nedos.net http://nedos.net a few tips to make life easier... Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:43:08 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic LUKS + LVM Root Encryption with Desktop or Netinstall CD http://nedos.net/2010/01/21/ubuntu-luks-lvm/ http://nedos.net/2010/01/21/ubuntu-luks-lvm/#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:00:19 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/?p=138 So after recently migrating my backup server to a Debian LUKS set up, i decided to move my Ubuntu desktop to such a setup as well. If there are so many great free open-source encryption solutions, why doesn’t everyone use them?

In any case setting up a LUKS + LVM root on Debian is a breeze, in fact the installer does everything for you. And the Ubuntu Desktop CD? Well, not so much, unfortunately. You could use the alternate or server CD, but this was not possible for me, I only had the desktop CD on a USB Stick. In any case, since Ubuntu also uses apt, its really just more or less a matter of installing what’s missing, dpkg will do the rest!

It goes a little something like this…

Pre-flight

Before we begin…

  1. Boot the Ubuntu Karmic CD into the “LiveCD” mode this is the one called, “Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer”.
  2. You will need an internet connection to download the latest versions of the missing programs, make sure you have connectivity from the LiveCD.
  3. Make sure you know what the drive name is of the drive you are installing to in this howto it will be /dev/sda
  4. You will need a separate unencrypted boot partition, it is entirely possible to have this on a different device, such as a USB Stick, however here we assume that the boot partition is the first partition of the internal harddrive, i.e. /dev/sda1
  5. Open up a Terminal (Man up sissy boy – Applications > Accessories > Terminal)
  6. (Optional) fill your drive with random data dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sda. This prevents people from seeing how much data, but not what data has been written to the drive. This will take forever, especially if you have a large drive, like a 1TB.

Getting the tools

Now we need to get the tools, this is relatively simple to do. Since we will need root privileges for almost the entire process, i recommend dropping to root immediately. To do this, simply type:

sudo su -l

We will assume that you are root for all commands below!!!

Now we need to update the packages and install cryptsetup and lvm2. To do this first type in:

  1. apt-get update
  2. apt-get install cryptsetup lvm2

Setting up the encrypted volume

Partitioning the disk

First we need to create a partition table, to do this we fire up fdisk. In this tutorial the disk we will partitioning is /dev/sda.

  1. type: fdisk /dev/sda
  2. Type in p to print the current partition table and use d to delete any existing partitions: Command (m for help): p
  3. Create the first, primary, bootable, 250MB partition.
    1. type: n
    2. then: p
    3. then: 1
    4. then hit enter
    5. then type: +250M
    6. then: a
    7. then: 1
    8. and type: p, you should get something like:

      Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
      /dev/sda1 * 1 33 265041 83 Linux
  4. Now create a single partition, taking up the rest of the space:
    1. type: n
    2. then: p
    3. then: 2
    4. then hit enter
    5. then hit enter again
    6. and type: p, you should get something like:

      Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
      /dev/sda1 * 1 33 265041 83 Linux
      /dev/sda2 34 2610 20699752+ 83 Linux
  5. now press w

Create the encrypted Volume

Next step is to setup the encrypted volume. We “luksFormat” the partition we want to be our encrypted volume, in this example this is /dev/sda2. To encrypt the volume, you should select a nice password. If you are not good at making your own pseudo-random passwords, download pwgen AND DON’T LOSE THIS PASSWORD!!!

  1. apt-get install pwgen
  2. pwgen 20

Now we wipe the partition. Enter your super-duper password at the prompt for the LUKS volume.

cryptsetup luksFormat /dev/sda2

Mount the encrypted volume

Now all that is left is mounting the encrypted volume. The first parameter of the command is the physical partition or device that the encrypted volume resides on, the second parameter is the alias for the decrypted volume in /dev/mapper. In this example I called my decrypted volume sda2_crypt (this happens to also be the Debian naming scheme) however you can chose whatever you want. Enter the LUKS volume password at the prompt.

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda2 sda2_crypt

Now that we should have the encrypted volume up and running, we can check by typing cryptsetup status /dev/mapper/sda2_crypt. You should see a similar output.


/dev/mapper//dev/mapper/sda2_crypt is active:
cipher: aes-cbc-essiv:sha256
keysize: 128 bits
device: /dev/sda2
offset: 1032 sectors
size: 41398473 sectors
mode: read/write

Setting up LVM

Perfect, now we can make this a physical volume for LVM. If you have never used LVM before, its about time! I’m not gonna go into great detail about how it works, there are plenty of resources online explaining the differences between physical volumes, volume groups and logical volumes. Very briefly though, each logical volume resides on a single volume group which reside on one or more physical volumes. So a volume group is a pool of physical devices which we can use to create logical volumes. In our case we will have one physical volume (/dev/mapper/sda2_crypt), one volume group (i called mine crypto in this example) and several logical volumes.

Create the Physical Volume

Lets go! Create the physical volume with:

pvcreate /dev/mapper/sda2_crypt

Create the Volume Group

Create a volume group with:

vgcreate crypto /dev/mapper/sda2_crypt

Create the Logical Volumes

And now create your logical volumes. You need at least a root and a swap, but you can create more. In this example i also created a /home and a /tmp partition (albeit pretty small). To create a logical volume use lvcreate -n<volume_name> -L<volume_size> crypto, where <volume_name> is the name of the volume (i.e. root), where <volume_size> is size of the volume (i.e 10G or 512M) and where crypto is, of course, the example name of our volume group from the previous step.

root@ubuntu:~# lvcreate -nroot -L10G crypto
Logical volume "root" created
root@ubuntu:~# lvcreate -nswap -L1G crypto
Logical volume "swap" created
root@ubuntu:~# lvcreate -nhome -L4G crypto
Logical volume "home" created
root@ubuntu:~# lvcreate -ntmp -L4G crypto
Logical volume "tmp" created

Now we’re ready to install!

Installation

The installation should be completely normal, the only changes you have to make are at the Partitioning screen.

Partitioning

Select: Specify Partitions manually at this screen

Select: Specify Partitions manually at this screen

Formatting

At the next screen remember to set mountpoints for your partitions and for them to be formatted. I chose to use ext2 for my boot partition (/dev/sda1), mostly for legacy reasons. Make sure the swap logical volume is formatted swap, otherwise format the other partitions (i.e. root, tmp and home) whatever you want, i chose ext4. Again, MAKE SURE YOU ARE SETTING MOUNTPOINTS and DO NOT format /dev/sda2!!!

Remember to select mountpoints, filesystems and format the partitions at this screen.

Remember to select mountpoints, filesystems and format the partitions at this screen.

Finishing the Installation

Now click forward and let the installer finish. Remember to NOT RESTART at the very end, select “Continue Testing”.

Select "Continue Testing" here!

Select "Continue Testing" here!

Getting the missing bits and pieces

Now, fire up a Terminal again, drop to root (sudo su -l). We will need to mount the new system, create an /etc/crypttab entry and install some missing packages.

Mount the new system

To mount the partitions do the following

  1. create a mount point: mkdir -p /mnt/newroot
  2. mount the root: mount /dev/crypto/root /mnt/newroot
  3. mount proc: mount /proc /mnt/newroot/proc -t proc
  4. mount your boot partition: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/newroot/boot
  5. mount any other partitions (i.e. /tmp, /home, /var…): mount /dev/crypto/<vol_name> /mnt/newroot/<mount_name>

chroot into the new environment

Now we are going to chroot into this environment, to do this type: chroot /mnt/newroot if you got no errors, and the command pwd returns /, you should be good.

Create an /etc/crypttab

Now we need to create the /etc/crypttab entry and install the missing packages:

To create an entry in /etc/crypttab simply (replacing any discrepancies in naming) do:

echo "sda2_crypt /dev/sda2 none luks" >> /etc/crypttab

Your /etc/crypttab should now look something like this, when you type cat /etc/crypttab.

# <target name> <source device> <key file> <options>
sda2_crypt /dev/sda2 none luks

Install the missing packages

Now we only need to install the missing packages, the rest will be done by dpkg’s scripts.

  1. apt-get update
  2. apt-get install lvm2 cryptsetup

Unmount the partitions

Thats it! Now exit chroot and unmount all the volumes

  1. to exit chroot simply type: exit
  2. to unmount all the mountpoints within /mnt/newroot, type comma-seperated in curly-brackets what you want to unmount: umount /mnt/newroot/{boot,home,tmp,proc}
  3. you should now be able to unmount /mnt/newroot, if not check if you unmounted all partitions in step 2: umount /mnt/newroot

Reboot… pray

Now type in reboot and cross your fingers! Hopefully you are welcomed by a screen like this:

If all went well, Ubuntu's splash screen should ask you for the password

If all went well, Ubuntu's splash screen should ask you for the password

Troubleshooting

Ideally it all went well, and you don’t have any complaints, however, I will create a troubleshooting section as comments rain in, so please do comment.

Thanks for reading, can’t wait to see some comments.

]]> http://nedos.net/2010/01/21/ubuntu-luks-lvm/feed/ 4 Ruby .txt to .html link script for Rapidshare http://nedos.net/2009/03/04/ruby-txt-to-html-link-script-for-rapidshare/ http://nedos.net/2009/03/04/ruby-txt-to-html-link-script-for-rapidshare/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:37:30 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/?p=124 So you know what’s really annoying? How many downloaders people are trying to sell! I love DownThemAll for firefox, its a great plug-in that i highly recommend. Unfortunately you can’t just add a list of links. You have to have “clickable” links for it to work. Well that sucks, I guess you have to get one of those 20 dollar apps, right? WRONG! Ruby saves the day! I might make a gui for this script at some point but until then it works flawlessly in terminal.

Just add all the links you want to download to a text file and save it with .txt extension. Now run this script and input the .txt file as the parameter, i.e:

./txttohtml links.txt

Now you should find an html file in the same folder with the text file, the filename is the, but with an .html extension. Anyway, here’s the script:


#!/usr/bin/ruby
# Dmitry Nedospasov
# Text to HTML
# This script converts a .txt file to an html file with each
# line of the file as a link
#
# I wanted this so that i could use rapidshare with DTA
# Script needs one argument, the .txt file
require 'ftools'
def parseargs(arguments, stdin)
# puts arguments
txtFile = arguments[0]
if txtFile == nil
puts 'Please enter a filename'
elsif txtFile =~ /.txt$/
puts 'Checking the following file: ' + txtFile
convertFromTxtToHtml(txtFile)
else
puts 'Please enter a file that ends with .txt'
end
end
def convertFromTxtToHtml(txtFile)
htmlFile = txtFile.sub(/.txt$/, " .html" )
puts 'Writing results to: ' + htmlFile
myHtmlFile = File.new(htmlFile, " w+" )
myTxtFile = File.open(txtFile, " r" )
if File.zero?(myTxtFile)
puts 'the .txt file is empty'
elsif File.exist?(myTxtFile)
myHtmlFile.puts(" <html>" )
counter = 1
myTxtFile.readlines.each { |curLine|
newLine = '<a href=" '
newLine += curLine
newLine += '" >'
newLine += " #{counter}"
newLine += ' - '
newLine += curLine
newLine += '</a>'
myHtmlFile.puts(newLine)
myHtmlFile.puts(" <br />" )
counter += 1
}
myHtmlFile.puts(" </html>" )
else
puts 'File not found'
end
end
parseargs(ARGV, STDIN)

Now you can fire up firefox and open the html file and start dta, however the “cool” way to create the html files and launch firefox from terminal is, in Mac OS:


./txttohtml.rb *.txt && open -a Firefox *.html

And in linux:

./txttohtml.rb *.txt && firefox *.html

Have fun and here is the file for download

]]> http://nedos.net/2009/03/04/ruby-txt-to-html-link-script-for-rapidshare/feed/ 0 Ruby Batch Rename Script http://nedos.net/2009/02/20/ruby-batch-rename-script/ http://nedos.net/2009/02/20/ruby-batch-rename-script/#comments Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:26:03 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/?p=94 So I’ve recently gotten into scripting in ruby and with a couple of scripts you really can save yourself a lot of tedious work in the future. Here’s one i wrote that does a batch rename of all files in a given folder and its subfolders. You can do either of the following:

Enter 3 parameters:

  1. input directory
  2. search string
  3. replacement string
Or just enter 2 parameters in which case the search string will be removed from all files:
  1. input directory
  2. search string
Remember, to enter the parameters in that order, <input dir> <search string> [<replacement string>].

#!/usr/bin/ruby
# Dmitry Nedospasov
# Batch Rename
# 2 parameters: batchrename.rb <input dir> <search string>
# <search string> will be completely removed from all occurances
# 3 parameters: batrename.rb <input dir> <search string> <replacement string>
# all occurances of <search string> will be replaced with <replacement string>

require 'ftools'
def parseargs(arguments, stdin)
  # puts arguments
  dir = arguments[0]
  oldExt = arguments[1]
  newExt = arguments[2]
  puts dir
  puts oldExt
  puts newExt
  if oldExt == nil or dir == nil
  puts 'Please enter atleast the first 2 parameters: '
  puts ' <input directory> <search string> [<replacement string>]'
  else
    convertFromTo(dir,oldExt,newExt)
  end
end
def convertFromTo(dir, oldExt, newExt)
  files = Dir.entries(dir)
  files.each do |f|
    next if f == '.' or f == '..'
    fullPath = dir + '/' + f
    # fullPath = fullPath.gsub(' ','\ ')
    if File.directory?(fullPath)
      puts 'Found directory: ' + fullPath
      convertFromTo(fullPath, oldExt, newExt)
    else
      if newExt == nil
        newName = fullPath.gsub(oldExt,'')
      else
        newName = fullPath.gsub(oldExt,newExt)
      end
      if fullPath != newName
        puts fullPath + ' -> ' + newName
        File.rename(fullPath,newName)
      end
    end
  end
end

parseargs(ARGV, STDIN)

and what you should get is something like this


russo@guevara:~/Desktop$ ./batchrename.rb . stpuid stupid
.
stpuid
stupid
Found directory: ./stupidtypo
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo1.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo1.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo10.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo10.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo2.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo2.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo3.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo3.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo4.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo4.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo5.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo5.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo6.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo6.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo7.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo7.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo8.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo8.txt
./stupidtypo/stpuidtypo9.txt -> ./stupidtypo/stupidtypo9.txt

Enjoy!!! and here’s the file for download

]]> http://nedos.net/2009/02/20/ruby-batch-rename-script/feed/ 0 Hackintosh Bonjour woes (avahi-daemon) http://nedos.net/2009/02/09/hackintosh-bonjour-woes-avahi-daemon/ http://nedos.net/2009/02/09/hackintosh-bonjour-woes-avahi-daemon/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 11:06:22 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/?p=90 After hours of searching, compiling avahi-daemon myself, crying and sleepless nights it turns out if you are running Mac OS on non-apple hardware, and you have a mainboard with a Realtek r1000 series card (i.e. my ga-ep45-ds4) you should definitely use the RealtekR1000 driver if you want bonjour!

Although the hardware is detected by default, somehting isn’t supported and causes the broadcasts from avahi and Mac OS to be dropped. You will need XCode to build the sources, or look for pre-compiled ones on the net. More on my hackintosh later.

]]> http://nedos.net/2009/02/09/hackintosh-bonjour-woes-avahi-daemon/feed/ 0 Mosaic Project http://nedos.net/2009/02/06/mosaic-project/ http://nedos.net/2009/02/06/mosaic-project/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:37:36 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/?p=88 Hello everyone, and happy new year :D

Haven’t written in a really long time. Anyway, We recently did a project that generates Mosaics in C++. You can check out the results here. And a full write up should be up pretty soon with some detailed explanations and links to paper’s that will get you started on a similar project.

]]> http://nedos.net/2009/02/06/mosaic-project/feed/ 1 10.5.3 9D11 Change Log found on PasteBin http://nedos.net/2008/04/01/1053-9d11-change-log-found-on-pastebin/ http://nedos.net/2008/04/01/1053-9d11-change-log-found-on-pastebin/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:43:01 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=59 Well there it is… take it or leave it :) I found it interesting. Keeping my fingers crossed for “unsupported” TimeMachine Backups.

http://pastebin.ca/966414

]]> http://nedos.net/2008/04/01/1053-9d11-change-log-found-on-pastebin/feed/ 0 Restore from an unsupported Time Machine network volume from the Leopard DVD http://nedos.net/2008/03/29/restore-from-an-unsupported-time-machine-backup-with-the-leopard-dvd/ http://nedos.net/2008/03/29/restore-from-an-unsupported-time-machine-backup-with-the-leopard-dvd/#comments Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:05:15 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=49 So, I’ve been biting my nails the past week, that was ever since i decided that i want a bigger hard drive. And finally i can stop now, because i got my notebook back and i got time machine to do a “full” system restore, from an unsupported volume! I’m so relieved… and this means, that all of you that have NAS and File servers need no longer cry or worry, let me be yet another person to confirm that it can be done. And let me be the first to show you… how :)

My configuration

Just in case you were wondering what configuration i used, and continue to use for that matter :P Here it is:

  • Debian Etch
  • Self-compiled netatalk (for Leopard compatibility) here’s a good howto.
  • 330GB Volume on Raid5 formatted ext3

So, if you have the first two you’re in business, but even if you don’t use netatalk. All you have to do is mount everything as described in “Mounting”.

Setting up the Harddrive

Now first things first, boot from your cd. To do that just press and hold the c-key immediately after powering on your computer. You should eventually be greeted by a language selection etc. After all of this you will be welcomed by the installer. We don’t need it at all. At the top you will see “Utilities”, where you will find among others Disk Utility, Terminal and Restore from a Time Machine Backup.You will probably want to start off, especially if its a new harddrive by checking out Disk Utility and creating any volumes you want to install your system. After you have them configured your pretty much ready to go.

Network and Jumbo Frames

So now you should connect make sure you are connect to your network. You can open up disk utility to check connectivity. If you need anything special, like setting up specific network settings, these can be done in terminal. I for example like to have jumbo frames, since all my gigabit devices support it. Open up Terminal from the utilities menu, and type.ifconfig en0 mtu 9000and you should be set.

Mounting the Volumes

Let me reitterate that I have not yet tested anything other than netatalk (afp), but this should for any network file sharing protocol. All you have to do is mount your Time Machine volume under /Volumes. The syntax for mounting an afp share ismount -t afp afp://username:password@hostname/ShareName
/Volumes/ShareMountImportant here is to remember that the ShareName is a case-sensitive string. So make sure you type \ before a space, and to check for proper capitalization. Otherwise you get some mount errors, which occur because a volume wasn’t found with that name, since the actual name doesn’t match the one you typed. ShareMount is any string you want, it doesn’t matter what you call it. Same goes for spaces here. If you mount your afp volume just /Volumes (i.e. without ShareMount) you might see multiple TMBackups, as is the case with the images bellow. Still works, just shocking to see 2 of the same thing. Thats basically it, you’re almost done…

Restoring…

Select a Backup SourceSelect a BackupRestoring...Before you close Terminal, make sure the share actually mounted properly, you can simply ls /Volumes and see if your mount is there. If you didn’t mount it at /Volumes/ShareMount your /Volumes folder might be litered with the contents of your afp volume, this shouldn’t cause any problems, just doesn’t look neat at first site. If everything seems to be there, then select “Restore from a Time Machine Backup” from Utilities. Click through the menu and you will come to a screen called “Select a Backup Source”, with your shares appearing properly and being recognized. Don’t ask me why there are two, probably because MacOS in general uses a lot of symlinks… Anyway, important thing is that it works. Select the first volume, and after selecting the you will come to a screen called “Select a Backup”, where you get to chose which backup you wish to use. Afterwards, the system will calculate if there is enough space and will afterwards let you restore. This will now take some time and it went up for me after about 25mins, so don’t hesitate to let it sit there for 2-3 hours. Afterwards, you will just need to reboot, and you’ll be back where you left off.

Hey, I’ve seen this before!

One thing some will notice, is that things like Mail and Itunes, will need to reconfigure themselves, i.e. reimport all your emails. Having said that, I’m still blown away by how well this went over, even if this is “unsupported”. Oh and for those of you wondering how to backup to an unsupported volume in the first place, well its simple. All you have to do is:defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1Hope this helps some people, feel free to leave a comment.

And if you appreciate all my hard work, please feel free to donate:

]]> http://nedos.net/2008/03/29/restore-from-an-unsupported-time-machine-backup-with-the-leopard-dvd/feed/ 4 Moved http://nedos.net/2008/03/20/moving/ http://nedos.net/2008/03/20/moving/#comments Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:16:34 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=4 Well… it was some cloudy sad weather today, so i did what everyone else would do on such a day, namely moved my blog! This blog will stay up for a while, but will eventually dissapear (when my contract for the hosting runs out) so from now on you can check it out at http://nedos.net/blog.But you’re here already so I guess you knew all that! Anyway enjoy!Oh, and update your rss links :)

]]> http://nedos.net/2008/03/20/moving/feed/ 0 NFS in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard http://nedos.net/2007/11/10/nfs-in-mac-os-105-leopard/ http://nedos.net/2007/11/10/nfs-in-mac-os-105-leopard/#comments Sat, 10 Nov 2007 20:55:53 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=46 Okay Okay, so I haven’t posted in while. Well, now Its decided. In this world, one which lacks Leopard howtos, I’ll do my best to write some posts that will in the end save you the time you would spend searching google. :)

NFS and OS X

Anyway, some of us have had Leopard for a couple of weeks, and i recommend it for anyone who has a fairly new mac, by which i mean that the only consideration should be if you have enough performance to get everything out of leopard. Leopard has a lot of new “features”, one of which I’ll be explaing today.

NFS isn’t something new, and its not even something new for Mac OS. The client to mount NFS is included on almost every *nix, and doesn’t require any additional installation (usually). It also has better performance than Samba (thats what windows uses to share files), and has a fairly extensive list of configuration options. Of course, nfs isn’t perfect for everything, but if your computers run *nix (aka BSD/Unix/Mac/Linux), then NFS might be the easiest file sharing protocol to configure. After all, its basically already there, so you save yourself the install.

I’m going to assume you have NFS configured on the server, this is the computer hosting the files. If not, well its actually pretty simple, and NFS has probably the best howtos out there. You can find it here. Anyway back to the client side, running OS X. So in 10.4, mounting NFS was kind of, well a pain. Mac OS connects to an “insecure” port by default. In other words it doesn’t send a request to the server for a port. This means if you run a firewall, you can’t connect via finder, because Mac OS will attempt to connect to a port that will be blocked, since its not in the firewall rules. Not only that, you have to configure your your shares to be “insecure” otherwise /var/log/messages will get something along the lines of:

russo@marx:~$ cat /var/log/messages | grep nfsd
Nov 8 16:56:15 marx kernel: nfsd: request from insecure port (192.168.0.4:49204)!

Directory Utility

There was a solution in 10.4, and it was fairly complicated and involved setting everything up with NetInfo Manager. This procedure was quite tedious, as you can see in this howto. But we’re not in 10.4 anymore (thank god!) And guess what… NetInfo is gone! And replaced by something, much more user friendly. The new replacement is called, Directory Utility. And can be found in your Utilities folder, imagine that! Fire it up, lets take a look!

So at first site, there probably won’t be much there, especially on a home network. But, this doesn’t matter we’re not configuring Directory Services, we’re here for the NFS mounts. Just click “Show Advanced Settings” and you’ll see “Mounts” appear up top. Click that. Next you should see something like this

Click the lock in the bottom left corner, to allow you to add/edit mounts. Enter the username and password of an Administrator on the computer (Chuck Norris administers mine). Now you should be able to click the + to add a mount. By the way, with Directory Utility you don’t have to reboot to see changes. You just click that apply in the corner. How sweet is that?

The syntax here is a bit different than mount in CLI, however the syntax still contains that which made many new users make a mistake. :) The syntax is

nfs://<hostname or ip>/<full path to directory>

Remember, /full/path/to/dir is the full path on the server!

Also enter, the directory where you want this share to be mounted. Its probably best to keep everything under either /Volumes or /Network. This way all users can easily access to the shares. You can always add aliases to your home directory, or wherever you want these mounts to actually appear. Now if you, just want to automount “insecure” mounts, than you’re basically done at this point. However we want to add “secure” mounts. This means we need to specify the “Privelaged” flag to the mount. This will cause it to use a port designated by the server. Click the little triangle next to “Advanced Mount Parameters” And you’ll see something like this:

all we have to do is add, “-P”. This makes the mount use a privelaged port. Now click “Verify”. At this point, its good to mention that if Directory Utility only checks if the server that you entered is running nfs and not if the mount is actually functional. Now click “Apply”

Nothing Happend…

Well it did, but you might not be able to see it. At the very least the mount point has been created, and you can check this by opening finder and going to either /Volumes or /Network (EDIT: or wherever you mounted you shaere). To get there you’ll have to type command (apple) + shift + G, and then type in where you want to go. Okay, so now you should see it there, BUT you probably won’t be able to write to even if you didn’t mount it read-only. Why is that, you ask? Well you don’t have permissions, silly! And even if you your user does have permissions to write, even if your user exists on both machines, he probably won’t have the same gid/uid. How can you check? Just use the id command:

lenin:~ russo$ id
uid=501(russo) gid=20(staff)

Just as a side note Mac OS begins with 500, whereas most linux distros begin with 1000. So now you can either change the gid/uid of one of the machines so that they do match, or run “chmod 777″ the directory on the server… that should be it. You should be able to write now!

EDIT: There are also ways to map IPs, hostnames and authenticated users to users on the machine. Maping ips and hostnames is fairly easy, you simply add anonuid=youruid, anongid=yourgid to the options in the /etc/exports file. (Thanks Paolo)

How do i get the share in my Finder Sidebar?

Simple! Just click the folder and drag it while holding apple + option. You can place it under “Places” in this manner. Even if you’re not an admin user.

EDIT: This wasn’t clear enough for some. You cannot create aliases for the actual mounts, however you can create a folder enclosing the mounts and create an alias for that. I.e /Volumes/Hostname and put all the mounts in /Volumes/Hostname. I hope its a little bit easier to understand now…

And if you appreciate all my hard work, please feel free to donate:

]]> http://nedos.net/2007/11/10/nfs-in-mac-os-105-leopard/feed/ 28 2 good Shoutcast streams http://nedos.net/2007/06/17/2-good-shoutcast-streams/ http://nedos.net/2007/06/17/2-good-shoutcast-streams/#comments Sun, 17 Jun 2007 07:26:54 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=45 Although there are thousands of shoutcast stations some of the cooler ones are the ones with bigger names. 2 ones that I like because they feature some really cool deep house and tech house in the evenings are 2 Ibiza radio stations. Ibiza Global Radio and Ibiza Sonica. Anyway its a good answer to all the people who say theres no good music out there for free. BTW, both sites have some mixes up for download.

Here are the links to the .pls files, which you can open with winamp or iTunes among anothers, to tune in to the stream.

Ibiza Global Radio.

Ibiza Sonica.

Blogged with Floc

]]> http://nedos.net/2007/06/17/2-good-shoutcast-streams/feed/ 1 EFX 500 up for sale! http://nedos.net/2007/04/03/efx-500-up-for-sale/ http://nedos.net/2007/04/03/efx-500-up-for-sale/#comments Mon, 02 Apr 2007 23:04:29 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=44 So i’m ebaying an EFX 500 so if anyone needs one they can find it here. I’m probably gonna use the money for something like gettings some KRK RP-5s so… help me out… plz ;)

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2007/04/03/efx-500-up-for-sale/feed/ 2 Akismet http://nedos.net/2007/03/21/akismet/ http://nedos.net/2007/03/21/akismet/#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2007 09:45:55 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=43 Okay… so i finally enabled it… finally! And… the result? No more spam on my blog :D Thank god! So if you run WP… enable Akismet!

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2007/03/21/akismet/feed/ 0 WordPress: Tiger-Administration http://nedos.net/2007/03/04/wordpress-tiger-administration/ http://nedos.net/2007/03/04/wordpress-tiger-administration/#comments Sun, 04 Mar 2007 20:06:30 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=42 If you use wordpress, you should really check out WordPress Tiger Administration. I like it much more. Its basically a skin for your wordpress administartion page, but one that has a much cleaner look that and is easier to read. Not to mention it doesn’t make you feel like you’re drowning in a sea of blue – by which wordpress users are normally greeted.Dashboard

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2007/03/04/wordpress-tiger-administration/feed/ 0 LightScribe: The verdict http://nedos.net/2007/03/02/lightscribe-the-verdict/ http://nedos.net/2007/03/02/lightscribe-the-verdict/#comments Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:03:39 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=41 DSC01272.JPGSo, here we are again and this time with more detailed results!

So what is LightScribe again?

LightScribe is a labeling technology for optical media. In short you burn a CD, flip it over and burn a label.

How does it work?

LightScribe works in that it uses a laser to heat special ink on LightScribe discs. This ink then changes color.

Prime-On LightScribe CDs

So for the first time in 3 years i purchased some non-TDK optical media! Of course TDK won my heart over by being read by my xbox as i modded it. Anyway after searching for optical media in the stores around my house I found that all stores only have the Verbaitim 16x DVD-R with jewel cases. This is of course also very nice media, but it costs 6€ for 5 DVDs… I then did a quick search on billiger.de and found several formats, and colors of LightScribe media. The best selection I found was on shoXX.com, a website making huge strides in terms of Internet contents, by offering you prices rather than prizes!

Anyway, I went with Prime-On CDs and DVDs. there are 2 reasons why i got Prime-On:

  1. Cheaper
  2. Wider selection of colors

I went with the “green-edition”! I guess because i thought i need to pick something ridiculous :) But, in all honesty the discs turned out very well. You can look at some examples on the shoXX website.

GIVE ME THE RESULTS!

In short: I’m very pleased. And very reassured after the “meh” quality i got with my “Mac Apps” label. So, here it is: Prime-On “Green Edition” (LightScribe 1.2) CD and “Best” Quality.

DSC01275.JPG

I think it looks great! It looks very professional and very clean. It would be good to mention that this was a 2-tone logo to start and thus ideal for LightScribe. But this just proves that LightScribe can do wonders. Unfortunately the label will be smaller than that of a normal CD because LightScribe needs the position, which is the shiny part in the middle which contains data about the CD’s position.

Anyway, to go from this to this is just amazing :)

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2007/03/02/lightscribe-the-verdict/feed/ 1 Samsung SH-S183L LightScribe SATA DVD Burner (2x) http://nedos.net/2007/02/22/samsung-sh-s183l-lightscribe-sata-dvd-burner-2x/ http://nedos.net/2007/02/22/samsung-sh-s183l-lightscribe-sata-dvd-burner-2x/#comments Thu, 22 Feb 2007 15:36:14 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=40 The old and the new...

So i would like to think that this will be an enlightening and interesting review of mine. Especially for anyone who has been considering getting a LightScribe DVD burner.

What is LightScribe?

LightScribe is a media labeling technology. And how it works is it melts one side of an optical media. Sound cool doesn’t it? And it is! I’m always surprised to hear that people buy those label printers… and better yet those CD stompers! A friend of mine ruined his drive because a label came off when spinning! In any case this, imho, is worlds better than any CD stomper. And unless your home is a CD print center… this is probably not a bad choice for making labeled optical media.

Samsung SH-S183L SATA?

Now, as it turns out from a conversation with my mate a few days ago, some people haven’t heard of SATA optical drives yet (I of course don’t mean the people that haven’t heard of SATA yet ;) ). Why would you get a SATA drive? Because IDE is slowly going the way of the floppy and becoming a legacy port that is just on the mainboard. Why not buy a SATA drive? Windows recognized it as ATAPI. 0 problems with my BIOS detecting it either (albeit after a CMOS clear). Some of the biggest benefits to SATA are the cables. Both the power and data connector are much easier to connect. There are no pins to be bent. And the cables themselves are much lower profile, eg. you’ll get better ventilation.

Why 2 drives?!

Why not?! 48€! It really isn’t that much money considering these will be with me for a good while :)

Why the Samsung SH-S183L?

Simple, all manufacturers are generally the same these days with the exception of companies like Plextor… which cost 2 times as much. This drive doesn’t cost much (48€ OEM). And i got it K&M Elektronik in Berlin which means that if i did have problems that I could just run down there and return the drives. I really can’t tell you much about read/write speeds… because I never care! I can’t believe the forum discussions I see sometimes.

“Hey but drive A burns a DVD 25seconds faster than drive B!”

Use that time to make a sandwich, make a playlist or something else… As someone who owned a Mitsumi 2xCD-R/RW drive… I think that discussing burn times in +/- 25 seconds is ridiculous :) Not to mention the difference is usually even less than 25 seconds. By the way, 2x = 40mins of burning for an 80min CD :) That was back when most burning programs couldn’t burn mp3s!!! They couldn’t convert them on the fly fast enough. You had to make .wav’s first. Oh yeah, and napster was around :)

Now… the Samsung SH-S183L

The Samsung drive has the following features

My new samsung burners :)

Cache:
2 MB
Avg. Seek times:
130/110
S-ATA Type:
S-ATA 150
CD Read max.:
48x
DVD Read max.:
16x
DVD RAM Support:
Yes
DVD Ram Read max.:
12x
DVD Ram Write max.:
12x
CD Write max.:
48x
CDRW Write max.:
32x
DVD +R Write max.:
18x
DVD +RW Write max.:
8x
DVD -R Write max.:
18x
DVD -RW Write max.:
8x
DVD +R Double Layer Support:
Yes
DVD +R Double Layer Write max.:
8x
DVD -R Double Layer Support:
Yes
DVD -R Double Layer Write max.:
8x

In any case it has everything I wanted (and could ask for). Its 18x, +/- R/RW and Ram. And also does Double Layer :) . Oh yeah, and it has LightScribe ;)
So, as i said, the drives DID install fine. I had no unexpected problems. In fact, it even boots from CDs fine! Of course the windows installer will need your SATA drivers to correctly continue the installation, but thats what nLite is there for :) All in all these drives met my expectations. They are quick (18x) and i had no problems burning a verbatim 16x LightScribe DVD at 18x. No problems with reading or burning CDs either

A very missed feature (Nooooo!) from the drives that I’m upgrading from (Lite-On) is that you could just nudge the Trays and they’d immediately go in.

What about LightScribe?

What about it? It does what it says… but unfortunately, and I didn’t know this before buying these drives, is that LightScribe takes 15 mins to make a label on media v1.2 (this is a CD media standard from LightScribe) and 35 mins or more on older media! However this is by the looks of it something that is dependent on the CDs and not on the drives. Which is of course another plus for this drive and kudos to LightScribe for thinking that bit through :P and not forcing constant drive upgrades :) (I hope)

So how does it look?

WARNING: DON’T EXPECT A PHOTO TO COME OUT!!! I expected a bit more out of LightScribe which was probably just me being naive. I ordered some more DVDs and I’ll give you all more examples later on. But at the moment i just have this label (thrown together in 3 seconds thanks to google and a keyboard) and this label was made with normal quality. “Best” is said to be look better obviously and when i get more discs I’ll make an article about that too. Anyway, here it is:

My new samsung burners :)

I ordered green discs… because if I’m making labels i don’t want a cream colored CD… thats just not cool :) That is another plus for LightScribe, by the way. There are a lot of colors you can choose from. LightScribe also has some cool free designs on their website (buyer propaganda? ;) ) that can quickly be downloaded and applied to whatever disc you are making.

And what software makes this?

Well the drivers and some background software comes from LightScribe’s download page (Windows, Mac and Linux!). The software integrates with CD certain labeling software. All in all I’m pretty happy although I really don’t like the beige colored labels. And thus, we’ll just have to see how it all looks when i get my green media :P

Pros

  • Quick Drives (18x!)
  • Burns all types of media
  • Good price
  • SATA, SATA, SATA!
  • LightScribe
  • Available in black (look how many drives aren’t you’ll be surprised)

Cons

  • LightScribe != LightningFast (bit slow)
  • Not the best looking bezel (Samsungs in general)
  • Activity LED looks like the emergency eject hole
  • Can’t just push the tray in

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2007/02/22/samsung-sh-s183l-lightscribe-sata-dvd-burner-2x/feed/ 2 Video reviews http://nedos.net/2007/01/08/video-reviews/ http://nedos.net/2007/01/08/video-reviews/#comments Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:48:45 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=39 So… after looking about the net I discovered that there aren’t that many reviews of many products that i own, especially dj equipment. Anyway I’ve decided I’m gonna try to do video reviews of equipment that i own. Hopefully they will turn out decent :)

D.

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2007/01/08/video-reviews/feed/ 1 New Bag: UDG SoftBag Large http://nedos.net/2006/12/14/new-bag-udj-softbag-large/ http://nedos.net/2006/12/14/new-bag-udj-softbag-large/#comments Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:44:00 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=38 DSC00865.JPG

So this is the first bag DJ bag i’ve bought! I was gonna save a couple of Euros and get a cheaper one but then I saw a deal on it on RecordCase.de and pounced on that!

What do i think? I think even 60 vinyls is really heavy! But this one suports up to ~100!!! I mean the shoulder strap is well capable of carying this weight but it is still quite heavy. I’ve read that some people recommend getting to Small Softbags instead. Maybe this is a good idea… I don’t know. I still very much like the bag and i use it to hold Vinyl that i’m making a mix with. Which is a very nice feature.

Again, this is my first bag, but I am still very impressed. The Bag is well constructed. It has 3 large pockets that are able to acommidate headphones or anything slightly bigger than that. This ofcourse will also easily acomidate a CD wallet or something similar.

DSC00867.JPG

The bag itself weighs almost nothing! It comes completely flat to your door! What it has is Velcro covered foam pads that you attach inside. You see may have noticed that the one inside the lid displays a nice UDG Logo. All the Small/Large Softbags Have the same style padding and straps. Which is why i chose maroon, which btw looks much darker normally. All bags have rubbery feet to keep them from sliding on the floor or letting the bottoms wear down with time.

Final thoughts? Its quite shiny (as you can tell by the pics) so be warned! Like most school bags if you had something of similar material. It does what i want it to do and gets 2 thumbs way up from me :)

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2006/12/14/new-bag-udj-softbag-large/feed/ 1 New Mix: African/Latin http://nedos.net/2006/12/11/new-mix-africanlatin/ http://nedos.net/2006/12/11/new-mix-africanlatin/#comments Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:20:27 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=37 Hmm, I haven’t written in a while. University is a bit much nowadays. I have accumulated some stuff that i want review/discuss so stay tuned this week.

I made a new mix! Thanks to new headphones and, most importantly, a new mixer its you the listener that benefits the most! Anyway check it out here

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2006/12/11/new-mix-africanlatin/feed/ 1 New Mixer: Ecler Nuo2 http://nedos.net/2006/11/04/new-mixer-ecler-nuo2/ http://nedos.net/2006/11/04/new-mixer-ecler-nuo2/#comments Sat, 04 Nov 2006 14:24:35 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=36 DSC00773.JPG

I finally got a new mixer!!! I bought the Ecler Nuo2 and I’m so happy. I can’t believe how much better music sounds just by changing the mixer! Before i had the Numark DM1050 which is, to put it simply, a POS :)

The Ecler Nuo2 sounds very good. Be it through my average stereo (next thing needing an upgrade) or even what is recorded on my computer. The Bass is noticeably deeper and the highs and mids clearer. This mixer also has a couple of nice features such as.

  • Hi, Mid, Bass Kill switches
  • Complete Channel Kill Switches
  • Very good headphone output
  • Very good display that shows accurate levels (as opposed to DM1050)
  • 2 master outs
  • effects loop
  • Adjustable curve shape and sharpness
  • 100-240V and easy access to the fuses
  • Standard PC powersupply cable

Those are definitely the most important features for me. I should also mention that it is a slim-fit mixer. I forgot the actual name for the formfactor. I was going to get something with more channels and more expensive but in the end decided this is a perfect mixer for me at the moment. Especially if i just hook an effects unit up to it… then it will last me a long time :)

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2006/11/04/new-mixer-ecler-nuo2/feed/ 1 October 25th Short House Mix http://nedos.net/2006/10/30/october-25th-short-house-mix/ http://nedos.net/2006/10/30/october-25th-short-house-mix/#comments Mon, 30 Oct 2006 07:59:21 +0000 russo. http://nedos.net/blog/?p=35 Oh here’s another thing :) I have a nice short mix that i made out now and available for you all :) Its slightly tribal and latin and demo length :) Its actually been up on my website for a couple of days now but my site has been down… Anyway enjoy!

October 25th Short House Mix

Blogged with Flock

]]> http://nedos.net/2006/10/30/october-25th-short-house-mix/feed/ 2