Blind Administration

A few weeks ago I've lost the ability to see any output form my MacBook Pro.

It was a second time. For the first time I had lost the embedded led display only.
The DVI output worked fine. Then came the healing power of promise - I have to buy a new one.
But threat without the coverage it's just the bucket of words.
The MBP makes me blind completely and definately. No video output. No remote access.
No working ssh daemon, no firewall access, no future.

I thought the target mode would be the cure.
I have PowerBook Pismo with Tiger onboard. Unfortunately, the data on MBP was encrypted with
a FileVault from Snow Leopard. Either try of target mode connection, or try of manual mount failed.

Collecting of the recipe components took me many hours, often filled with an exasperation.
Hidden typos. Invisible prompts. Lurking daemons.

The recipe.
It's here to remember. It's here to save other souls.

Power On.
Listen to chime and wait a few moments, then log in yourself:
username TAB
password

Open Applications
⌘+Shift+A
and invoke your favourite text terminal by typing its name, followed by CMD+O
i t e r m ⌘+O

Confirm you're in:

$ say ok
$ sudo su
> put your password <

Confirm your personality.

$ whoami | say

Let the dogs out. Select a race, choose wisely.

$ launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/telnet.plist # enable configuration and
$ launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ssh.plist    # set Disable key to false
$ launchctl start com.apple.telnetd
$ launchctl start com.openssh.sshd

Check the locks.

$ defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf globalstate | say
2

Firewall states

• 0 - de-activated
  
• 1 - on for specific services
  
• 2 - on for essential services
  

Open the gates.
Pretty enough for older systems (Tiger), where no reboot required:

$ ipfw flush
> 'y' to flush <
$ ipfw list | say # 'any to any' means success

Permanent solution:

$ defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf globalstate -int 0
$ reboot

Connect and enjoy it.

Mount USB Disk drive.

sh-3.2# diskutil list| grep SAM
   1:             Windows_FAT_32 SAMSUNG                 2.0 TB     disk2s1
sh-3.2# diskutil mountDisk SAMSUNG
Volume(s) mounted successfully

Rsync your secrets.

Mac OS X ipfw traffic shaping

It's related to my common problem with images upload. When I start to upload a new set of pictures the rest of traffic on my isp network connection is being reduced almost to zero.

To decrease the available bandwidth to a flickr website, I've used below commands:

% sudo ipfw pipe 1 config bw 256kbit/s

% sudo ipfw pipe show
00001: 256.000 Kbit/s    0 ms   50 sl. 0 queues (1 buckets) droptail
    mask: 0x00 0x00000000/0x0000 -> 0x00000000/0x0000

% sudo ipfw add pipe 1 dst-ip 87.248.121.213 dst-port 80
33400 pipe 1 ip from any to any dst-ip 87.248.121.213 dst-port 80

% sudo ipfw show                            
33300       0          0 deny icmp from any to me in icmptypes 8
33400    1492    2084081 pipe 1 ip from any to any dst-ip 87.248.121.213 dst-port 80

% sudo ipfw pipe show
00001: 256.000 Kbit/s    0 ms   50 sl. 1 queues (1 buckets) droptail
    mask: 0x00 0x00000000/0x0000 -> 0x00000000/0x0000
BKT Prot ___Source IP/port____ ____Dest. IP/port____ Tot_pkt/bytes Pkt/Byte Drp
  0 tcp    192.168.1.101/57602  87.248.121.213/80     437   611800 46 64400   0

When the job is completed:

% sudo ipfw delete 33400 

OR /if there's no other pipes/

% sudo ipfw pipe flush
Are you sure? [yn] y

Flushed all pipes.