Enabling Integrated Windows Authentication in Chrome on a Mac

Google Chrome logo

I was surprised at how difficult it was to find this information, given that Chrome is certainly one of the most widely-used browsers in the world, and also that it is commonplace to have Macs connecting to Windows domains.

I found that the domains that would be sent IWA information are set in the AuthServerWhitelist policy. But how to change these policies?

After coming across this article, it appeared that changing the policy via the Terminal window would be the best – and possibly only – way to do this.

Enter the following line into Terminal, using comma-separated domains that you trust with your credentials (with or without wildcards), and press Enter.

$ defaults write com.google.Chrome AuthServerWhitelist "*.domain1.com, *.domain2.net, *.domain3.org"

Restart Chrome.

By accessing chrome://policy, now, you can see the new domains in the policy setting.

Chrome Policies page

While this has not proven to be foolproof – some domains still prompt for a user name and password – it seems to work more often than not.

A Solid-State Drive Can Revitalize that Old MacBook Pro

Late-2011 MacBook Pro

I’ve had the same MacBook Pro (late-2011 model 8,1) since early 2012, and am no longer able to put new versions of macOS on it, as Mojave only works with newer models. Over the years it’s become much slower, and the 500 GB HDD that came with it – almost being full – is near failure, according to EtreCheck Pro.

For a reasonable price I ordered a 1 TB solid-state drive and data transfer kit from OWC and within a few days I was up and running on the new drive.

Between following the suggestions on EtreCheck Pro (like deleting unused 32-bit apps and uninstalling unnecessary daemons) and this new larger and faster drive, it’s like I have a brand new Mac – except that I still can’t install Mojave. Unfortunately, there’s no fix for that.

Java VM Issues While Installing Eclipse Neon on macOS Sierra

Java logo

When installing the Eclipse IDE, one must be running a version of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that is compatible with the version of Eclipse that is being installed.

I was trying to install Eclipse Neon on macOS Sierra, which is the most recent major release. Sierra ships with Java, but not the version which is required by Neon, which is 1.8.

As a result, upon trying to install Eclipse Neon, you will likely see a box that looks like this (except it will say 1.8 rather than 1.7):

unsuitable JVM

Though there are multiple ways to upgrade Java on the Mac, it seems getting it from Oracle is the only one that works from what I’ve seen.

To upgrade the JVM on macOS to 1.8, go to the Oracle Java SE Runtime Environment downloads page and get the file for Mac; I prefer getting the dmg package file:

Java SE downloads page

Install the Java SE package like any other Mac application and Eclipse can then be installed.