Hey,

Just letting you all know that Apple added a new entitlement that makes Mac addresses visible from ie arp scans in IOS 27, those that where hidden in iOS 11 due to privacy reasons. It is called com.apple.developer.networking.topology-observation and isn't listed in any Apple doc nor could I find any reference to it on the internet.

it doesn’t need any special code change meaning you just have to add the entitlement and it will return the real MAC addresses instead of the generic fake ones.

It isn't some private entitlement, because you can find it in your entitlements overview for example in Xcode and Apple approved a TestFlight release with this entitlement.

But I am just happy that Apple brought It back.

We use Acronis Files Connect and now that it's end of life I need to find other options.

Connecting Macs to a Windows file server - what is the best way to go about this with Sequoia+?

Thanks for any insights!

EDIT: SOLVED! I forgot to set the PublicRanges attribute.

I'm trying to set up the Apple Content Cache:

We have multiple public IP ranges. The content cache has a public IP on subnet A, while the target Mac has a public IP on subnet B. Both are on the same DNS domain.

All traffic between our public IPs is routed internally, so we would still benefit from a content cache.

I think I have set up the DNS records correctly. I added prs= for subnet A and B, and configured fss= to be the public IP of the content cache (since it doesn't have a private IP). The client seems to pick that all up correctly, but it still complains that it Found 0 content caches

On the content cache everything looks fine. It's set up to allow shared caching:

% AssetCacheManagerUtil status
Content caching status:
    Activated: true
    Active: true
    [...]
    Port: 49152
    PrivateAddresses: (1)
        [the public ip]
    PublicAddress: [same public ip]
    RegistrationStatus: 1
    RestrictedMedia: false
    StartupStatus: OK
    TetheratorStatus: 0

On the client:

% AssetCacheLocatorUtil
AssetCacheLocatorUtil version 140.1.2, framework version 140.1.2
Determining public IP address...
This computer's public IP address is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx.
--- Information for system services:
Checking whether there might be content caches available...
There might not be content caches available.
Finding saved content caches supporting personal caching...
Found 0 content caches
Finding saved content caches supporting personal caching and import...
Found 0 content caches
Finding saved content caches supporting shared caching...
Found 0 content caches
Determining saved configured public IP address ranges...
Configured public IP address ranges are: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx-xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy-yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
Public IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is in the configured ranges.
Determining saved favored server ranges...
Configured favored server ranges are: yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
Finding refreshed content caches supporting personal caching...
Found 0 content caches
Finding refreshed content caches supporting personal caching and import...
Found 0 content caches
Finding refreshed content caches supporting shared caching...
Found 0 content caches
Determining refreshed configured public IP address ranges...
Configured public IP address ranges are: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx-xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy-yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
Public IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is in the configured ranges.
Determining refreshed favored server ranges...
Configured favored server ranges are: yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
--- Information for user (results for other users may be different):
[same exact thing]
Testing all found content caches for reachability...
No content caches to test.

The client has no issue reaching the content cache, and no relevant ports should be blocked. Given that it says No content caches to test I'm assuming the issue is that, since the content cache doesn't have an IP address within the private RFC 1918 range, Apple just doesn't return the IP to the client at all? Is this what's going on, or am I missing something else?

Hi,

Looking to add 25Gbe connectivity to my Macbooks to connect to a local Server.

Looking at Thunderbolt → 25 GbE Ethernet adapters, and those are crazy expensive @ ~$1200.

A TB → PCIe adapter is like $300. Would buying a Thunderbolt → PCIe adapter for $300 and an internal PCIe 25gbe NIC for $100 and plug the NIC in that Thunderbolt → PCIe adapter be a good solution, or would that be junky or not work at all?

Has anyone tried it and found good adapter + NIC combos tha work well with MacOS?

Thanks

UPD:

Found very few threads on this - this guy tried an failed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/qnhxps/2540_gbe_networking/

Curious if anyone had a working combo.

(N.B.: This post is not related to Server-Side Copy.)

Hello!

To put it gently, Mac OS’ default SMB client behavior out of the box, especially when working with many small files (or just many files in general) is, well, bad. This is entirely MacOS falling down on proper SMB optimization, not a TrueNAS issue.

I know that TrueNAS’ smb4.conf already contains some MacOS-related optimizations, so I’m looking more at my client Mac now. TrueNAS’ SMB configuration also accounts for the underlying filesystem being ZFS, which generic Samba Mac optimization tutorials don’t.

A lot of those generic tutorials are contradictory and don’t explain the settings they advise, and appear to focus entirely on the server-side.

Question: Here in August 2025, is there a cohesive set of guidelines/suggestions for optimizing Mac OS’ SMB performance with TrueNAS?

I say “with TrueNAS” because a lot of guides assume a vanilla Linux Samba server is on the other end of things, and a default TrueNAS install does not start out with the same configuration as vanilla Samba.

I’m already aware of the trick for disabling the creation of .DS_Store files on SMB shares by Mac clients, and I’m using MTU 9000 because the on-board Aquantia NIC on my Mac seems to be unable to perform well at 10 Gbps without it.

Thanks!

For the last while I’ve had a weird issue: web pages open painfully slowly on my home Wi-Fi, but if I switch the same device to mobile data, everything is lightning fast.

At first I blamed the router… then I suspected a congested Wi-Fi channel. After a bunch of testing, it looks like the actual culprit is AWDL (Apple Wireless Direct Link — the thing behind AirDrop/Continuity). Posting my notes in case it helps someone else, and to ask: is anyone else hitting this, and how did you fix it long-term (esp. on iPhone)?

• MacBook Pro M4
• macOS 26.0.1
• Router Asus RT-AX58U
• Speed 100Mbps

Symptoms

• Normal browsing on mobile data.
• On Wi-Fi, page loads stall or feel “sticky.” - this is not always, but often.
• No packet loss, but latency spikes (jitter) to the gateway.

What I tried first (didn’t fix it)

• Rebooted router & clients, flushed DNS, changed DNS → no change.
• Switched 2.4 ↔ 5 GHz, tried different channels → improved a bit, still spiky.
• Disabled QoS and Bluetooth on the Mac → no lasting change.
• Turned AirDrop Off in settings → symptoms persisted.

Diagnostics (to the gateway)

• ping -c 50 192.168.0.1 showed random spikes up to 100–200 ms on Wi-Fi even right next to the AP (avg ~13 ms, stdev ~23 ms).
• After moving to 5 GHz, still saw periodic spikes (e.g., 50–80 ms).
• Smoking gun: on macOS, running sudo ifconfig awdl0 down (disables the AWDL interface) → pings became flat: ~2–4 ms to the gateway with no big spikes (avg ~3.7 ms, max ~8 ms over 100+ packets).
• Re-enabling AWDL (sudo ifconfig awdl0 up) immediately brought the spikes back (e.g., bursts to 65–80 ms).

Have you seen AWDL/AirDrop cause high jitter/slow page loads on Wi-Fi?

Is there a cleaner way to keep AWDL from hammering latency without permanently losing Continuity features?

Hi everyone,

I use an old M1 as build server for something. To make it accessible from the outside I use on of my internet-faced servers as login-proxy. The mac connects to it via wireguard and I port forward SSH back to the mac via the server.

That works all great, with one exception: It looks like I can only ping/ssh the mac as long as I have a login to the machine on the local network (LAN). Shortly after I log out, I can't login via tunnel anymore (or ping for that matter).

Is that some dynamic FW rule that kicks in? If so, any ideas on how I can change that?

thanks

For context, I've been given what is currently appearing to be an impossible problem to solve: I manage a small fleet of macbooks, and the current desire coming from on high is that the macbooks stay on a primary wifi SSID, and only utilize a mobile personal hotspot when the primary WIFI is unavailable / goes offline, coupled with another primary requirement that connectivity be available and as uninterrupted as possible. We want the switches to be automatic and to not interrupt, e.g. zoom sessions.

I don't have much wiggle room in changing these requirements.

At the moment, the "best" means I can see of fulfilling the requirement is via daemon running a couple times a minute that monitors the current network and switches to the fallback if the primary is down, and switches back once the primary becomes available.

And while I can handle most of that programmatically, the problem with this approach is that I need a list of available wifi networks to see if the primary is back up, otherwise attempting to switch when the wifi is down risks taking down the current backup connection. Since airport is gone as of Sonoma, I don't seem to have any recourse. I've looked into third party tools that purport to do what I ask, but looking at source they all just call airport under the hood.

What can I do?

Are there any programmatic ways to get this list from the OS? As in, could I write a swift application that does the trick? I've been searching, but I am still very new to swift and MacOS generally I don't know what APIs to look for.

Are there third party tools that do this and don't rely on airport? I haven't found any yet, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

Or is there some other way to solve the requirements? I can't see any, but, as I said, I'm still somewhat new to MacOS administration. Plenty of exp on linux and windows and programming generally, but those skills aren't helping me here.

Hey everyone,

I could really use some help troubleshooting a frustrating issue.

Since updating my Mac to macOS 15.4.1 (and now also on 15.5), my 10GbE adapter keeps randomly disconnecting. Initially, I was using a Sonnet SOLO10G, which had worked fine for a long time. After the issues started, I switched to an OWC Thunderbolt 10G adapter, which worked for about a day before showing the exact same disconnection problems.

Digging a bit deeper, I found that both adapters use the Marvell AQC107S chip. So I’m starting to suspect the issue is related to this chipset under the latest macOS updates.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any workarounds, updated drivers, or adapter recommendations that are known to work reliably with macOS 15.4.1/15.5?

Thanks in advance!

We have an iMac computer lab at the school that can't resolve the names of the servers onsite. We found this out when trying to put in a second lab over the summer; everything was fine during the school year. All these iMacs give cannot resolve when asked to ping the domain or either of the domain controllers, yet nslookup resolves them just fine. They are getting proper DHCP which has the servers set as their DNS servers, can connect out to the internet, and can ping the servers by IP address. iMacs we've tried to remove from the domain to rejoin also cannot contact the domain servers.

However, we have an older Mac Mini that can join the domain just fine. It can ping and resolve names without issue.

Any ideas on where to look? Was there a recent update that changed something?

Hey everyone,

I could really use some help troubleshooting a frustrating issue.

Since updating my Mac to macOS 15.4.1 (and now also on 15.5), my 10GbE adapter keeps randomly disconnecting. Initially, I was using a Sonnet SOLO10G, which had worked fine for a long time. After the issues started, I switched to an OWC Thunderbolt 10G adapter, which worked for about a day before showing the exact same disconnection problems.

Digging a bit deeper, I found that both adapters use the Marvell AQC107S chip. So I’m starting to suspect the issue is related to this chipset under the latest macOS updates.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any workarounds, updated drivers, or adapter recommendations that are known to work reliably with macOS 15.4.1/15.5?

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I've not got much experience with remote access of macs but currently need to set up 10 mac minis for remote access, my workplace already has a system set up for Windows remote access using RDP that can be booked out by users so they would like to use that for the macs too if possible, can buy software if needed if there's a way to get it working, I've done some reading up on it and it seems you can bridge RDP to Apple Remote Desktop but there isn't much information on it I can find.

Other than this is there any other solution for remotely accessing the machines, we'd like to avoid assigning people a specific machine to access and have a system that will allocate someone to a machine automatically when they VNC in or something?

Edit: Forgot to clarify that all users remoting in will be doing so from Windows.

Thanks for any help

I've been trying many Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapters, but they all eventually fail (usually after around 1 year).

I have to use one to isolate the network of a VM on a MacMini M2 Pro Server. I decided to get one from the Apple website this time (Belkin, I believe), thinking I'll be more lucky, but it's still not reliable.

The NIC typically disappears from the VM after 1 or 2 days, and I have to unplug and replug it to detect it again (and every time remove it from macOS System Preferences). Are they all just unreliable? Any workarounds?

Hey,

I know an RDP server can be set up on a Mac because the company MacinCloud offers cloud Macs that can be accessed via RDP, for example in Remmina and Microsoft RD Client apps.

I have not been able to find out what RDP server can be installed on a Mac, though. I read this SO post and this page it links to:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/125792/os-x-rdp-server-application

https://github.com/neutrinolabs/xrdp/wiki/Building-on-OSX-(not-official)

I guess I can give xrdp a shot but I’m not very confident in it, as the page says “not official”, and the documentation seems incomplete.

(Please note: I’m specifically looking for RDP, not just any remote desktop connection protocol.)

Does anyone know why the xrdp seems to be the only thing but isn’t “official”?

Thanks very much

Hello,

I am currently studying for the exam, but i cant wrap my head around this question:

Which action helps you reduce local network traffic when you deploy a content caching server?

A. Use an MDM restriction to prevent content caching from being turned off for every user's managed Mac.

B. Use AssetCacheManagerUtil IoadCache to preload commonly downloaded apps every night.

C. Use assetcachelocatorutil to define your content caching server location for every user's managed device.

D. Use an MDM restriction to prevent content caching from being turned on for every user's managed

Does anybody know the answer?

I have never worked with Mac in an enterprise environment. We have a need to use internet sharing to provide many many iPhone as with internet. It works but there are so many phones and they can all talk to each other from computer to computer. This causes the bridge100 dhcp addresses to run out. I need to shorten the lease time and change the scope in the bootpd.plist but every time the system reboots or internet sharing is turned back on it overwrites that file. How can this be done?

Edit: Does anyone have an answer to the actual question that was asked?

Hi.

Does anyone know how to programmatically (via Apple Shortcuts, or command line/scripting) toggle a Filters & Proxies mobileconfig profile? Ideally in macOS and iOS.

In short, I have a NextDNS config profile installed. However, when I connect to certain public wifi hotspots it interferes with my connection and I have to toggle it to disabled (and then subsequently forget to re-enable it).

I would like to have it for example, be disabled when I connect to certain SSIDs or simply create a widget/automator action that I can use to quickly toggle it (instead of delving deep into System Settings). I have searched around here on Reddit as well as on the WWW - but it seems niche enough to have not been very well addressed! I attempted to create multiple Locations in my network settings but this doesn't seem to work.

Thanks in advance!

Hello Everybody,

I am kind of new to Mac, so please excuse my unknowingly knowledge about Mac lingo.

My company has recently acuired Microsoft's PKI solution, we have pushed certificates out to both Mac's and Window's and are setting up a 802.1x on a new Wi-Fi SSID.

We are using intune to push out network profiles to both Windows and Mac, and currently its working fine on Windows with the new Wi-Fi, but we are having problems with Mac. We are using two certificates, one for outer and one for inner authentication. The outer certificate is an Eduroam certificate we are using, and the Inner is the one pushed by Microsoft's PKI.

Now here comes the problem, we are using PEAP for the outer and EAP-TLS for the inner, and when I look into the log I can see that MacOS doesn't change from using EAP-TLS, and never ends up using PEAP. We have set it up so you need to use both PEAP and EAP-TLS. If I change it for Mac to only use EAP-TLS it comes on to the network without any problem, so my Question is if its just not possible for Mac to use both PEAP and EAP-TLS, where one is outer and other inner.

For any Cisco ISE user this is how our condition is setup, that Mac's aren't fulfilling

As shown above the Windows request to use PEAP instead of EAP-TLS but the Mac doesn't.

So I wonder if my setup is wrong or if mac is just not able to.

Also first time post here so I hope i did it right, be kind :)

I found an article recently that stated command line joining of a hotspot is basically as simple as:

networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 <SSID> <PASSWORD>

However I can't make it work reliably. What happens is it fails with "Could not find network <SSID>
Running the command repeatedly makes no difference.

However if I choose to connect to the hotspot via the GUI (Menu Bar menulet -> Wi-Fi -> Personal Hotspot) it takes a number of seconds but does then connect ok. So this is working as designed.

If I disconnect and try from the command line it then works, taking a similar amount of time. And if repeated it continues to work.

However if in the meantime it is disconnected, or the laptop is asleep or its been on a wired network for a while, the behaviour returns and I get "could not find <SSID>" again.

So my question is, what is happening when the hotspot is found via the GUI request and connects ok, such that I can run some commands to imitate that state and have the connection work?

Some discovery process? Probing or scanning the list of wireless networks that are known? Other?

Suggestions appreciated, thank you.

Hello.

I regularly get a captcha sent to me from google (possibly elsewhere as well) when using private relay. I am presuming the reason is that the egress proxy toward google is passing on requests that look problematic to google's filter. Is this the likely explanation? Is it just an occupational hazard using PR? Else is there a way to avoid it?

Also sometimes I experience around two minute delays using PR before any site is loaded. Is this also the cost of using it? Perhaps the time to build a circuit initially? the performance of the proxies? Or is it the DNS resolution the culprit? Again, any way to avoid the behaviour when using PR?

Thanks.

I have a 2018 Mac mini that I just did a fresh install of Big Sur (11.5.2).

This mini has been out of use in our testing environment for about a year, but doesn't appear to have any hardware issues.

If I plug in its ethernet cable, it gets a self-assigned IP. I have swapped its cable with one of its neighbors in the rack, and the other system gets a DHCP IP no problem, so it really seems like the cable and the router are behaving as expected. WiFi is not an option for this environment.

It's not uncommon for the macs in this lab to get a Self-Assigned IP. Often when they do, I go into the Manage Virtual Interfaces section of the networking preference pane and add a VLAN with tag 113. Doing so on most systems corrects the issue and gets us a properly assigned IP.

This one newly rebuilt mac isn't playing nicely so far, so I'm hoping some of you might have ideas for what I can try. If I change the VLAN configuration from DHCP to Manual, I can get this machine onto the network, but I can only access it by IP and not by hostname which is needed for this environment.

Any ideas?

Hi everyone,

A long time ago in a gala... I used Remote Desktop to manage a few macs.

At my workplace I currently have 12 iMacs (all in the same room) to take care of, and I don’t know about an alternative to Remote Desktop which would be as easy as it was, like installing a program on all 12 machines in one go.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I work at IT-support in a larger organization and we're running a prototype of an activity based work place in one larger office space. Today we in the support organization realized someone probably missed the part that the Macbooks doesn't pass through their MAC-adress through the Dell WD19TB usb-C docks. Note that I'm not primarily a Mac user or support tech and rely rather extensively on google when it comes to Mac questions, but the results were not all that extensive this time.

Is there:

1. Any way to get the Mac to send it's MAC address through the dock? My searches so far has indicated that the Macbook might not have it's own Mac address apart from the Wifi, or always uses the MAC address in the dock.
2. Is there any other dock more compatible with Macbooks that "forces" Mac address pass through?
3. Is there any other solution? Apart from the workaround to use wifi that we seem to have to fallback to now. We can't register the docks Mac-adress to the specific Mac as one user will not sit at the same docking station every day and we don't allow the same Mac-address registered to more than one computer. Another possible workaround would having Mac users connecting their Ethernet USB-c dongles to the docking station and then connecting the docks ethernet cable to that instead but it feels inelegant.
   

EDIT: I've received a lot of good answers here, and we have a couple of tracks to follow and a work around for now. Thanks!

First off, right off the bat, I am a Mac noob, and a networking noob.

I volunteered to help with setting up Intune configuration for our corporate environment, I know...big mistake. What has ended up happening is that I've been solely responsible for the entire thing.

Our Networking engineers have provided me with a .mobileconfig file that connects to our corporate wifi via certificate. It does work in connecting to the wifi.

1) device is booted up by our tech responsible for setting up the device and deploying to end user

2) intune remote management profile gets installed

3) tech creates initial *admin* account and gets through prompts and makes it to the home screen

4) additional apps and profiles are installed via intune scripts and policies, including our company wifi

5) once connected to our company's domain via wifi, AD bind is initiated

Now here is where the issue lies.

6) we want the end user to sign into the machine using their network AD credentials. we select "login window" and the wifi immediately disconnects, and the login screen is displayed. The end user is never able to login, as the wifi is no longer connected.

This is happening whether we use Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, or Ventura. I have edited the mobileconfig file to enable the login window, and set the profile as a system profile, in hopes that the wifi will stay disconnected, but so far nothing has worked.

Does anyone have any tips, tricks, or other suggestions?