Apple Configurator assistance - where to start?

We deploy iPads on a slow but regular basis to client's to use as home automation controllers in their homes. There are 1-4 apps needed so we lock everything else out, genreally without Guided Access. I have very specific thoughts on what I hope Apple Configurator can do for us but I have a lot of questions. Where's the best place to start?

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Mac Mini, Synology, Apple TV, iTunes - where to start

Hi Everyone,
I am new to the apple forum. To be honest I am new to the whole Apple thing, being a Windows bod I managed to resist the Apple gravy train for several years before giving in and falling inline.
Now I find myself with an iphone, ipod touch, ipad 2, mac mini and apple TV 4 although not all in use yet... This brings me to my question.
What is the best home setup for sharing?
let me set the scene.
3 years ago I modernised my house and put in cat5e structured cabling throughout, all back to a comm rack in the loft. at the time I set up a powerful quad core server. I used to run my own AD domain, Exchange server (don't ask). Now the server runs Windows 7 professional with 8 HDDs running raid 5 mainly running windows media centre and I was using my xbox 360s as extenders. The view was to use Xbox's around the house to access my media. Never quite got there and things have moved on again.
After running the big Windows beast 24x7 for about 18 months I wanted to scale down again, improve data resillience and provide a simple user interface for my other half.
So after doing some initial web trawling armed and dangerous with a very small amount of knowledge and realising that I already had an amount of Apple kit to contribute towards an iTunes based mulitroom solution. The red mist came down and with credit card in hand I did some retail therapy. Not the female handbag and shoes type but the proper male tech kind.
I already had
1 x ipod touch 64GB
1 x iphone 4 32GB
1 x ipad 2 64GB wifi
And to complement the set I now have;
1 x i5 2.7GHZ, 16GB RAM, 2TB HDD Mac mini (this is the latest version which I upgraded to 2 x 1TB internal drives)
1 x 4th gen apple TV
and non Apple kit
1 x Synology DS212+ with 8TB storage raid 0
1 x Onkyo TX-NR515 AV receiver
So now comes to the ask. How best to use all of this over my home wired network?
I'm thinking I will use iTunes, I want to have some form of data backup between the Synology and the Mac mini (I want to shut down my windows server)
I also want to be able to control it all from the ipad/ipod and push media (audio and video) around the house.
The mac mini is currently plugged into one of my TVs via the AV receiever and the thought was to use the apple TV in another room, and depending of how it goes buy another 1 or 2 for other rooms.
So I have all this kit and not sure where to start and I'm not a mac expert. I know I can't use the synology box on it's own as you need itunes for the apple TVs, I don't know whether to use the Synology or the local Mac storage for the primary itunes library and then to backup to the device is so how (time capsule thing).
I don't want itunes to organise my media as I don't like the way it shuffles files around, so thinking of keeping the media files in a folder structure I am familar with and pointing iTunes at that. I also have a large amount of video files that I will probably have to convert to be capatible with iTunes, but not sure of the best way to do this, if I need to at all.
Sorry for the long waffle. Would be interested in any views, suggestions, ideas or examples of your own set ups. In return, for what it is worth I will let you know how I get on.
many thanks for your input

Great thread all! I have been wrestling with this very topic for several months now. I've read every thread I could find on the topic, asked questions etc but still have not come to a final decision. But I am getting close ... I think.
First, a little background. I am starting from primarily pc household and converting to an all Apple infrastructure. From the Apple world, we already have 2 iPhones and 3 iPads. New iPhone 5 on order and ... today at last Apple has announced the new iMacs. Exactly what I have been waiting for and so my intent is to purchase one each of the smaller and larger as they come out next month and the month after. My router is beginning to show signs of age and so I would also like to move to an Airport Extreme. The PC hard drive housing my iTunes library is nearly full and so I need to move the library to a new location, preferable an external, networkable location and I've been looking at the Synology 1812 for this purpose. So, in the end I have or would like to soon have:
3 iPads
3 iPhones
2 iMacs
1 AppleTV 3 with a plan to one or two more. If they would only add the Amazon Prime app and RF remote capabilities it would be nearly perfect.
2 PS3s and 1 XBox360 but I much prefer the ATV interface for media. PS3 remains the place for the Amazon app because ATV doesn't provide.
1 Airport Extreme
House is already wired and homerunned with Cat-6
Plan to add Synology 1812 with 3 or 4 3TB drives to start and use the Synology Hybrid Raid
Open items or questions for me:
1. Will I have any issues if I purchase the Synology, move the iTunes library from my current PC to it and then remove the PC from the picture once I have an iMac in place? I understand that Apple does not utilize the same hard drive formatting structure as pc but I am not sure this would matter for an external device accessed over a network.
2. What am I going to serve with? I like iTunes and I am used to it. I would like something that works well with the ATV and it does that. Plex seems to have potential but would then make ATV useless unless hckd. All of my music is in iTunes now, including ripped, iTunes purchased and Amazon purchased. I have put many tv shows and some films into it as well, utilizing Handbrake to do so when needed.
3. Synology for storage, backup, redundancy etc but from where do I want to manage media / serve from? I realize I can do it from one or even both of the iMacs. I had been thinking that I wanted a low power, always on solution that would negate the need to have an IMac always on, something similar to the HP MediaSmart Server I've been using at home for a number of years, albeit clunkily. This is where I thought the Mac Mini might come in (once I learned that the Synology iTunes server was really not a true iTunes server). Low power, always on, can be running iTunes on it etc. But this thread and aschmid's comments have me rethinking this. Maybe I won't be shutting down my iMac all that much and maybe it isn't difficult to wake it so that it can address serving duties.
4. How would I address the storage of home videos vs films and tv shows? I don't want iTunes managing home videos ... do I? Still want them sitting on the Synology - right? Did you all create a separate folder on the Synology for home videos? I know there is a default videos folder. there. And are you serving via iPhoto, Aperture or something else?
5. How about photos? I would like my photo library housed on the Synology as well. Is that served via iPhoto or Aperture to the ATV? How are the mutiple entry points addressed? Everyone in the family is taking pictures, videos etc and all of iCloud turned on. How do I insure that a clean copy of every picture and video taken with any iPhone, iPad, digital camera, digital camcorder etc all ends up centrally located and accessible on the Synology without it becoming too manual a process?
Sorry about the long windedness of this. I got on a bit of a roll once I began typing. This has been on my mind for some time and I am happy to have come across this thread.

Linux silent install stops at Starting to execute configuration assistants

I am using putty to perform silent install of oracle db 10g on my remote server (redhat) through the command line:
./runInstaller -silent -responseFile /tmp/enterprise.rsp
it works fine till reaching > starting to execute configuration assistants, where i receive no further response or even any errors, it just hangs up saying this, here is a summary :
Installation in progress (Wed Oct 29 18:06:32 CST 2008)
............................................................... 11% Done.
............................................................... 23% Done.
............................................................... 35% Done.
............................................................... 47% Done.
........................................... 55% Done.
Install successful
Linking in progress (Wed Oct 29 18:08:54 CST 2008)
. 55% Done.
Link successful
Setup in progress (Wed Oct 29 18:10:07 CST 2008)
.................... 100% Done.
Setup successful
End of install phases.(Wed Oct 29 18:10:13 CST 2008)
Starting to execute configuration assistants
What should I do to overcome this and complete the installation successfully?

Hub wrote:
Hi
you are welcome, unfortunately you didn't mark this thread as a question so no stars for me .
Nervermind, herewith the feedback on your questions :
Should I make a dbca.rsp ? how would I pass it to my install command line?
In silent mode, DBCA uses values that you specify in the response file or as command-line options to create a database. DBCA does not display any screens or information while it creates the database. It logs all messages (including information, errors, and warnings) in a log file.
From the command line, enter the following command to see all of the DBCA options that are available when you use the silent mode:
$ @ora_root:[bin]dbca.com -help
Read more in that document : http://download.oracle.com/docs/html/B13681_01/a_nonint.htm#CIHDHHBE
I tried: ps -efd | grep -i run , alot of process appeared, how would I know if the installer is among them?
try to grep with a much longer name i.e :
ps -efd | grep -i runinstaller
What is fuser * in the log directory ? is this a file I should create or what?
No fuser is a unix/linux command that enable you to identify processes using a file or file structure. The fuser utility displays the process IDs of the processes that are using the files specified as arguments.
So if the runinstaller still active you will see i.e.
fuser silentInstall2008-08-08_10-50-48AM.log
silentInstall2008-08-08_10-50-48AM.log: 14506o
14506 is your process ID
Hope this helps you!
Thanks Hub,
It seems the installation still stuck at >>> Starting to execute configuration assistants
Here is what I am getting using fuser * in the /log dir:
installActions2008-10-30_10-27-52AM.log: 32275
oraInstall2008-10-30_10-27-52AM.err: 32275
oraInstall2008-10-30_10-27-52AM.out: 32275
But when run : ps -efd | grep -i runinstaller - it just gives me something like repeating my command:
root 3035 31653 0 10:36 pts/2 00:00:00 grep -i runinstaller >> does this mean that runInstaller isn't there anymore, though the fuser * is showing that the log files are still being used?
I'm not using dbca.rsp since I didn't choose Advanced configuration of database in my enterprise.rsp, and it is saying that using dbca.rsp is only incase I choose advanced configuration which is number =2 .
So what parameters should I pass to the runInstaller, am i still missing something that is keeping the installation stuck without giving any responses or errors ?
Edited by: user9940821 on Oct 30, 2008 8:48 AM

ONCE I CHAT WITH APPLE EXPERT TO RESOLVE MY PROBLEM BUT NOW I WAS UNABLE TO FIND FROM WHERE TO START CHAT. KINDLY TELL ME HOW I CAN CHAT WITH APPLE EXPERT

once i chat an apple expert to resolve my issue. but now i am unable to find the place on apple website from where i start chat.kindle tell me from where i can find that chat section..

This is one route. Apple - Support - Contact Apple Support But I am wondering if your previous chat was within the 90 days allowed in the guarantee period ... a different situation entirely to what you now want. Why not Google Kindle to see if your interests appear there.

Failure at step5 of clusterware configuration assistant

Hi all,
I'm about to install RAC 10g R2 on Win 2003. I've used iSCSI technique in order to share a storage. I've passed every sections but VIP at cluvfy. I can add my 2 nodes during installation process. But at Clusterware Configuration Assistant at "step5: Starting up CRS stack on all nodes" the process is failed with this message:
n1 service OracleCSService is in improper PENDING state, err(0)
n2 service OracleCSService is in improper PENDING state, err(997)
Please do let me know if anybody have solution for this.
Thanks,
Iman

Did you do the installation with terminal services?
before you run the clusterware installation have you done
c:\diskpart
automount enable
Cheers
http://fiedizheng.blogspot.com/

Oracle Configuration Assistant

Hello everybody,
i have an Oracle 9.2 installed on a couple of Win 2000. i'e installed the software downloaded from the otn site. the problem is Oracle Configuration Assistant doesn't start on both servers!
i need to remove a db instance completely (datafiles, control files and all the configuration files) how can i work it out?
thankx a lot,
matte

nope, one only Oracle home. i'm gonna use ORADIM and then remove db files manually, but i'm not sure this is enough to have a clean configuration at the end of the process.

Linux 9i2 Configuration assistants can't find jre

Installing database 9i2 on RedHat Linux 7.2.
Install succeeds. Post install Configuration Assistants failed to start because "jre not found in $ORACLE_HOME/oracle.swd.jre/bin/i386/native_threads/jre"
Why not? What to do now? I am 'dead in the water' until I can get some help.
Thanks.

Whoopee! I now have a clean install and a functioning Oracle 9i2 database installed on my RedHat Linux 7.1 system!!!
Thank you gentlemen ... thank you all who have provided guiding counsel.
Ultimately there were two "tricks" which allowed me to get the clean install. The first was to select the custom install and re-direct the installation directory for the jre1.3.1 to some other directory than the default. The default installation directory was the same directory into which the jre1.1.8 was installed. This solved the problem that the configuration assistants could not find the jre.
The second trick was to set the kernel parameter shmmax to 400000000 by (as root)
echo 400000000 > /proc/sys/kernel/shmmax
This solved the problem of the end-of-file on communication channel.
There was a similar suggestion to remove all the shared memory segments owned by oracle. That did not work for me. I tried them both; only the shmmax set was effective.
You all have been such a help to me that I feel I owe somebody something for your help. I will make it a point to keep checking this forum for the next month or so to see if I can offer some useful suggestions to some other poor soul who is trying so hard to get this Oracle beast i[i]Long postings are being truncated to ~1 kB at this time.

Transferring an Apple Configurator Profile

Hello, I am wondering if it is possible to transfer a Apple Configurator Profile from one iPad to another. For example, I have a wifi configuration file on one ipad, and need to get it to the other. Is there any way to transfer it without connecting it to the original apple configurator computer where the profile was made/put on the original device? Is it possible to use iTunes, iFunBox or my computers file explorer?
I am sorry if this is the wrong category. Moderator please put it in the right one if it is not. This is the most relevant category I could find.
Thank You
~Zach

Bump, I really need an answer.

Apple Configurator and Wifi

My school district recently purchased some iPads and I am in charge of getting them set up for student use. I am diving into Apple Configurator to get them started. I want them to connect to our enterprise wireless, which is Aruba Networks. We utilize the LDAP service on one of our Apple servers for clients to authenticate and use EAP-GTC protocol. I am able to, and always have been to, select the wireless network in system preferences, type in my credentials to authenticate, then am prompted to accept the certificate and wha la, I'm on, no problem.
I have made a profile with in Apple Configurator to configure the iPads to join the wireless using all the same credentials I use to manually set it up. I have also added the certificate for the network to the profile. After running the workflow in Apple Configurator, I check the iPad and it is not connected to the wireless, even though I do have "Auto Join" selected in the profile. However, if I go into system preferences and select the network, I am not prompted for my credentials but I am prompted to accept the certificate, then I am online.
Now one might think that is good enough and if I were distributing these to teachers I would probably tell them to do just that but with students, I don't want them messing around or even know that the system preferences app exists. So I guess my questions is, why do I still have to accept the certificate before it will join the network?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If others stumble on this keep in mind that wireless configurations vary greatly across organizations so guidance on proper configuration varies greatly across setups. The best thing to do is connect to your network with an unmanaged device, log every action from network name to security type to authentication certificates, etc. Every touch point is a setting in your MDM or Configurator you will need to set up.
Ensure you have reviewed the following resources on Configurator so you understand the concepts involved:
Apple Configurator Help
https://help.apple.com/configurator/mac
Apple IT Tutorials
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/it-tutorials/id640325301?mt=2
MacLearning iOS Deployment/Management/Configuration Webinars
https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/maclearning-video/id420558277?mt=10
iPad Management using Configurator
https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/ipad-management-using-apple/id567514148?mt= 10

Manually starting Database Configuration Assistant

I have installed Oracle 9i on Solaris 8 and it stopped with an "Out of Memory" error during the Starter Database creation. I think I have fixed the memory problem. Now I am trying to start the Database Configuration Assistant manually and I cannot find out how to do this so that I can continue on with the installation process from where I left off.
Do anyone know how to do this? I would appreciate any help that anyone can give.
Thanks
Anthony

Hi,
I get the following error when trying to run dbca or any other assistant. An suggestions? I use SuSE Linux 8 and Oracle 9i.
Thanks,
Ulf Moehring
SIGSEGV 11* segmentation violation
stackbase=BFFFEDEC, stackpointer=BFFFD1A4
Full thread dump:
"SIGQUIT handler" (TID:0x405b22a0, sys_thread_t:0x80e2f28, state:R, thread_t: t@2051, sp:0x0 threadID:0x16a6, stack_base:0xbf5ffaa0, stack_size:0x200000) prio=1075749760
"Finalizer thread" (TID:0x405b2088, sys_thread_t:0x80e2e00, state:CW, thread_t: t@1026, sp:0x0 threadID:0x16a5, stack_base:0xbf7ffaa0, stack_size:0x200000) prio=1075749760
"main" (TID:0x405b20b0, sys_thread_t:0x80c9908, state:R, thread_t: t@1024, sp:0x0 threadID:0x169a, stack_base:0xbfffedec, stack_size:0x200000) prio=1075749760 current thread
java.lang.System.initializeSystemClass(System.java)
Monitor Cache Dump:
Registered Monitor Dump:
Thread queue lock: <unowned>
Name and type hash table lock: <unowned>
String intern lock: <unowned>
JNI pinning lock: <unowned>h
JNI global reference lock: <unowned>
BinClass lock: <unowned>
Class loading lock: <unowned>
Java stack lock: <unowned>
Code rewrite lock: <unowned>
Heap lock: <unowned>
Has finalization queue lock: <unowned>
Finalize me queue lock: <unowned>
Waiting to be notified:
"Finalizer thread" (0x80e2e00)
Monitor registry: owner "main" (0x80c9908, 1 entry)
Aborted

Manually starting Intelligent Agent Configuration Assistant and HTTP Listener

I have installed Oracle 9i on Solaris 8 and it stopped with an "Out of Memory" error during the Starter Database creation. I have fixed the memory problem and have now manually started the Database Configuration Assistant manually and managed to install a new database. Now I am trying to start the Intelligent Agent Configuration Assistant and the Apache HTTP Listener, but I cannot find out how to do this so that I can continue on with and complete the installation process from where I left off.
Do anyone know how to do this? I would appreciate any help that anyone can give.
Thanks
Anthony

Lets start with what product you are installing and why. An Oracle database installation, in and of itself, does not install an HTTP server.
Of course one might also wonder why you are, just now, installing software so old it is in desupport.

How to start iSQL*Plus configuration Assistant on Command Line?

I have almost successfully installed oralce 10gR2 in opensolaris 5.11, In the final stage, Among the three Configuration Assistants:
the Net Configuration Assistant and Database Configuration Assistant have completed successfully, but OUI hang in the iSQL*Plus Configuration Assistant.
No response after a very long time.
Could anybody tell me how to manually start iSQL*Plus configuration Assistant on Command Line?
Thanks a lot !
Edited by: user11970554 on 2009-10-5 上午9:21

Thanks.
Anyhow, I found an easier way to do this:
1)Just run installer again to start the OUI:
#./runInstaller
2)Choose "Custom" installation option
3)check the box at "iSQL*Plus" for reinstall
4)The OUI will first deinstall iSQL*Plus, and then reinstall it, and will automatically start "iSQL*Plus configuration Assistant".
This procedure applies to any component of oracle which failed at first time installation.

Where does Apple Configurator store backups?

I'm trying to identify where Apple Configurator store the individual backups of iPads etc.
I've had a backup fail and I while I have deleted it from within AC I haven't gained any space back so would like to go and manually delete the backup.

How to import an iPad backup from one apple configurator to another
1) connect a properly set up iPad to its source computer, and create a new backup, even if you already have one.
2) open ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator/Data/Library/Application Support/com.apple.configurator/Resources
those are the backups that have been made. more may be listed here than in configurator. they are zip files of the backups
also found in mobilesync. there should be one just created now. that’s your backup. (the ones in mobilesync are not usable)
3) copy the newest one to removable storage and connect storage to the target computer
4) attach an iPad that goes with the target computer to the target computer and make a backup there also. name it as you want the backup you are importing.
5) open that same folder on target computer and locate newest backup.
6) copy file name, and rename the one on removable storage to that same name
7) drop (replace) file on target computer
8) select the backup you just created to be the restore image for that iPad
9) you will have to click Restore to save. it may not change anything on the iPad (do not be alarmed)
10) check configurator prefs and make sure ‘restore when attached” and “restore default data” are both checked
11) unplug and replug the iPad
it should definitely do a proper “Restoring Settings” now, and you will see the image has successfully been copied. It can now be
selected as the restore image for any additional iPads on the target computer.
For some reason, manually clicking Refresh at the bottom doesn’t usually work right after replacing an image.
YMMV if there is significant differences between the two computers doing the configurator management.
(this is in answer to the question I was trying to find an answer for earlier, found it myself, hope this helps other admins)
to free space, also look:
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.config urator (contains TWO hidden firmware folders)
~/Library/Containers/com.apple.configurator/Data/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup (MANY backups)

HT200238 Where can I get Apple Configurator 1.3?

Where can I get Apple Configurator 1.3

The font you want is Myriad
Peter
MacPro 3G 6G RAM FCP6 M3 FxF1.06 Mac OS X (10.4.9) XSR Decklink & loads of cool new plugins, Gaggia TD auto

HT200033 Where does Apple configurator 1.2.1 store copies of iOS files?

Just wondering where the default storage location is for iOS files downloaded via Apple Configurator 1.2.1.

Paul Bernicchi wrote:
Retrieving iOS Information from...
Waiting for iOS package
Decompressing iOS...
*crash*
I wanted to clarify a point or two but missed the 15-min cutoff. The above statuses were displayed on the Supervise screen under the connected device for about 1 sec each with the exception of the "Decompressing iOS..." which was up for about 7-10 seconds before crashing. Thinking it was pointing to a corrupt or missing .ipsw, I redownloaded the iOS software update from iTunes and even tried pointing to it on the "Prepare" screen.
Thanks.

Apple Configurator assistance - where to start?

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