Category Archives: Tips & Tricks

Reset user password on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

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OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion allows for easy password recovery via the Recovery HD partition installed on any 10.8 system. Here is how to reset your password:

1. Boot into the Recovery HD partition by holding Command-R during boot and before the Apple logo appears.
2. After the Recovery boot is complete, Choose Terminal from the Utilities menu.
3. Type “resetpassword” at the Terminal prompt and press return.
4. Choose your system disk (f.e. “Macintosh HD”) and the user account to reset the password for.
5. Enter the new password and hit the Save button.
6. Restart.

Easy and fast update ESXi 5.0 to 5.1

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This is the fastest method of updating ESXi 5.0 to 5.1 without using vSphere Update Manager.

Note that the commands below work for vanilla ESXi 5.0 installation, if you have added any custom drivers, DO NOT continue or risk losing connectivity to your ESXi server.

1. Enter Maintenance mode.

2. SSH into ESXi host server.

3. Allow HTTP downloads in Firewall rules:

esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

4. View available profiles:

esxcli software sources profile list -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml

5. Choose the latest standard Image Profile version available, f.e.:

esxcli software profile install -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml -p ESXi-5.1.0-20121201001s-standard --ok-to-remove

6. After the update successfully completes, reboot the ESXi host server.

Clear DNS cache on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

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Historically, the Directory Services were responsible for DNS queries and caching on Mac OS X 10.5 and earlier. Back then, to clear the DNS cache one would issue the “dscacheutil -flushcache” command. With the further development of various services based on the multicast DNS a mDNS service fully took over both unicast and multicast DNS queries and response caching on later OS X versions.

While the “dscacheutil” is still there even on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, it won’t reset the caches properly. The correct method to clear DNS cache on 10.7 and 10.8 is to restart the mDNS service, “mDNSResponder”:

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

If this doesn’t seem to help, try reloading the service:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist
sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist

Moving Apple Mail settings from computer to computer on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion

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The location has changed since Mountain Lion is out, now the Apple Mail settings reside in:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Mail.plist

The Mail messages, rules and Notes are still in the old location:

~/Library/Mail

Just copy the contents to your new computer, and you are done!