Conceptric

The Mac Topic.

  1. A remote future for my Mac mini

    11th Apr 2008

    Written by James Whinfrey.

    I’ve come up with a brilliant idea to reuse my old Mac mini. I’m going to convert it into a server on my local network for development and hosting our personal web projects.

    OK… not very original, but the key point is that I want to be able to use the wireless networking, stick it anywhere, and not have to worry about peripherals. A very mobile server.

    I already work with remote servers over public networks, and rarely use anything but the command line. For this project I wanted to be able to use the Mac desktop. This seemed the perfect excuse to play with VNC. Additionally, I frequently use SSH and PKI for encryption and authentication respectively, but not VNC.

    The Plan.

    It seemed to me that there were several parts to the problem, with only one of which I’m familiar.

    1. Configure a VNC Client on the local machine.
    2. Configure a VNC Server on the remote machine behind a firewall.
    3. Enable SSH communication through the firewall.
    4. Lock it all up using an SSH tunnel through the firewall so the Server and Client could talk.

    Now to work!

    The Client.

    I settled on Chicken of the VNC (COTVNC), a open source project providing a VNC Client for Mac OS-X. Great, that’s just what I want and it gets good reviews, but I guess most other clients out there would work too.

    Once installed COTVNC takes almost no configuration, that all comes later in the SSH and Server.

    Connection set-up dialogue for Chicken of the VNC

    You might be able to see that I set up two connections; one for an unsecured connection, so that I could see if the security measures locked me out later; and this one for the secured connection, that’s why the host is the local machine.

    The Server.

    First I tried Apple Remote Desktop (ARD), but found it a little slow, but more importantly I couldn’t find a way to close the two ports in the firewall that the service automatically opened. While I’m diligently using SSH tunnelling to avoid compromising the security of my machine, these two ports are sitting there waiting for attack!

    Time to try a different approach. I chose to disable the ARD service, closing the firewall again and installed a third party VNC server. The one I selected was Vine Server from Redstone Software. The reason? Nothing better that I’d read good things about it in blogs and on message boards, it’s available for Mac OS-X, and it’s free.

    What is in the box for Vine Server on Mac OS-X

    For Mac OS-X it downloads as a disk image containing the Server and a Viewer. I just wanted the Server as I’m using COTVNC, so a drag toward the Applications folder and a double click later I’m ready to configure things.

    Vine server can be run in two different modes; as a System Server that starts automatically whenever the Mac starts up; or as a Desktop Server that can be run like any other application. Since I want to run my Mac mini as a remote headless — no keyboard, mouse or monitor — server, I only configured the System Server.

    Settings dialogue for Vine System Server

    Not especially difficult, but the eagle‒eyed out there might have spotted that I didn’t enable the “Require Remote Login” option; in fact I did the first time and bang went any connection. I reasoned that I’m using SSH tunnelling, so the Server won’t realise that the connection IS via SSH and block it.

    Set the System Server running, checking that it starts up again after a restart, and that’s the Server done.

    The Secure Protocol.

    Actually, this was pretty easy. Go to System Preferences > Sharing and enable the Remote Login service.

    Settings to enable the Remote Login service on Mac OS-X

    Make sure that the other services are disabled, unless you have a particular use for them; I’ll be enabling the Web Sharing service later. This should ensure that the firewall is closed on all ports except the one used for SSH — port 22.

    The Tunnel.

    The idea of the SSH tunnel was to forward any communications sent between port 5900 — the default VNC port — on the local machine and the remote machine, through an encrypted SSH connection.

    Now there are lots of utilities to help you manage your SSH world, but I tend to use SSH-Agent and the command line. I primarily use SSH-Agent to manage authentication, but it does have the ability to construct tunnels.

    Set-up dialogue for SSH tunnels in SSH-Agent

    If you’ve got PKI set up, you won’t even need to enter any passwords in order to establish the connection.

    The Result.

    Once your tunnel is connected, you can start up COTVNC, or equivalent, and log‒in!

    An image of the desktop on the remote machine

    Everything appears to work and I find Vine Server much more responsive than the Apple free offering.

    By the way, I tried logging in with the unsecured connection and was kicked out.

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  2. First impressions of MarsEdit

    10th Apr 2008

    Written by James Whinfrey.

    I’m writing on the 30 day trial of MarsEdit, the blog editing tool for the Mac. Given that this is my second post of the day — very rare, I know — you might have gathered that I like it.

    I’ve always edited my online content remotely, I have a local copy and can work off–line. I use TextMate for most of my development work and I’ve been using it for blogging too.

    OK… I was reluctant to change. I like having full control over mark–up and haven’t been impressed by a WYSIWYG editor yet, for Web use at least. Untried, I ranked MarsEdit amongst them.

    I must apologise to the developers. It’s a great and flexible tool. Hope I’ll be doing a little more blogging!

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  3. The MacBook’s back

    16th Nov 2007

    Written by James Whinfrey.

    I went over to the Apple Centre in Solihull, that’s in the UK, to pick up my newly repaired MacBook Pro this Monday. I thought I’d wait a bit before posting the results to make sure that the fix actually worked.

    I can’t fault the service I received from the Apple Centre, but the quality of Apple’s online and telephone support is appalling.

    I went round and round the automated telephone system chasing the status of my repair until I felt like I was about the have a brain haemorrhage. I’d already tried the online service only to find that it had no more idea about the status of my laptop than I did! Fortunately, I got a call from Solihull to tell me the laptop was ready just as a was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see it again.

    It turns out that is was a failure of the new LED display, and to their credit Apple duly replaced the whole clamshell unit containing the screen. The fix seems to have worked, but my confidence in the design’s longevity has definitely been shaken. This blow is particularly keen due to the fact that the repair would’ve cost nearly £400 if the laptop wasn’t under warranty.

    The long term question is now whether I should consider taking out the AppleCare extended warranty. It’s a lot of money, £279 for two extra years, but if the equipment is this unreliable…?

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  4. The thing about Apple

    9th Nov 2007

    Written by James Whinfrey.

    Back in the System 6 era, Apple Macs were niche products; well made, often expensive and largely found in academic circles. I always felt the problem was that Apple had a clearly superior product, but were just plain rubbish at marketing themselves. Wow, times sure change!

    My first Apple was back in the days of System 6 and a the Mac Plus, a combination that comprehensively beat the pants off the Windows offering of the day. Apple hardware was better build and more reliable that the generic PC equivalent and the software was more polished and usable. But that Apple was never any good at mass marketing, and the resulting niche market lead to lower volumes with higher costs.

    Apple have always had a knack for well executed, innovative design. Their hardware and operating system software has always been inseparable, making their developers jobs a little easier and leading to more complete products; a deliberate move.

    In addition, the Apple of today is a more efficient and focused corporate entity with effective marketing at its core. Look at the way they’ve trained people like Pavlov and his dogs; the website goes down and the Web is full of rumour about fabulous new devices.

    But I guess this must come at a price and that is the old business models, where products were released when they were ready. Microsoft has long been marked as an example of the worst excesses of technology corporations, but is Apple much different any longer? I personally don’t think so, and not just because my bad MacBook Pro experience.

    To be fair, the bigger your market share the greater the probability the people will talk about your failures. Yet we’re all hungry for the next big thing. No wonder technology companies now frequently practice early prototyping, fixing the problems in after-sales. It’s a tricky tightrope between reputation and lost market share.

    In short, the mass marketing Apple has joined Microsoft in the big time and is bound by the same rules. Why should we expect a different result?

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  5. A new MacBook Pro

    8th Nov 2007

    Written by James Whinfrey.

    I’m an Apple user that recently I splashed out on a 15 inch, 2.2 GHz MacBook Pro. So why am I having to write this on my old Mac mini?

    The day came and I received my MacBook Pro; beautifully presented in carefully designed and executed packaging. I opened it up and was immediately impressed by build quality that put my past laptops, Dell and Toshiba, to shame. The new LED screen was the very impressive, almost as good as my external Dell 2007WFP.

    Before you get the impression that I’m one of those people that get over excited by anything with an Apple on it, I should point out that the MacBook Pro is not without faults. It lacks a few USB ports, could do with more battery life, gets too hot for my liking; though I’ve never felt in physical danger; and as a result the fan can get a little loud.

    However, in use everything was going as well as I had hoped. All my favourite applications worked well and I am a convert to virtualisation, with both Windows XP and CentOS Linux running at the first attempt.

    But less than three months later and I’m using my good old Mac mini again. The display suddenly dimmed and started to flicker. The local Genius bar, 30 miles away, think that either the backlight or display logic board has failed and are going to replace them under warranty. They were helpful and very apologetic, but have had it for six days now and I’ve not heard anything.

    It’s pretty disappointing for what I previously considered a quality brand. I’ll be posting how well Apple handle the problem, both this repair and the ongoing MacBook performance.

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