How to do macOS updates?

[csogilvie]

I'm rather new to my mac as I've only had it for about a week, but where does one find all of the update things that have been mentioned over and over again?

Rebuild desktop?
Crons ?

I found the permissions, but I don't know where to find the other two.

Cheers.

 

[WilliS]

while your at it, what does crons mean

go to terminal and type--> sudo sh /etc/daily

i believe

whiteshark puts it in basically every post he makes...he will explain it i guess

_________________________________________________
Last login: Mon Mar 29 16:52:32 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
[William-Larrisons-Computer:~] williaml% sudo sh /etc/daily
Password:

Removing scratch and junk files:

Backing up NetInfo data

Checking subsystem status:

disks:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk0s9 156277884 21841820 134180064 14% /
/dev/disk1s3 9731952 301860 9430092 3% /Volumes/Larrison’s iPod

Last dump(s) done (Dump '>' file systems):

mail:
postqueue: warning: Mail system is down -- accessing queue directly
Mail queue is empty

network:
Name Mtu Network Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Coll
lo0 16384 <Link#1> 101076 0 101076 0 0
lo0 16384 localhost ::1 101076 - 101076 - -
lo0 16384 fe80:1::1 fe80:1::1 101076 - 101076 - -
lo0 16384 127 localhost 101076 - 101076 - -
gif0* 1280 <Link#2> 0 0 0 0 0
stf0* 1280 <Link#3> 0 0 0 0 0
en0* 1500 <Link#4> 00:0a:95:98:17:b8 0 0 0 0 0
en1 1500 <Link#5> 00:03:93:ef:b9:6f 362607 0 269275 0 0
en1 1500 10.0.1/24 10.0.1.2 362607 - 269275 - -
fw0* 4078 <Link#6> 00:0a:95:ff:fe:98:17:b8 0 0 0 0 0

ruptime: no hosts in /var/rwho.

Rotating log files: system.log

Cleaning web server log filesWilliam-Larrisons-Computer:~] williaml%


_____________________________________________


whatever that means

 

[trpnmonkey41]

its pretty sad but i have been a switcher since july and was appointed a moderator last month here but don't know how to do either. I hadn't seen them mentioned at all until a member (name slips my mind) started mentioning them a lot

 

[witeshark]

cron tasks Finder, Applications. Utilities Terminal type (switching to root - superuser) sudo sh /etc/daily > this needs to be done /weekly (instead of dailly) and monthly. again with all apps closed. Cron is a quick acronym for chronology cause they need to be done at certain times. What they are is the rotation of system logs of all sorts that accumulate as we use the systems.

 

[Murlyn]

Ok cron is short for chronology, it's basically a *nix program that executes commands at certain times in the day. It's command line based, but you can find programs on http://www.macupdate.com that will give you a gui for it.

Rebuild desktop.. not sure how to do that on OS X, but I would download Onyx for all your system cleaning needs.. you can also find onyx at macupdate.com

 

[WilliS]

what i really want to know is... why would i have to do this?

ive owned a mac for 3 years...never did any upkeep on it...and have never seen any loss in ability....

when i used a pc, it was like clockwork.. i would format before a big LAN party, so my machine would be running at "brand new", "non cluttered" speed....

it was annoying... but it was almost needed every time....

ive never had this issue with my macs... so i dont bother... its user friendly right? so it should be a plug it in, and play all day type of machine....which, from my experience, has been exactly that...

ive heard of repairing permissions yes...which i agree could be useful i guess...although ive never had to do it for any specific reason....

but ive never heard of crons, or desktop rebuild whatever

 

[rman]

What witeshark is talking is the unix system clean shell scripts. These are little programs that are run automatically in the early hours of the morning if your system is up and running. There a task that run daily, one that runs weekly and one thaqt runs monthly. Basically these scripts roll over the various log files that a unix system generates. This done so that the log file don't get out of control in size. The are routines like Mac Janitor and Cocktail that can do the job also. You can find these routine on Mac Update and Version Tracker.

 

[Murlyn]

Yep exactly. Plus cron files are great for things like.. well Im a PHP programmer.. so I have certain scripts that I wrote that I like to have execute at certain times of the day.. and then say email me with the results or do something special to my system, etc etc

 

[rman]

A good example of a cron job would be: Murlyn has his web site backed every night at 9:00 PM (21:00). He could have a program execute his back up script, upon completion the script could page me, that the back up is done or an error.

 

[witeshark]

Right! And repair permissions is important to, especially after any software updates and about every 2 weeks. Finder, Applications. Utilities, Disk Utility. After the message -getting disk information- select volume (below the hard drive name -upper left corner.) Just highlight it. Now look to the lower two things are there near the middle, varify permissions, repair permissions. Click repair permissions.

 

[s_ton]

Hey, I'm new at this. Do you guys also run the weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts? 'sudo sh /etc/weekly' and 'sudo sh /etc/montly'?

 

[MoltenLava]

There is no need to invoke sh. sudo /etc/daily, sudo /etc/weekly, sudo /etc/monthly.

 

[Absolute Zero]

I was thinking... witesharck should put all that in his sig so he doesn't have to repeat over and over...

 

[schweb]

I use MacJanitor to run the crons....easy and free program you can get from MacUpdate.com. If you leave your machine on overnight, it will run them automatically.

 

[CaptainMack]

whiteshark, has that been on your clipboard for the past year?!?

 

[zoso1951]

Crons dwn load

Ok cron is short for chronology, it's basically a *nix program that executes commands at certain times in the day. It's command line based, but you can find programs on http://www.macupdate.com that will give you a gui for it.
Murlyn,
Thanks man, I'll def. use that web site after I get online w/ the iBook Saturday. Still want to learn more about Unix and have ordered an O'reilly
"Learning Unix for Panther OS X" or something like that, also want to get Linux
up and running on this 3 yr old dell. and,,,after that get into some web design.
Gonna be an expensive hobby or investment in job market.
thanks again!
zoso1951
Rebuild desktop.. not sure how to do that on OS X, but I would download Onyx for all your system cleaning needs.. you can also find onyx at macupdate.com

Murlyn,
Thanks man, I'll def. use that web site after I get online w/ the iBook Saturday. Still want to learn more about Unix and have ordered an O'reilly
"Learning Unix for Panther OS X" or something like that, also want to get Linux
up and running on this 3 yr old dell. and,,,after that get into some web design.
Gonna be an expensive hobby or investment in job market.
thanks again!
zoso1951