However on booting a client from the NetBoot server, i got the following sign on ppc client machine

After reading some notes on NetBoot here, I found this reason:

The mach.macos.mkext file is a kernel extensions cache — a file containing all the important kernel extensions for basic network booting. Its fairly uncommon to run into problems in this stage of the Netboot process, however, there are a couple specific issues that can cause kernel panics at this point. Possible problems would be:

Not having a mach.macosx and mach.macosx.mkext file in your Netboot set

And when checked mach.macosx.mkext was actually missing from the nbi’s dmg file. So I generated one using following code

kextcache -a ppc -m /Library/NetBoot/NetBootSP0/DeployStudioRuntime-091207-145110.nbi/ppc/mach.macosx.mkext -N -L /Volumes/DeployStudioRuntime/System/Library/Extensions/

And my netboot imaging operation was back in business. Ahhh…. Freshly minted macs by the time I walk in tomorrow morning.

While bringing up firewalls for my test server, I thought of doing a little check on my machine. The logs raised both my eyebrows. Dear Google told me, I was not the only one.

Leopard introduced application based firewall, while the old ipfw still exists with just one default rule (Accept everything from everything!)

65535 allow ip from any to any

So with Application firewall doing its best, lets add some ipfw rules. One way to do is making and adding new rules. However Newton said “Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident(If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.)”

So I downloaded the tested ipfw rule list from securosis.com to start with and tweaked to my taste, and imported the file into WaterRoof, an ipfw frontend.

To check your ipfw rules, use “sudo ipfw list“. When you’re satisfied with your rules, install them for future reboots with “Tools > Rules Configuration > Save to startup configuration” and “Tools > Startup Script > Install Startup Script”.

I also installed WireShark, originally known as Ethereal, but could not get it working. However a look at network log is much more satisfactory now than before.

Image: Cedalion standing on the shoulders of Orion from Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun by Nicolas Poussin, 1658. This image is in the public domain.

I work with Ruby on Leopard and and I need RMagick.

If you are a programmer and don’t know what RMagick is, you should know how code can melt your picture into art in Ruby:).

Thanks to Onrails.org for the starting script, I have removed some cruft and added some spice.

RMagicK install tastes good with freshly brewed UpTown coffee.

#!/bin/sh
mkdir -p ~/Scripts
cd ~/Scripts
if [ -d ImageMagickInstall ]
then
# remove old ImageMagickInstall directory if it exists 
   rm -rf ImageMagickInstall
fi
cd ~/Scripts/ImageMagickInstall

curl -O http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/freetype-2.3.5.tar.gz
tar xzvf freetype-2.3.5.tar.gz
cd freetype-2.3.5
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install
cd ..

curl -O http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/libpng/libpng-1.2.22.tar.bz2
tar jxvf libpng-1.2.22.tar.bz2
cd libpng-1.2.22
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install
cd ..

curl -O ftp://ftp.uu.net/graphics/jpeg/jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
tar xzvf jpegsrc.v6b.tar.gz
cd jpeg-6b
ln -s `which glibtool` ./libtool
export MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.5
./configure --enable-shared --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install
cd ..

curl -O ftp://ftp.remotesensing.org/libtiff/tiff-3.8.2.tar.gz
tar xzvf tiff-3.8.2.tar.gz
cd tiff-3.8.2
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install
cd ..

curl -O http://jaist.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/wvware/libwmf-0.2.8.4.tar.gz
tar xzvf libwmf-0.2.8.4.tar.gz
cd libwmf-0.2.8.4
make clean
./configure
make
sudo make install
cd ..

curl -O http://www.littlecms.com/lcms-1.17.tar.gz
tar xzvf lcms-1.17.tar.gz
cd lcms-1.17
make clean
./configure
make
sudo make install
cd ..

curl -O http://ufpr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ghostscript/ghostscript-8.60.tar.gz
tar zxvf ghostscript-8.60.tar.gz
cd ghostscript-8.60/
./configure  --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install
cd ..

curl -O http://ufpr.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/ghostscript/ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar.gz
tar zxvf ghostscript-fonts-std-8.11.tar.gz
sudo mv fonts /usr/local/share/ghostscript

curl -O http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/imagemagick/ImageMagick-6.4.2-5.tar.gz
tar xzvf ImageMagick-universal-apple-darwin9.4.0.tar.gz
cd ImageMagick-6.4.2.2
export CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include
export LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib
./configure --prefix=/usr/local --disable-static --with-modules --without-perl --without-magick-plus-plus --with-quantum-depth=8 --with-gs-font-dir=/usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts
make
sudo make install
cd ..

sudo gem install RMagick

mpg123 is a real time MPEG 1.0/2.0/2.5 audio player for layers 1,2 and 3.

I was playing with Ruby scripts and needed a command line mp3 player which was not a resource hog.

Steps I took for my OS X (Should work on Linux/Unix box):

Download the latest version from the website.

Untar the archive

tar -xvf mpg123-1.4.3.tar

Compile and install the player

./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mpg123
make
make install

Add the path to .bash_profile

echo 'export PATH=/usr/local/mpg123/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile

Load the new path

source ~/.bash_profile

Enjoy playing music from command-line!

 mpg123 ~/Music/Bagho_Bagh_Gippy_Grewal.mp3