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Manage devices with legacy Firefox versions on MacOS

I still have a few old web-managed devices of which the web UI does not work (correctly) with modern browser versions. It found out that they worked fine with Firefox 17.0.9esr (yes I know that is really old) and for quite a while I kept an outdated VM available to manage them. Since the OS that runs on now also is way beyond EOL I worked out a way to use older versions of the FireFox browser (as they keep a great archive of their historic versions).

Yes, one shouldn’t use obsolete browser versions as it is not safe for normal browsing, but to access a web interface of an internal device (that otherwise can’t be managed) should be safe enough as long as one doesn’t visit other sites. In this post I will describe how I set this up and also how I ensured that the browser would not conflict with a regular installation of the Firefox Browser

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Password-Protecting Shell Scripts

When setting up systems, configuring applications and making changes I prefer to script things rather than follow instructions. Main drawback of scripting is that it takes more time but has (in my view) a number of advantages

  • Scripting makes things reproducible
  • Allows for checking and validation
  • (when needed) can produce change logs
  • It can be reused when the same change has

However, frequently these scripts contain sensitive information (e.g. passwords) and must be transferred to someone (or another system) so they should not be stored in clear text. This post explains how to encrypt shell scripts using openssl for cross-platform use.

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VMWare vSphere Hypervisor 6.7 supports MacOS 12.13 (and 12.14!)

I am running  VMWare’s free vSphere Hypervisor (formerly known as ESXi) on my Mid-2011 Mac Mini Server (Macmini5,3) for many years . Earlier this year VMWare introduced vSphere Hypervisor 6.7 but as it was not really clear what it would add and I had a stable environment I decided not to upgrade (yet) when it came out.

However, ever since Apple introduced the APFS filesystem with MacOS High Sierra, special care was required to install (or upgrade) a MacOS VM on vSphere Hypervisor as the built-in EFI boot did not support this. Since I had to create a new MacOS Server today, I decided to give this update a try to see if it would support MacOS High Sierra. Documentation was not very clear on this, but it turned out that with this version of vSphere Hypervisor, MacOS 12.13 (as well as 12.14!) is supported, as this is how the dropdown when creating a new VM now looks like for MacOS:

This post contains the steps to perform an upgrade from vSphere Hypervisor 6.5u1 to 6.7 on my Mid-2011 Mac Mini Server, including the installation of the (not included) VMWare Tools image for MacOS.

Continue reading “VMWare vSphere Hypervisor 6.7 supports MacOS 12.13 (and 12.14!)”

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MacOS Server Replacement #2 – Migrating PostgreSQL

As part of the migration of my MacOS Server to Linux the next service to migrate is my PostgreSQL engine. Although PostgreSQL had already been hidden in MacOS Server for some time, it still was included (as internal services like ProfileManager and Calendar and Addressbook Server depend on it.  Despite it being hidden, I had still enabled it (manually) and hosted my PostgreSQL databases on my MacOS Server for ages. Despite migrations sometimes being a pain (i.e. not automatic) this worked well so far, including integrating it with the MacOS Server way of using transaction logs for offline backups. (so I will also have to look for a new way to do this). Continue reading “MacOS Server Replacement #2 – Migrating PostgreSQL”

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MacOS Server Replacement #1 – Migrating MySQL to MariaDB

As part of the migration of my MacOS Server to Linux the first service to migrate is my MySQL 5.7 engine. Although MySQL is not part of MacOS Server anymore for a long time (and I had installed it separately), I will cover the migration here as 1) I still had it running on my MacOS Server and 2) the migration wasn’t smooth so decided to share my learnings here. Continue reading “MacOS Server Replacement #1 – Migrating MySQL to MariaDB”

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Apple totally strips MacOS Server

Today I noticed that there was a new update for MacOS Server that had quite a lengthy explaination:

As per Apple Knowledge Base article HT208312, the once great Apple Server product as this fall will be reduced to:

  1. Profile Manager
  2. Open Directory
  3. Xsan

The rationale of this is, according to Apple:

In fall 2018, Apple will stop bundling open source services such as Calendar Server, Contacts Server, the Mail Server, DNS, DHCP, VPN Server, and Websites with macOS Server. Customers can get these same services directly from open-source providers. This way, macOS Server customers can install the most secure and up-to-date services as soon as they’re available.

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Signal Desktop stand-alone OS X Application

For quite some time I am an happy user of Open Whisper Systems’ Signal Messenger phone application as alternative to WhatsApp. The fact that this solution is open source and that the exchange of messages (and now also calls) is secure and that this can be verified by anyone are important and valuable. I use it on my phone but as I spend most of my time behind a laptop and still (call me old-fashioned) prefer a real keyboard over a touch screen I have been looking for a way to use it from my laptop as well. Continue reading “Signal Desktop stand-alone OS X Application”

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Mac OS X SSH Client asking for password after upgrade to Sierra 10.12.2

After installing of OS X (MacOS) Sierra update 10.12.2 I noticed that SSH connections started to ask for the password of my RSA key. This wasn’t how it worked before and not what I want (as I trust my MacBook Pro) as it is quite annoying.

For the current session the solution was quite simple, just run the command: ssh-add -A

There seem to be many discussions online in what is causing this (i.e. here) with strange theories and odd (or not working) solutions. As documented also here, the root cause seems to be that the upstream OpenSSH code has changed and that Apple’s developers are following the changes.

The solution is fortunately quite simple: just create a file called ~/Library/LaunchAgents/org.openssh.plist with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
    <dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>Add SSH Keys to SSH Agent</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
      <string>/usr/bin/ssh-add</string>
      <string>-A</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
  </dict>
</plist>

And from the next login onwards your SSH key will be added to ssh-agent again.