How to Determine if a Mac Is Using FileVault from the Command Line osxdailynews.blogspot.com

osxdailynews.blogspot.com ® How to Determine if a Mac Is Using FileVault from the Command Line

FileVault is a security feature that offers full disk encryption for Macs. Identifying Macs that are using FileVault is fairly easy in person for machines that have a logged in user account, all you have to do is check System Preferences to see if has been enabled or not. But what if you the Mac is either not logged into a user account, or what if you need to identify Filevault usage remotely? Both of these situations can call for using the command line to figure out the status of disk encryption.

From the command line (either remotely, or locally) enter the following command string:

sudo fdesetup status

There are only two possible responses to that command query, and the results are impossible to misidentify because you’ll either see:

FileVault is On.

Indicating FileVault encryption is enabled on that specific Mac, or you’ll see:

FileVault is Off.

Which of course tells you the Mac is not using the full disk encryption.

This command line trick can be helpful when trying to identify a Mac using FileVault encryption when logged in remotely through SSH, Screen Sharing with VNC, or when booting into the command line through Single User Mode. A quick note about the latter situation; modern Macs with FileVault enabled will not allow a user to enter into Single User Mode without entering an administrator password beforehand, thus if the login screen pops up much earlier in the OS X boot process then you can also determine that the Mac has FileVault turned on.

Now that a Mac has been determined to be using Filevault or not, the next obvious question would be whether or not you can turn on FileVault through the command line as well. The answer to that is yes, and you’d need to be using the same fdesetup command. We’ll cover that more thoroughly in another article, but for those interested now you can turn to the fdesetup man page for more immediate information.

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How to Determine if a Mac Is Using FileVault from the Command Line osxdailynews.blogspot.com

osxdailynews.blogspot.com ® How to Determine if a Mac Is Using FileVault from the Command Line

FileVault is a security feature that offers full disk encryption for Macs. Identifying Macs that are using FileVault is fairly easy in person for machines that have a logged in user account, all you have to do is check System Preferences to see if has been enabled or not. But what if you the Mac is either not logged into a user account, or what if you need to identify Filevault usage remotely? Both of these situations can call for using the command line to figure out the status of disk encryption.

From the command line (either remotely, or locally) enter the following command string:

sudo fdesetup status

There are only two possible responses to that command query, and the results are impossible to misidentify because you’ll either see:

FileVault is On.

Indicating FileVault encryption is enabled on that specific Mac, or you’ll see:

FileVault is Off.

Which of course tells you the Mac is not using the full disk encryption.

This command line trick can be helpful when trying to identify a Mac using FileVault encryption when logged in remotely through SSH, Screen Sharing with VNC, or when booting into the command line through Single User Mode. A quick note about the latter situation; modern Macs with FileVault enabled will not allow a user to enter into Single User Mode without entering an administrator password beforehand, thus if the login screen pops up much earlier in the OS X boot process then you can also determine that the Mac has FileVault turned on.

Now that a Mac has been determined to be using Filevault or not, the next obvious question would be whether or not you can turn on FileVault through the command line as well. The answer to that is yes, and you’d need to be using the same fdesetup command. We’ll cover that more thoroughly in another article, but for those interested now you can turn to the fdesetup man page for more immediate information.

Email this How to Determine if a Mac Is Using FileVault from the Command Line to a Friend! Receive Articles like this one direct to your email box! Subscribe for free today!

Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks osxdailynews.blogspot.com

osxdailynews.blogspot.com ® Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks

A fair amount of Mac users running OS X Mavericks have discovered a peculiar slow speed issue when attempting to use various actions found in the File menu, including the Open, Save, and Export dialog boxes. The problem manifests as an intensely slow lag when trying to use the Open or Save dialog windows, where the spinning beachball shows up, spins aimlessly for 3-15 seconds, followed by a lengthy slow delay before any files or folders populate the file action windows and allow a user to proceed.

This behavior is almost certainly a bug and not all users of OS X Mavericks encounter the problem, thus if you have not experienced this issue there is no reason to make any changes. That said, plenty of commenters in our Mavericks Finder speed fix article also have the slow dialog box problem, and thankfully a workaround solution has been found on Apple Support Forums (thanks Droo!) that may work for some other users encountering the issue.

Note this solution is a workaround, not a proper fix. The slow Open/Save issue seems to pertain to accessing network drives, and this workaround prevents network shares from automatically mounting. Accordingly, this will not be a valid option for users who map network drives for auto mounting, or for users who rely on automating network shares in any way. You must edit a system file using the command line, if you are not comfortable with Terminal then waiting for an official bug fix is probably a better idea.

Launch Terminal and enter the following command:

sudo nano /etc/auto_master

Enter an admin password when requested, then find the line that says “/net -hosts ….” looking something like this:

/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid

Use the arrow keys to navigate to the front of that string, and then place a # (pound sign) in front of the / to signify that it has been commented out, it should now look something like this:

#/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid

The modified /etc/auto_master file should now look like this, the #/net has been highlighted:

Now hit Control+O to save the file, then Control+X to exit out of the nano text editor and return back to the command line.

Now you must flush the automount cache, so type the following command string:

sudo automount -vc

Now you should be good to go, so exit out of Terminal and try to access any Open, Save, or Export dialog box window again. The slowness should be gone completely, and you’ll be back to speedy file interactions through the dialog windows as expected.

This bug has been encountered and reported enough that we can assume a solution from Apple is likely to be due in a future OS X Mavericks update, be it 10.9.1 or otherwise. If you do use this automount workaround, remember to remove the # from the /net entry in auto_mount if and when an official bug fix arrives from Apple.

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Mac Setups: The Desk of a Cyber Security Professional osxdailynews.blogspot.com

osxdailynews.blogspot.com ® Mac Setups: The Desk of a Cyber Security Professional

This weeks featured Mac setup is the amazing office configuration of a cybersecurity professional. As you’ll see it’s an absolute whopper full of awesome hardware, with plenty of Macs, iOS devices, and PC’s too. Due to the sensitive nature of their work they have requested their name be withheld, so instead we’ll refer to the owner of this awesome Mac setup by their alias, “EnigmaFX”. Don’t miss the productivity app recommendations for iOS and OS X, and the great SFTP trick too…

What hardware does your current Mac setup consist of?

Focusing primarily on the Mac side of things, the hardware includes:

27″ iMac (2012)

• 3.4GHz Core i7 CPU


• 32GB RAM


• Custom install twin 1TB Crucial m500 SSD’s running raid 0 (VERY FAST)


• Two Apple 27″ Thunderbolt Cinema Displays

15″ Retina MacBook Pro (2013)

• 2.6GHz Core i7 CPU


• 16GB RAM


• 1TB PCIe-Based Flash Storage

13″ MacBook Air (2013)

• 1.7GHz Dual-Core Core i7


• 8GB RAM


• 512GB Flash Storage

17″ MacBook Pro (2011)

• 2.8GHz Core i7 CPU


• 16GB RAM


• 480GB Crucial M500 SSD

You’ll also find a variety of iOS devices around including several iPhone and iPads, and there is a lot of PC hardware mixed throughout the office, including a full fledged server setup too.

(click this last image for full size version)

What do you use this great Apple gear for?

My primary focus is cyber security, but I am a jack of many trades. That includes cryptanalytics, security administration, analysis, architecture, development, and deployment. Due to the nature of my profession I can’t go into too much detail about commitments, but what I do helps to make the internet a safer place. My Apple gear is essential to almost every aspect of my day to day workflow, it really is the backbone of my infrastructure and workflow, both professionally and personally.

What apps could you not do without for Mac OS X and for iOS?

It’s hard to discern what apps I use the most as it depends on what I am working on. If I had to narrow it down to a few “productivity” apps that I use every day and could not live without though, here they are:

Productivity apps for Mac:

Productivity apps for iOS:

Do you have any Apple tips or productivity tricks you want to share?

I could write you a book! But I will focus on one thing that I know every single OS X and iOS user has a gripe with; getting data from one device to another! Sure, we have everything from DropBox to AirDrop, but one of the most overlooked and underrated features of OS X is that every single Mac has a built in SFTP/FTP server which can be enabled with a single click.

This brings me back to one of my favorite apps for iOS that I mentioned earlier, FTPonTheGo Pro (though technically any FTP client will do). Once you have your Mac setup as an FTP server, you now have unfettered access to EVERY single file, picture, movie, and document on the Mac from anywhere – but it gets better, because you now also have the ability to transfer data from your iPhone/iPad directly to any folder on your Mac, from anywhere.

To give an example that is outside of the obvious of moving pictures and data between iOS and OS X, you can create AppleScripts and Folder Actions to automate almost anything in OS X. For instance, let’s take iPhoto; you can create a new folder action (with Automator) to import all photos uploaded to to a specific folder directly into iPhoto – no more having to manually sync a device or open iPhoto to import your pictures, instead you can update your photo library from anywhere in the world with direct SFTP uploads and folder actions.

The SFTP ability comes built into OS X is probably the most overlooked and underrated feature of OS X, but having a fully accessible SFTP server is invaluable, especially in a day and age where everyone is chasing the “cloud”. We seem to have forgotten that some of the most secure and best solutions are right there under our noses, available at no extra cost. With a little creativity, you can use your data the way you want while keeping it entirely under your control.

-

Do you have a great Apple setup or Mac desk you want to share? Answer a couple of questions about your Apple gear, take a few good pictures, and send it to us! We can’t post everything submitted, but we’ll pick one of the best to share every weekend. Looking for some desk and setup inspiration? You can browse through some of our past sweet Apple setups posts here.

Email this Mac Setups: The Desk of a Cyber Security Professional to a Friend! Receive Articles like this one direct to your email box! Subscribe for free today!

Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks osxdailynews.blogspot.com

osxdailynews.blogspot.com ® Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks

A fair amount of Mac users running OS X Mavericks have discovered a peculiar slow speed issue when attempting to use various actions found in the File menu, including the Open, Save, and Export dialog boxes. The problem manifests as an intensely slow lag when trying to use the Open or Save dialog windows, where the spinning beachball shows up, spins aimlessly for 3-15 seconds, followed by a lengthy slow delay before any files or folders populate the file action windows and allow a user to proceed.

This behavior is almost certainly a bug and not all users of OS X Mavericks encounter the problem, thus if you have not experienced this issue there is no reason to make any changes. That said, plenty of commenters in our Mavericks Finder speed fix article also have the slow dialog box problem, and thankfully a workaround solution has been found on Apple Support Forums (thanks Droo!) that may work for some other users encountering the issue.

Note this solution is a workaround, not a proper fix. The slow Open/Save issue seems to pertain to accessing network drives, and this workaround prevents network shares from automatically mounting. Accordingly, this will not be a valid option for users who map network drives for auto mounting, or for users who rely on automating network shares in any way. You must edit a system file using the command line, if you are not comfortable with Terminal then waiting for an official bug fix is probably a better idea.

Launch Terminal and enter the following command:

sudo nano /etc/auto_master

Enter an admin password when requested, then find the line that says “/net -hosts ….” looking something like this:

/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid

Use the arrow keys to navigate to the front of that string, and then place a # (pound sign) in front of the / to signify that it has been commented out, it should now look something like this:

#/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid

The modified /etc/auto_master file should now look like this, the #/net has been highlighted:

Now hit Control+O to save the file, then Control+X to exit out of the nano text editor and return back to the command line.

Now you must flush the automount cache, so type the following command string:

sudo automount -vc

Now you should be good to go, so exit out of Terminal and try to access any Open, Save, or Export dialog box window again. The slowness should be gone completely, and you’ll be back to speedy file interactions through the dialog windows as expected.

This bug has been encountered and reported enough that we can assume a solution from Apple is likely to be due in a future OS X Mavericks update, be it 10.9.1 or otherwise. If you do use this automount workaround, remember to remove the # from the /net entry in auto_mount if and when an official bug fix arrives from Apple.

Email this Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks to a Friend! Receive Articles like this one direct to your email box! Subscribe for free today!

Mac Setups: The Desk of a Cyber Security Professional osxdailynews.blogspot.com

osxdailynews.blogspot.com ® Mac Setups: The Desk of a Cyber Security Professional

This weeks featured Mac setup is the amazing office configuration of a cybersecurity professional. As you’ll see it’s an absolute whopper full of awesome hardware, with plenty of Macs, iOS devices, and PC’s too. Due to the sensitive nature of their work they have requested their name be withheld, so instead we’ll refer to the owner of this awesome Mac setup by their alias, “EnigmaFX”. Don’t miss the productivity app recommendations for iOS and OS X, and the great SFTP trick too…

What hardware does your current Mac setup consist of?

Focusing primarily on the Mac side of things, the hardware includes:

27″ iMac (2012)

• 3.4GHz Core i7 CPU


• 32GB RAM


• Custom install twin 1TB Crucial m500 SSD’s running raid 0 (VERY FAST)


• Two Apple 27″ Thunderbolt Cinema Displays

15″ Retina MacBook Pro (2013)

• 2.6GHz Core i7 CPU


• 16GB RAM


• 1TB PCIe-Based Flash Storage

13″ MacBook Air (2013)

• 1.7GHz Dual-Core Core i7


• 8GB RAM


• 512GB Flash Storage

17″ MacBook Pro (2011)

• 2.8GHz Core i7 CPU


• 16GB RAM


• 480GB Crucial M500 SSD

You’ll also find a variety of iOS devices around including several iPhone and iPads, and there is a lot of PC hardware mixed throughout the office, including a full fledged server setup too.

(click this last image for full size version)

What do you use this great Apple gear for?

My primary focus is cyber security, but I am a jack of many trades. That includes cryptanalytics, security administration, analysis, architecture, development, and deployment. Due to the nature of my profession I can’t go into too much detail about commitments, but what I do helps to make the internet a safer place. My Apple gear is essential to almost every aspect of my day to day workflow, it really is the backbone of my infrastructure and workflow, both professionally and personally.

What apps could you not do without for Mac OS X and for iOS?

It’s hard to discern what apps I use the most as it depends on what I am working on. If I had to narrow it down to a few “productivity” apps that I use every day and could not live without though, here they are:

Productivity apps for Mac:

Productivity apps for iOS:

Do you have any Apple tips or productivity tricks you want to share?

I could write you a book! But I will focus on one thing that I know every single OS X and iOS user has a gripe with; getting data from one device to another! Sure, we have everything from DropBox to AirDrop, but one of the most overlooked and underrated features of OS X is that every single Mac has a built in SFTP/FTP server which can be enabled with a single click.

This brings me back to one of my favorite apps for iOS that I mentioned earlier, FTPonTheGo Pro (though technically any FTP client will do). Once you have your Mac setup as an FTP server, you now have unfettered access to EVERY single file, picture, movie, and document on the Mac from anywhere – but it gets better, because you now also have the ability to transfer data from your iPhone/iPad directly to any folder on your Mac, from anywhere.

To give an example that is outside of the obvious of moving pictures and data between iOS and OS X, you can create AppleScripts and Folder Actions to automate almost anything in OS X. For instance, let’s take iPhoto; you can create a new folder action (with Automator) to import all photos uploaded to to a specific folder directly into iPhoto – no more having to manually sync a device or open iPhoto to import your pictures, instead you can update your photo library from anywhere in the world with direct SFTP uploads and folder actions.

The SFTP ability comes built into OS X is probably the most overlooked and underrated feature of OS X, but having a fully accessible SFTP server is invaluable, especially in a day and age where everyone is chasing the “cloud”. We seem to have forgotten that some of the most secure and best solutions are right there under our noses, available at no extra cost. With a little creativity, you can use your data the way you want while keeping it entirely under your control.

-

Do you have a great Apple setup or Mac desk you want to share? Answer a couple of questions about your Apple gear, take a few good pictures, and send it to us! We can’t post everything submitted, but we’ll pick one of the best to share every weekend. Looking for some desk and setup inspiration? You can browse through some of our past sweet Apple setups posts here.

Email this Mac Setups: The Desk of a Cyber Security Professional to a Friend! Receive Articles like this one direct to your email box! Subscribe for free today!

Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks osxdailynews.blogspot.com

osxdailynews.blogspot.com ® Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks

A fair amount of Mac users running OS X Mavericks have discovered a peculiar slow speed issue when attempting to use various actions found in the File menu, including the Open, Save, and Export dialog boxes. The problem manifests as an intensely slow lag when trying to use the Open or Save dialog windows, where the spinning beachball shows up, spins aimlessly for 3-15 seconds, followed by a lengthy slow delay before any files or folders populate the file action windows and allow a user to proceed.

This behavior is almost certainly a bug and not all users of OS X Mavericks encounter the problem, thus if you have not experienced this issue there is no reason to make any changes. That said, plenty of commenters in our Mavericks Finder speed fix article also have the slow dialog box problem, and thankfully a workaround solution has been found on Apple Support Forums (thanks Droo!) that may work for some other users encountering the issue.

Note this solution is a workaround, not a proper fix. The slow Open/Save issue seems to pertain to accessing network drives, and this workaround prevents network shares from automatically mounting. Accordingly, this will not be a valid option for users who map network drives for auto mounting, or for users who rely on automating network shares in any way. You must edit a system file using the command line, if you are not comfortable with Terminal then waiting for an official bug fix is probably a better idea.

Launch Terminal and enter the following command:

sudo nano /etc/auto_master

Enter an admin password when requested, then find the line that says “/net -hosts ….” looking something like this:

/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid

Use the arrow keys to navigate to the front of that string, and then place a # (pound sign) in front of the / to signify that it has been commented out, it should now look something like this:

#/net -hosts -nobrowse,hidefromfinder,nosuid

The modified /etc/auto_master file should now look like this, the #/net has been highlighted:

Now hit Control+O to save the file, then Control+X to exit out of the nano text editor and return back to the command line.

Now you must flush the automount cache, so type the following command string:

sudo automount -vc

Now you should be good to go, so exit out of Terminal and try to access any Open, Save, or Export dialog box window again. The slowness should be gone completely, and you’ll be back to speedy file interactions through the dialog windows as expected.

This bug has been encountered and reported enough that we can assume a solution from Apple is likely to be due in a future OS X Mavericks update, be it 10.9.1 or otherwise. If you do use this automount workaround, remember to remove the # from the /net entry in auto_mount if and when an official bug fix arrives from Apple.

Email this Workaround for the Slow Open / Save Dialog Box Problem in OS X Mavericks to a Friend! Receive Articles like this one direct to your email box! Subscribe for free today!