macfidelity

Just sorting my old reminder-mails and here the content hehe.

If you need to get work with launchd in Mac OS X check Apple’s documentation here.

Quote:

In Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, Apple introduced a new system startup program called launchd. The launchd daemon takes over many tasks from cron, xinetd, mach_init, and init, which are UNIX programs that traditionally have handled system initialization, called systems scripts, run startup items, and generally prepared the system for the user. And they still exist on Mac OS X Tiger, but launchd has superseded them in many instances. These venerable programs are widely used by system administrators, open source developers, managers of web services, even consumers who want to use cron to manage iCal scheduling, and they can still be called with launchd.

The launchd daemon also provides a big performance boost to your system. At any given time, only those daemons that are actually used are launched; combined with the fact that daemons can shut themselves down and be relaunched as needed means that you can reduce the average memory footprint of the system.

This article gives a quick overview of why launchd was needed, what it does, and then focuses on how to migrate your configuration files from cron, xinetd, mach_init, or init to a system using launchd.

Since 10.4 i am using Lingon as frontend for launchd.

Links:

• Apple launchd Getting Started Doc
• Lingon Homepage

Today i found another IPFW frontend for Mac OS X called: NoobProof

Quote:

NoobProof is a firewall configuration tool for Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5. Very easy, just follow the 5 steps how-to in the application help. NoobProof is a frontend for ipfw. NoobProof is freeware.

And yeah….basically it is WaterRoof in easy. For the record: both apps are developed by www.hanynet.com

Edit: Seams like there is missing an edit-function….tztz

Apples firewall can be found under System Preferences -> Sharing. Basicly you can just toggle between on and off, not that much….

Maybe WaterRoof can help you out, if you want to have more possibilities:

Waterroof is an IPFW firewall frontend for Mac OS X with a easy interface and many options. Features include dynamic rules, bandwidth management, NAT configuration and port redirection, pre-defined rule sets and a wizard for easy configuration. You can also watch logs and statistics. Rules configurations and network options can be saved and optionally activated at boot time.
With WaterRoof setting up a dual-homed firewall with Mac OS X has never been so easy… Start from a fresh-clean system installation and be ready in 1 minute with routing/bridging, NAT and port redirection, bandwidth limits and everything you need to fine tune your ipfw configuration.

Some images:

Gonna test it for the next weeks

Best regards

fidel