os x for hackers at heart - the apple of every hacker's eye

[...]... the Macintosh The Macintosh has become the computer for everybody.” For novices, it remains the easiest computer there is For enthusiasts, as in the old days, there is a vast array of third-party applications, utilities, and customizations, to tweak and improve the way the OS works For hackers and programmers, there’s the command line and the BSD Unix compatibility layer All the power, all the tools,... and all the geekery of Linux is present in Mac OS X Shell scripts, X1 1 apps, processes, kernel extensions… it’s a unix platform It’s even possible to forgo Apple s GUI altogether and run KDE.Why you’d want to is another matter.While its unix core is what has made Mac OS X a viable platform for hackers and programmers, it’s the user interface that has made it popular Apple s Terminal application is... own Apple Remote Desktop services As of version 2.0, the remote desktop control portion of these services is based on the VNC protocol, and as of v10.4, Apple bundles the server piece with every copy of Mac OS X It can also be downloaded from Apple s site (www .apple. com/downloads/macosx /apple/ appleremotedesktopupdate22.htm l) for Mac OS X versions 10.2.8, 10.3 .x, and 10.4 .x. The management application... founder of the Apple Human Interface Group, even penned an article titled “Top 10 Reasons the Apple Dock Sucks.” xxi xxii Foreword Mac OS X was an entirely different operating system Most classic Mac OS applications were compatible, but only when operating inside a special runtime environment All system extensions and user interface modifications were permanently lost For many users, these changes are what... stable and has the added benefit of always being there (at least for Mac OS X v10.4, and later) There are several free clients available for Mac OS X in various states of development, and the browser and java-based ones work in the predominant browsers on the platform.Table 1.1 presents some of the more common options: www.syngress.com 7 8 Chapter 1 • A Network Admin’s Guide to Using Mac OS X Table 1.1... as much to the beauty of the interface as perhaps the historical desktop www.syngress.com 3 4 Chapter 1 • A Network Admin’s Guide to Using Mac OS X focus of the platform, many people probably cannot fathom the use of a Macintosh that has no directly attached output interface But as Mac OS X has matured, the variety of applications and roles in which one might find a system has increased Whether it is... trying to perform her job from a Macintosh, particularly those in heterogeneous networks While Macintoshes have nearly always been able to network with each other with relative aplomb, performing random bits of networking was only for the very adventurous, or those willing to abandon the Mac OS for MkLinux (a Linux distribution that provided some of the foundations in early versions of Mac OS X and its... required Also, unless specified, the operating system in question will be the client version of Mac OS X v10.4 and since we will be compiling stuff here and there, the Developer Tools must be installed Running a Headless Mac The very idea of running a Macintosh sans display would seem to defy the very nature and intent of the platform Most Mac users are attracted to the platform, at least in some small but... distribution ■ Custom software packaging ■ Hardware and software asset inventorying ■ Scheduled and manual remote command execution ■ Text chat with users ■ Remote control VNC VNC (www.realvnc.com) is an open source remote desktop management system One of the beauties of VNC is its cross-platform nature; there is server software for every major platform and for many less popular operating systems.There are clients... (www.redstonesoftware.com/vnc.html) and configure it OSXvnc is an open source implementation of the service implemented as an application that any user can execute For those users who wish the service to start up at boot time, there is an option to do so (providing said users have administrative privileges on the system) In general, OSXvnc is a faster and more configurable implementation, but the ARD implementation . Technical Editor FOREWORD BY TOM OWAD APPLEFRITTER.COM OS X for Hackers at Heart THE APPLE OF EVERY HACKER’S EYE 343_OSX_FM.qxd 11/4/05 6:56 PM Page iii Syngress Publishing, Inc., the author(s),. systems. Outside of the corporate sector Ken is co-founder of Seattlewireless.net one of the first community wireless networking projects in the U.S. 343_OSX_FM.qxd 11/4/05 6:56 PM Page viii ix Ken studied. that is directly related to the coverage in this book. ■ A comprehensive FAQ page that consolidates all of the key points of this book into an easy-to-search web page, pro- viding you with the