Herta Nava - The macOS User Administration Guide: A practical guide to implementing, managing, and optimizing macOS Big Sur features and tools

Copyright 2021 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Group Product Manager: Ashwin Nair
Publishing Product Manager: Pavan Ramchandani
Senior Editor: Hayden Edwards
Content Development Editor: Aamir Ahmed
Technical Editor: Deepesh Patel
Copy Editor: Safis Editing
Project Coordinators: Kinjal Bari, Manthan Patel
Proofreader: Safis Editing
Indexer: Pratik Shirodkar
Production Designer: Alishon Mendonca

First published: April 2021

Production reference: 1220421

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham
B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-83864-365-2

www.packt.com

To my husband, Martin, and my children, Luis, Kenaya, Stephanie, and Angie, for their immense love and support and for understanding that good things never come easy in life. To my parents, Waldo and Karin, for loving us so much and working so hard for us all these years, even today . To my sisters, Karen and Raquel, and my brother, Nelson, for their love and friendship and for being an example of what it means to succeed. And to my Father in Heaven, to whom I owe absolutely everything.

Herta Nava is a technologies expert, with extensive experience in writing, reviewing, and localizing technical content. She's an Apple Certified Support Professional, with experience supporting corporate and personal clients with regard to Apple and other technologies. She has worked on producing courses for important online technical content providers, such as Pluralsight and O'Reilly Media.

Currently, Herta works as a third-party vendor in the localization of technical content, software, UI, and documentation for Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Office, Azure, Dell Technical Advisories (DTAs), and other similar content. She also produces and maintains a series of online video courses on macOS support for Pluralsight.

Alex Farnsworth is an Apple Certified Support Professional with over 7 years of experience managing Apple devices. He first found his passion for working with macOS/iOS devices while working at Apple in 2013. He has built upon that passion by helping businesses architect and build solutions that focus on user experience while ensuring that management is efficient and scalable.

Adam Tomczynski has over 20 years of technical experience and started his career in information technology as a computer support technician. His interest in computers began at a young age and continued through his high school and college years. In an educational setting, he has supported Novell and Microsoft servers, centralized storage, mail archiving and backup solutions, endpoint protection, and more. Adam is Apple ACTC, ACSP, ACMT, and ACiT certified. He is a continuous learner.

Currently, Adam is employed with a school district in a Chicago suburb managing the Apple platform for the organization.

macOS is the current generation of operating systems running on all Apple Mac computers. In this book, we will explore the capabilities and tools it offers for system administration and support tasks. Although many features of the Mac's interface are covered, this book is not intended to explain all the basic aspects of the hardware and user interface, but rather the areas pertinent for a user acting as an administrator.

This book will walk you through the world of macOS from a system administration and support point of view. You will be able to take advantage of the resources macOS offers for a large variety of common administration tasks. In addition, you will be empowered to configure key services and perform essential troubleshooting. More importantly, you will have a good understanding of the macOS environment and its tools for system administration tasks. For this reason, most of the examples provided will be from an administrator's perspective. However, when relevant, a standard user's perspective is also presented. The examples and illustrations we show in this book are from a Mac running macOS 11 (Big Sur), and sometimes, when necessary, we refer to other macOS versions, such as macOS 10.15 (Catalina).

On the other hand, we are all aware of the incredible pace at which technology is changing today. In particular, Apple is implementing improvements and new technologies at a rapid pace, and this includes its operating systems, such as macOS, the subject of this book, and its Mac models, with the introduction of the M1 silicon chip, which will introduce significant changes as its implementation across models advances. In that respect, we have done our best to make this book useful for all the most recent macOS versions, and we will do our best to update and review any topics that are improved or changed over time. However, bear in mind that sometimes it is not possible to do this as soon as changes or improvements are implemented.

We will start by understanding how macOS is different from other leading operating systems, as well as exploring its main and most recent features. Then, we will move on to installing and configuring macOS, including the use of the recovery system. Next, we will examine the start up process. After that, we will learn how to manage users, including important information on user security and privacy. Following that, we will describe the filesystem to understand the logic behind it, including managing disks, volumes, and partitions. Next, we will cover ownership and permissions in macOS and how to manage them. Then, we will jump into managing system resources, apps, and documents, including backups with Time Machine. In the final part of the book, we will touch on more advanced topics, such as network configuration, network services, and sharing services. There is also a chapter dedicated to the tools available for securing the system. And, finally, we will look at examples of how to use the command-line tool for administration tasks. An Appendix that includes troubleshooting steps designed to help you solve various potential issues and common scenarios is also included.