While in Snow Leopard was quite easy to see your ext2/ext3 formatted disks via MacFuse and ext2-fuse, in Lion you need to install another fuse fork and select a special option. That new fork is OSXFUSE, which latest release at the time of this post if from December 2011.

The most common symptom indicating you need this is to try mounting an ext2/3 formatted drive and see the following error:

fuse-ext2 /dev/disk3s1 /Volumes/Movies
dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libfuse.2.dylib
 Referenced from: /usr/local/bin/fuse-ext2
 Reason: image not found

During the installation of OSXFUSE, you need to enable MacFuse Compatibility Layer by flagging the appropriate checkbox as shown below:

click to zoom

Once you’re done with this, replug your ext2/3 formatted drive and it’ll automagically mount it in Finder, giving your deserved magnificent user experience of a Mac user

Today I’ve found a nice solution at least for Linux systems with the utility reptyr.

While I’m writing this post the package is still in unstable dist, hence not part of the “standard” repositories for a Debian Linux system.

But you can download it using command:

wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/r/reptyr/reptyr_0.3-2_i386.deb

for i386 architecture.

Then, to install

qpkg -i reptyr_0.3-2_i386.deb

And finally you run it.

For example, to bring a process with pid 4242 to your running tty you type:

reptyr 4242

Enjoy!

Note: this procedure requires an .img file that you will be required to create from the .iso file you download.

TIP: Drag and Drop a file from Finder to Terminal to ‘paste’ the full path without typing and risking type errors.

1. Download the desired file

2. Open the Terminal (in /Applications/Utilities/ or query Terminal in Spotlight)

3. Convert the .iso file to .img using the convert option of hdiutil (e.g.,hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/path/to/target.img ~/path/to/ubuntu.iso)

4. Note: OS X tends to put the .dmg ending on the output file automatically.

5. Run diskutil list to get the current list of devices

6. Insert your flash media

7. Run diskutil list again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2)

8. Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN (replace N with the disk number from the last command; in the previous example, N would be 2)

9. Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m (replace /path/to/downloaded.img with the path where the image file is located; for example,./ubuntu.img or ./ubuntu.dmg).

▪ Using /dev/rdisk instead of /dev/disk may be faster.

▪ If you see the error dd: Invalid number ’1m’, you are using GNU dd. Use the same command but replace bs=1m with bs=1M.

▪ If you see the error dd: /dev/diskN: Resource busy, make sure the disk is not in use. Start the ‘Disk Utility.app’ and unmount (don’t eject) the drive.

10. Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN and remove your flash media when the command completes

11. Restart your Mac and press alt while the Mac is restarting to choose the USB-Stick

system (<command>, $retval)

The following example shows the printing of a content including a variable coming from the PHP script:

system('echo "'.$message.'"|lpr -o page-left=35 ', $retval );

Example with a Ricoh printer (but Ubuntu includes tons of drivers), network connected and listening on IP 192.168.1.10.

lpadmin -E -p<my printer name> -v socket://<my printer address> -P
/usr/share/ppd/openprinting/Ricoh/PS/Ricoh-Aficio_SP_4210N_PS.ppd.gz
-u allow:all

lpadmin -d <my printer name>

cupsenable <my printer name>

accept <my printer name>

echo "I am a Genius" | lpr -d

lpr -d mytextfile.txt

Since I do not have Virtual Center (they are mainly lab machines), I found very good hints about hot to do it from CLI via SSH.

And as usual, to avoid forgetting how I did it’s good moment to write down some notes about the process.

1. First of all, access to your ESXi 4.0 with vSphere Client, power off all the VMs and put the host in maintenance mode.
2. Second, from ESX console press ALT-F1 and type the word unsupported pressing <Enter> afterwards. Please note that you will not be able to see anything while you type. This is kind of secret word to enable Tech Support Mode (TSM) locally.
3. It will prompt you for root’s password, after which you’ll get console shell access on ESXi. Now let’s enable SSH access to the machine.
4. Vi the file /etc/inetd, search for ssh and remove the hash sign in front of the line:
   

   ssh      stream   tcp   nowait   root   /sbin/dropbearmulti   dropbear ++min=0,swap,group=shell -i –K60
   

5. Find the process id of inetd and send a hiccup signal to it to reconsider updated configuration:

   ~ # pidof inetd
   4935
   ~ # kill -HUP 4935

6. Access to the ESXi via SCP graphical interface (for example, using WinSCP.

7. Locate datastore (normally under /vmfs/volumes/datastore-name) and create a directory there called, for example, upgrade-4.1

8. Download the file upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.<somenumber>-release.zip from VMware Website and unzip it.

9. Transfer the unzipped content into the directory you created on ESXi using scp.

10. Access to ESXi host in SSH.

11. Upgrade using commands:
    ~ # cd /vmfs/volumes/datastore1/upgrade-4.1
    ~ # esxupdate update –m metadata.zip

12. Upgrade process will begin and conclude as shown below:
    
    

13. Reboot your ESXi

14. Access with vSphere 4.1 client and exit from Maintenance mode.

15. Restart your VMs.
    

This time the need was to add a series of users in a Linux system without repeating the command useradd one zirillion of times.

First, we need to populate a text files with details about the users we’re going to create.

Let’s assume the file is called myuserlist.txt (permissions 600) with the following syntax:

user1:password1:1001:510:My First Account:/home/user1:/bin/bash
user2:password2:1002:510:My Second Account:/home/user2:/bin/bash
user3:password3:1003:510:My Third Account:/home/user3:/bin/bash
user4:password4:1004:510:My Fourth Account:/home/user4:/bin/bash

Once you’re done with the list, proceed to add the users with the command:

newusers myuserlist.txt

After command is issued, check the results in the following files:

/etc/passwd
/etc/shadow
/etc/groups

I tried to set it up on a VIA based appliance with Intel 1 Ghz processor and 1 Gb RAM, using 1 Gb Compact Flash and the image provided in download section of Zeroshell web site.

Everything went smooth, except that when I booted the appliance the BIOS information was displayed correctly, but as soon as Zeroshell boot started I saw crappy characters on screen.

After some investigation and some good hints from a friend, I found where the problem was and, as usual, here’s a tech note to avoid again this investigation in the future.

The issue was that appliance BIOS was set to redirect console to serial port with settings normally in use: 9600 bps, 8N1

…while Zeroshell defaults in its boot to more performing (but also less “default”) 38400.

To solve, remember to set your serial com port with correct speed as shown below (screenshot from a Win 7 box):

Or change the setting of the Terminal emulation software you are using to match the settings, as shown below (example with Putty):

Once you’re done, Zeroshell screen will appear as shown below:

The command line is:

openssl x509 –req –in <path>/<certificate_request>.csr  –signkey <path-to-CA-private-cert>/CA-private-cert.pem –out <path-to-certs-repository>/signed-cert-name.pem

Hopefully next time I do not have to search it again hours and hours

Naturally this command required to have created the request before, and to have correctly setup the CA… but there is documentation on the ‘Net concerning these two operations.