OSX

Restoring your non-Apple Time Capsule from your Mac

I have written about backing up your MacBook to a ZFS-based Time Capsule. Today, I restore. I am setting up a laptop to be just like my other laptop. This is not a disaster recovery incident, but it could be. In this post: The laptop is on the same network as the time capsule host (i.e. no VPN). The laptop is on a wired network – not required, but I think that would […]

Restoring your non-Apple Time Capsule from your Mac Read More »

Burning a disk image to a thumbdrive on OSX

Every time I go to burn a new image to a thumbdrive I have to remember how. This post aims to fix that so I can just look it up. Case in point: mfsBSD I have downloaded mfsbsd-12.1-RELEASE-amd64.img from https://mfsbsd.vx.sk/files/images/12/amd64/ From the same URL I’ve looked in mfsbsd-12.1-RELEASE-amd64.img.sums.txt and grabbed the md5 hash. I verified the downloaded file via: [dan@pro02:~/Downloads] $ md5 mfsbsd-12.1-RELEASE-amd64.img | grep a79046a330938d284167dac08cc0bfcb MD5 (mfsbsd-12.1-RELEASE-amd64.img) = a79046a330938d284167dac08cc0bfcb Yes, that matches.

Burning a disk image to a thumbdrive on OSX Read More »

Running FreeBSD on OSX using xhyve, a port of bhyve

bhyve is a hypervisor/virtual machine manager developed on FreeBSD. xhyve is port of bhyve to OS X. It is built on top of Hypervisor.framework in OS X 10.10 Yosemite and higher, runs entirely in userspace, and has no other dependencies. I usually use MacPorts, but ran into trouble with xhyve, so this morning I tried Homebrew instead. Installing Homebew (often referred to as brew) is outside scope, so please refer to their documentation.

Running FreeBSD on OSX using xhyve, a port of bhyve Read More »

What’s this database connection in my Google / Calendar / Desktop?

This morning I saw this weird popup / flag when I hovered over the Spam link on webpage. The text read: What is that? I had no idea, but it was persistent. Every time I hovered the mouse over the link, that popup appeared. It would not appear in screenshots, so I resorted to the camera in my phone. After hiding the browser window, the popup also appeared on my Calendar: When I

What’s this database connection in my Google / Calendar / Desktop? Read More »

OSX was caching my ssh passphrases – easy fix

I have used ssh-agent for a long time. I enter my passphrase once, then let ssh-agent handle my ssh sessions. Last night, I noticed I ssh’d to a box and did not enter my passphrase. I got logged in. I had just rebooted my laptop so I was very concerned about this. It look at while, but eventually, I discovered the cause. OSX was caching the passphrase. More interestingly, it was not using

OSX was caching my ssh passphrases – easy fix Read More »

Wireless Diagnostics on OSX – check your wifi

I wanted to know how many wireless access points (WAPs) were using what channels near my place. I googled and found a reference to the built-in OSX tool, Wireless Diagnostics. But to be fair, the app is hidden. To access the app, hold the Command key while clicking on the WIFI icon. This will change what usually appears: Now click on Wireless Diagnostics. The following should appear. This is the boring part. Not

Wireless Diagnostics on OSX – check your wifi Read More »

Scroll to Top