LINICKX.com

OSX Automator and Python - for mac address conversion

nick — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 18:24:00 +0100

Recently I wrote a python script for converting mac addresses (which you can download from github) and the reason I wrote it is because I receive emails like this...

The background is, I'm working on an 802.1x project, I need to find the printer, the quickest solution in this case is to look in the ARP cache of the router/switch on site.

The irritant is that in the email the MAC is in EUI format, but routers/switches are in Cisco's. To Further irritate, Cisco ISE and ACS use EUI format so if someone sends you a MAC address from a switch or their windows machine then you need to convert it, I've spent a lot of time replacing dots and dashes :D

Today, I realised that I could use Apple's Automator to grab text from somewhere... I could then parse it through my python scripts and have the results in my clip board... ready for pasting!

Below is my automator workflow

In the python field you can't see the full text... paste in this...

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys

addr=str(sys.argv[1])

if "." in addr:
    delimiter = "."
elif ":" in addr:
    delimiter = ":"
elif "-" in addr:
    delimiter = "-"

# Eliminate the delimiter
m = addr.replace(delimiter, "")

# Normalise Case
m = m.lower()
u = m.upper()

eui= ":".join(["%s%s" % (m[i], m[i+1]) for i in range(0,12,2)])

print eui

If you've having issues creating a new automator service from the screenshot I have uploaded my Convert to EUI MAC.workflow save it to ~/Library/Services

Once you're all setup, you'll be able to right click any mac address and convert it. I've also created a Convert to Cisco MAC.workflow if you need it in router/switch format.

OS X: Sync'ing keychains in the iCloud

nick — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:20:00 +0100

Keychains hold passwords, certificates and general secret stuff - only do this if you understand the Apple will have access to this.... well assuming they can crack your keychain password (which they probably can).

Synchronising a keychain across macs could be useful, for example, having a dedicated keychain for WiFi credentials.

I stumbled across this link (dated Nov 2011) and found that this still works!

The ~Library/Mobile Documents/ folder is pushed to all iCloud enabled computers, so I have created a new folder, and copied my WiFi keychain into it:

#!/bin/bash
$ mkdir ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~linickx~icloud
$ cp ~/Library/Keychains/wifi.keychain ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~linickx~icloud/

If you only have one keychain login.keychain, consider splitting out the really secret stuff and only sync'ing the stuff you want to share with apple.

Now open "Keychain Access", delete the original keychain and add/open the iCloud copy. On any other Mac, add/open the iCloud keychain. Once complete, any change to the keychain will be pushed to all Macs, simplifying password changes :)

I'm also using this to sync dotfiles!

You could use dropbox for this, one reason to use dropbox is that iCloud sync seems to be a bit hit n miss; however Dropbox already have enough of my secrets, I'm not suggesting that iCloud is more secure, it's just better to have many baskets.

FOOTNOTE: If your mobile documents folder isn't sync'ing, see this post by SteveX.

OS X: anonymous ftp directory on Mountain Lion

nick — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 10:31:00 +0100

Pretty much every google search I tried landed me on a mountain lion server page, given I'm using normal mountain lion on a macbook the results were not much use!

I use FTP to transfer images to various appliances, firewalls, proxies etc so for speed and simplicity I need anonymous ftp. The default home directory on 10.8 for anonymous FTP is /var/empty which is a special directory which I didn't want to tamper with, once I found the right stuff in the man page changing the home of thr anonymous FTP user wasn't actually that hard...

To get started, in case you need it, the command to start the FTP service is:

sudo launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

and to stop:

sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/ftp.plist

The config file is /etc/ftpd.conf, mine looks like this:

# match umask from Mac OS X Server ftpd
umask all 022
chroot GUEST /Users/linickx/ftp
modify guest off
umask  guest 0707
upload guest on

As you can see, I have changed the home directory of my anonymous user to a folder called ftp inside my home directory.

Now, there's some special security stuff you can do to that folder, see man ftpd for full details, but this should do you as a minimun

\~ftp Make the home directory owned by ``root'' and unwritable by anyone.

\~ftp/pub This directory and the subdirectories beneath it should be owned by the users and groups responsible for placing files in them, and be writable only by them (mode
755 or 775). They should not be owned or writable by ftp or its group.

\~ftp/incoming This directory is where anonymous users place files they upload. The owners should be the user ``ftp'' and an appropriate group. Members of this group will be
the only users with access to these files after they have been uploaded; these should be people who know how to deal with them appropriately. If you wish anony-
mous FTP users to be able to see the names of the files in this directory the permissions should be 770, otherwise they should be 370.

The following ftpd.conf(5) directives should be used:
modify guest off
umask guest 0707
upload guest on

This will result in anonymous users being able to upload files to this directory, but they will not be able to download them, delete them, or overwrite them, due
to the umask and disabling of the commands mentioned above.

Happy FTP Everyone!

wireshark xquartz osx (mountain lion) - crash on start

nick — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 11:59:00 +0000

If (like me) you have just installed wireshark and and xquartz at the same time you'll notice that after completing both installations wireshark will crash and not start up properly.

The wireshark forum shows that if you run wireshark from the command line you get this error..

(process:1234): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
    Using the fallback 'C' locale.

(wireshark-bin:1234): Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

... for which there are a couple of work arounds, such as setting your display variable or opening wireshark from within an xquartz terminal window.

The actual fix was found here, notice the log out after installing... by simply logging out and back in again my wireshark now loads without any nasty work arounds.

Hope that helps!

OS X: Mediatomb (luanchd) .plist file for automatic start up.

nick — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:34:00 +0000

Inspired by this, but better ;)

So now I have got mediatomb working, I've started on my own StartupItem so that it loads at boot time. The reason it is better is because you can start and stop mediatomb via launchctl.

I saved the below (the more) as /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.linickx.mediatomb.plist.

To start:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.linickx.mediatomb.plist

To stop:

sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.linickx.mediatomb.plist

Happy Days!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>  
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.linickx.mediatomb</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array> 
        <string>/usr/local/bin/mediatomb</string>
        <string>-e</string>
        <string>en0</string>
        <string>-P</string>
        <string>/Users/nick/.mediatomb/mediatomb.pid</string>
        <string>-p</string>
        <string>49152</string>
    </array>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>nick</string>
    <key>ServiceDescription</key>
    <string>Run MediaTomb at boot</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Nice</key>
    <integer>20</integer>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/Users/nick/.mediatomb/error.log</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/Users/nick/.mediatomb/output.log</string>
</dict>
</plist>

OS X: PS 3 Media Server service for start at boot (launchd)

nick — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 17:18:00 +0000

Given the popularity of the Playstation 3 Media Server (PSM) I'm a bit confused to why I struggled to find a good solution to this...PSM does does not come with an mac service for running it a boot time, there is a windows service and some stuff for linux if you google but the best effort I could find for OS X was a bodge via SSH!

This is my best effort so far, it's not perfect but it's a start. Below the more link, is a launchd .plist file which if you place in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ will start PSM at boot time, well kinda.

The catch is that a user needs to log in, any user will do, the process will run as the user defined in the .plist file but since PSM requires some kind of windowing libraries it simply will not start until a user logs in!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
"http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>  
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.linickx.ps3m</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array> 
        <string>/Applications/PS3 Media Server.app/Contents/MacOS/JavaApplicationStub.setenv</string>
    </array>
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>linickx</string>
    <key>ServiceDescription</key>
    <string>Run PS3 Media at boot</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>Nice</key>
    <integer>20</integer>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true/>
    <key>AbandonProcessGroup</key>
    <true/>
    <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
    <string>/Applications/PS3 Media Server.app/Contents/Resources/Java</string>
    <key>StandardErrorPath</key>
    <string>/Library/Logs/PSM/rror.log</string>
    <key>StandardOutPath</key>
    <string>/Library/Logs/PSM/output.log</string>
    <key>Java</key>
        <dict>
            <key>MainClass</key>
            <string>net.pms.PMS</string>
            <key>JVMVersion</key>
            <string>1.6+</string>
            <key>ClassPath</key>
            <array><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/net/pms/pms/1.72.0/pms-1.72.0.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/beanshell/bsh-core/2.0b4/bsh-core-2.0b4.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/commons-codec/commons-codec/1.7/commons-codec-1.7.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/commons-collections/commons-collections/3.2.1/commons-collections-3.2.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/commons-configuration/commons-configuration/1.9/commons-configuration-1.9.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/commons-httpclient/commons-httpclient/3.1/commons-httpclient-3.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/commons-io/commons-io/2.4/commons-io-2.4.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/commons-lang/commons-lang/2.6/commons-lang-2.6.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/com/h2database/h2/1.3.168/h2-1.3.168.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/ch/qos/logback/logback-classic/1.0.7/logback-classic-1.0.7.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/ch/qos/logback/logback-core/1.0.7/logback-core-1.0.7.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/apache/sanselan/sanselan/0.97-incubator/sanselan-0.97-incubator.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/slf4j/slf4j-api/1.7.1/slf4j-api-1.7.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/slf4j/jcl-over-slf4j/1.7.1/jcl-over-slf4j-1.7.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/com/google/code/gson/gson/2.2.2/gson-2.2.2.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/hamcrest/hamcrest-integration/1.2.1/hamcrest-integration-1.2.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/hamcrest/hamcrest-library/1.2.1/hamcrest-library-1.2.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/jboss/netty/netty/3.2.7.Final/netty-3.2.7.Final.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/maven/maven-nsis-plugin/2.1/maven-nsis-plugin-2.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/net/java/dev/rome/rome/1.0.0/rome-1.0.0.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/jdom/jdom/1.0/jdom-1.0.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/net/coobird/thumbnailator/0.4.2/thumbnailator-0.4.2.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/jaudiotagger/2.0.3/jaudiotagger-2.0.3.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/net/java/dev/jna/jna/3.4.0/jna-3.4.0.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/com/jgoodies/common/1.2.1/common-1.2.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/com/jgoodies/forms/1.4.2/forms-1.4.2.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/com/jgoodies/looks/2.4.2/looks-2.4.2.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/com/github/junrar/junrar/0.7/junrar-0.7.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/commons-logging/commons-logging-api/1.1/commons-logging-api-1.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/apache/commons/commons-vfs2/2.0/commons-vfs2-2.0.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/commons-logging/commons-logging/1.1.1/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/apache/maven/scm/maven-scm-api/1.4/maven-scm-api-1.4.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/codehaus/plexus/plexus-utils/1.5.6/plexus-utils-1.5.6.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/apache/maven/scm/maven-scm-provider-svnexe/1.4/maven-scm-provider-svnexe-1.4.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/apache/maven/scm/maven-scm-provider-svn-commons/1.4/maven-scm-provider-svn-commons-1.4.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/regexp/regexp/1.3/regexp-1.3.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/jwbroek/cuelib/cuelib/1.2.1-2008-06-13/cuelib-1.2.1-2008-06-13.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/mediautil/mediautil/1.0/mediautil-1.0.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/com/googlecode/xmlwise/1.2/xmlwise-1.2.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/com/googlecode/juniversalchardet/juniversalchardet/1.0.3/juniversalchardet-1.0.3.jar</string><string>$JAVAROOT/repo/org/hamcrest/hamcrest-core/1.1/hamcrest-core-1.1.jar</string></array>
            <key>VMOptions</key>
            <string>-Xmx768M -Xss16M -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true -jar</string>
            <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
            <string>$APP_PACKAGE/Contents/Resources/Java</string>
        </dict>
</dict>
</plist>

OS X: Converting videos but keeping the timestamp

nick — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:24:00 +0000

I got a new computer, w00t! My family like to use the point-and-click camera for adhoc videos whilst we're out and about, the thing is it's very old and records in a rubbish AVI format which consumes massive amounts of disk space, b000!

After a bit of googling I wrote the below, it'll search through your disk and find AVI files, check that the file extension is .AVI and then convert it to .mp4; for bonus points it'll change the timestamp of the mp4 to match the avi so that it'll import into iPhoto albums nicely.

#!/bin.bash
export IFS=$'\n'
for i in $(find ./ -type f -name '*.AVI') 
    do 
        if [ ${i: -4} == ".AVI" ]
            then
            echo "Converting $i"
            ffmpeg -i "$i" -s 480x320 -aspect 4:3 -b 768k -ab 64k -ar 22050 -r 30000/1001 "${i%.AVI}.mp4"
            sleep 5
            TSTAMP=`gls -l --time-style=+%Y%m%d%H%m "$i" | awk '{print $6}'`
            touch -mt $TSTAMP "${i%.AVI}.mp4"
            sleep 5 
            rm -f "$i"
        fi
    done

Quick Note: gls is the GNU version of ls not the built in BSD-MAC version, you get it via homebrew (brew install coreutils)

bash-completion

nick — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 19:47:00 +0100

If like me you can be a little slow at times you need this in your life.

Centos/Fedora Linux:

#!/bin/bash
$sudo yum install bash-completion

OSX: https://trac.macports.org/wiki/howto/bash-completion

PHP to solve problems

nick — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 11:05:00 +0000

PHP make you think of web app's right? ... well, did you know you can run it from the CLI to?

Recently I've been doing a lot of spreadsheet and sub-netting type stuff, whilst doing this mundane work I've realised that I can get scripts to work for me. I've started to post a few PHP network functions to github which I've been using.

Here's an example: I have a nokia firewall, the routing table in voyager is shown in the following format -

Network / CIDR Mask , Gateway
10.0.0.0 / 8 , 10.0.0.1

I need that same routing in a Cisco ASA format -

Network , Mask , Gateway
10.0.0.0, 255.0.0.0, 10.0.0.1

Now this is not a problem for a few routes but the firewall I'm looking at now has 177 static routes, which I don't want to convert manually.

Roll in PHP!
Save the original routing table as a .csv file. ColA = ip/mask , ColB = gateway.

Save this a route_conv.php

from your CLI run "php route_conv.php" and enjoy the output!

port install ipcalc

nick — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:39:00 +0000