If you select Restart When Done, the client computer will restart after having its startup volume set. You need to have Restart privileges to use this option.

8Click Set.

Renaming Computers

Apple Remote Desktop can set the name that a client computer uses for file sharing. You can rename multiple computers with the same name followed by a number (such as Computer1, Computer2, and so on). This is especially useful for differentiating client computers after a clean system installation.

Note: The Rename Computer feature does not change the Local Hostname or the DNS name of a client computer.

To rename a computer:

1Select a computer list in the Remote Desktop window.

2Select one or more computers in the selected computer list.

3Choose Manage > Rename Computers.

4Enter the new computer name.

5If desired, select “Append a unique number for each computer.”

Selecting this option appends a unique number to the end of the computer name. For example, if you rename three computers “Computer,” the computers will be named “Computer1,”“Computer2,” and “Computer3.”

6Click Rename.

Synchronizing Computer Time

Maintaining synchronized clocks across your clients is essential for management reliability. Synchronized times allow for more precise audits and allow you to accurately correlate events between clients on the network. In addition, many internet services rely on, or benefit from, clock times that are synchronized to a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server. Any scheduled event benefits from synchronized client time.

All Mac OS X clients can be set to automatically synchronize their clocks with an NTP server. Mac OS X Server can be configured to act as an NTP server as well. In order to maintain synchronization across your clients, you should choose a single NTP server to synchronize to. Apple provides an NTP server at time.apple.com.

Setting computer time requires the use of Apple Remote Desktop’s Send UNIX Command feature and its built-in command-line tool, systemsetup. See “Built-in Command-Line Tools” on page 147 for more information about the tool.

Chapter 8 Administering Client Computers

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Apple 3 manual Renaming Computers, Synchronizing Computer Time, To rename a computer