared printers available throughout it's facilities for convenient access. These shared printers are accessible via print server queues:

NCSA Printer Queue Instructions

Kerberos

OS X comes with Kerberos built in to the base system. In order to use it with NCSA's Kereberos installation you will need to install a config file.
This installer package will automatically install the config file for you.
If you prefer to do things by hand, the standard config file is available here. Most likely you can use it unmodified. You can place it in /Library/Preferences/edu.mit.Kerberos or /etc/krb5.conf and it will effect all users of the machine. Alternatively (and not really recommended) is to place it in your personal Library directory (~/Library/Preferences/edu.mit.Kerberos).

There is a FAQ about Kerberos under OS X
MIT also provides extras for Kerberos. This includes support for Eudora and Fetch 4.0.3 and later versions (a ftp client that works with mss.ncsa.uiuc.edu)

AFS

Please install kerberos first. You will need to download and install the latest version of OpenAFS package from the OpenAFS site. After you have done that you need to install the NCSA specific configs.
This installer package will automatically install the config file for you.
If you prefer to do things by hand you can download this file and install it using the following command:
            sudo -C /var/db/openafs/etc -zxvf ncsa-afs-cfg.tar.gz
        
To get an AFS token, you must first obtain a kerberos ticket for a kerberos user, then use klog to get an AFS token for the user. You can do this by running the following two commands from the terminal:
           kinit -A [username]
           klog [username]
         
You can then run klist and tokens to view your kerberos tickets and AFS tokens, respectively.

Site Licensed Software

Several software packages are site licensed and available out in afs (/afs/ncsa/packages/MacOSX/). You will need authenticated afs access to read them. If you don't have access email afs@ncsa.uiuc.edu and we can add you to the access list.
A partial list of what is available:

Archive of Mac OS X Updates
Mac OS X Developer Tools
Microsoft Office 2008
Virtual PC 7.0.3
Eudora 6.2.4
Fetch 5.3
Adobe Reader 8.1.2
Meeting Maker Client
Virex 7.2

User Support Mailing List

NCSA operates a user support mailing list, macos-users@ncsa.uiuc.edu, for users to share Mac support issues with other Mac users. You can subscribe to this mailing list by sending an email to majordomo@ncsa.uiuc.edu with subscribe macos-users in the body of the email..
An online archive of this macos-users mailing list is available online and is useful for finding answers to common Mac problems.