LFT is a zippy alternative to tracreoute, the old standby for pinning down latency and dropped connections. But while traceroute takes 20-30 seconds to determine all the hops in a path, LFT does the job in about a second.
Input
ian@home:~$ lft www.thoughtdeposit.net
Output
Tracing ……………T
TTL LFT trace to 63.76.232.167:80/tcp
1 192.168.0.30 20.2ms
2 37.125.55.1 40.3ms
3 12.161.11.1 20.2ms
4 12.119.243.101 20.1ms
5 gbr2-p30.dtrmi.ip.att.net (12.123.208.62) 20.1ms
6 tbr2-cl18.cgcil.ip.att.net (12.122.10.134) 40.2ms
7 ggr1-p3100.chail.ip.att.net (12.123.4.17) 20.2ms
8 p2-2.ir1.chicago2-il.us.xo.net (206.111.2.121) 20.1ms
9 p5-0-0.rar2.chicago-il.us.xo.net (65.106.6.137) 40.2ms
10 p4-0-0.mar2.marylandheights-mo.us.xo.net (65.106.6.162) 40.2ms
11 p15-0.chr1.marylandheights-mo.us.xo.net (207.88.84.78 ) 40.2ms
12 66.236.121.50.ptr.us.xo.net (66.236.121.50) 40.2ms
13 host162.datotel.com (63.97.187.162) 40.2ms
14 [target] 63.76.232.167:80 40.2ms
Source, Debian package, and OSX Installer are all available.
Technorati Tags: command line, lft, linux, macintosh, networking, osx, tip, traceroute
OSX has a command line port scanner. It’s just super sekrit is all. The questionably named stroke command, is part of Network Utility, which is nestled in your Utilities folder. Normally it’s only exposed through Network Utility’s GUI, but there is a way to get at it from your command prompt.
First, create a link to stroke, preferably somewhere in your $PATH.
ian@mymac:~$ ln /Applications/Utilities/Network\ Utility.app/Contents/Resources/stroke stroke
Next make it executable, if it isn’t already.
ian@mymac:~$ chmod uo+x stroke
Now let’s do a port scan. We will scan the localhost, ports 49152 thru 65535.
ian@mymac:~$ ./stroke 127.0.0.1 49152 65535
Can you install nmap, or even nessus instead? Absolutely. But in an, ehrm, pinch — stroke will do nicely.
Technorati Tags: command line, howto, macintosh, microsoft, osx, port scan, security
Getting root access in OSX is a task that stumps a lot of new users. Ideally you shouldn’t need root at all, sudo should be enough. But sometimes you just need root. Here’s how to enable the root user in OSX Tiger.
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| First, open up NetInfo Manager in the Utilities folder. |
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| Next click the lock to authenticate yourself, you will need to have administrative rights. |
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| Select Enable Root User from the Security drop-down menu. You may be asked to authenticate yourself once more. |
Now that you have enabled the root user, you will probably want to change it’s default password. In most cases the root user’s password is either blank, or the first administrative user for this computer’s password. |
| Back in the Security drop-down menu, select Change Root Password |
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| Enter the previous root password once, the new one twice. |
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You can now become the root user from the command line by typing su and your new root password. |
Wikity is a miniature wiki in your OSX dashboard. If you’re a GTD true believer, it’s can also be the linch-pin of your system.
I keep four instances of Wikity open in my dashboard, one for my ‘next actions’ list, one for my ‘waiting on’ list, one for my ‘projects list’, and one for my ’someday maybe’ list. My someday maybe window usually gets cannibalized to look at other wiki pages I keep in the system, like my errands list, or the various agenda lists I keep for people.
This system fits my style because I, for my own picky reasons, really hate having extra icons in my dock or seeing them listed in the task switcher. So that rules out apps like Kinkless GTD. I just hit F12 and my lists pop-up, hit it again and everything disappears.
Wikity used to even work with Quicksilver, but the plugin seems to be broken for me right now. Still, I swear by this simple system, even not playing nice with my beloved Quicksilver wasn’t enough for me to abandon it.
CoRD is a Cocoa-based app for accessing Remote Desktop. The speed is comparable to MS’s client, but with no bookmarks, keychain integration, etc., file this under “revisit at 1.0″
Right now the biggest reason to use CoRD is if you want to use concurrent multiple Remote Desktop sessions. That’s not possible with MS RD Client unless you make copies of the executable and run each independently. Bleh.
Two wishlist features it may have someday are “Quicksilver plugin” and “VNC Support”, now that would make it a killer app.
Oh, my world for a MacBook Pro. For those times when I absolutely must use Windows, in the past I have struggled with Virtual PC emulation or log into a remote desktop connection on a windows box. Since Virtual PC not only runs Windows XP on top of my puny little powerbook, but it emulates an intel processor, it runs as slow as a dog. And remote desktop is no good for testing networking stuff, which is often the whole reason I want to run Windows.
Now there is Parallels for the new intel-based Macs, which allows you to run Windows, Linux, or whatever else intel-based OS you like. The great thing is you can run it in a window, you don’t need to reboot. And since intel macs don’t have to pretend they are intels, there is very little emulation — this means the speed is much better than Virtual PC. Hooray for virtualization.
Watch it in action on YouTube