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Recently I was tasked to install the Nagios add-on NRPE on two OS X 10.5 servers.

I read a little on the ‘net about it, but no one actually had much in the way of a walkthrough, so I thought I would fill the void.

Prerequisites

1. Mac OS X Developer Tools

Requirements

1. NRPE source code
2. Nagios Plugin source code

Setup the environment

1. Install OS X Developer Tools
2. Create the nagios user using Workgroup Manager
3. Create the nagios group using Workgroup Manager
4. Change the primary group for the nagios user to be nagios

Compile and Install the Nagios Plugins

1. Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)
2. cd ~/Downloads/ - see note 1
3. Extract the Nagios plugins source code tarball
   • tar xvf nagios-plugins-1.4.13.tar.gz
   • cd nagios-plugins-1.4.13
4. Compile and install the plugins
   • ./configure
   • make
   • sudo make install
5. Update the permissions on the directories
   • sudo chown nagios:nagios /usr/local/nagios
   • sudo chown -R nagios:nagios /usr/local/nagios/libexec

Compile and Install the NRPE daemon

1. cd ~/Downloads/ - see note 1
2. Extract the NRPE source code tarball
   • tar xvf nrpe-2.12.tar.gz
   • cd nrpe-2.12
3. Update the configure file for Mac OS X compatibility
   • vim ./configure
   • on line 6673 change the text to read
     • if test -f “$dir/libssl.dylib”; then
4. Compile the NRPE daemon
   • ./configure
   • make all
5. Install the NRPE plugin, dameon and example config file
   • sudo make install-plugin
   • sudo make install-daemon
   • sudo make install-daemon-config

At this point you will have the NRPE daemon itself correctly installed.  To run it just execute the following in a terminal:

/usr/local/nagios/bin/nrpe -c path/to/config -d

This will start the daemon using your config file in daemon mode, instead of xinetd mode.

In order to get the daemon to startup at system boot you will need to create a launchd plist.  I will be writing this up for post later today.

Fringe, a new series on the Fox network that is using a new format Fox dubs Remote-Free TV.

The episodes are longer than your average sitcom.  The Wikipedia entry on the show states that this series will have less commercials and promos.

While this is true, one of the interesting bits is that before each commercial they tell you how many seconds should pass before the next segment starts.

Another interesting aspect of the series is how they identify each location during the episode.  Often shows just print plain text on the screen, however in Fringe they use 3D text on the screen and it is oriented differently depending on the scene.

The concert was at Chastain park Amphitheatre in Atlanta, GA, Saturday, September 13, 2008.

The venue was pretty packed. It was interesting that a large contingent of the handicapped spaces were parallel parking.

I should have taken a real camera with me since the iPhone’s camera was unequipped to handle the lighting situation.  Missy Higgins was the opening act.  It was great to hear some of the old songs, as well as three new tracks from the new album which is set to be released in February 2009.  They gave us the actual names of two of the new songs, but not the third one, which they said had only been played six times previously.

Emily made a comment that it was really great to play on stage at Chastain, where she had attended quite a few concerts herself.  They also sang Happy Birthday for Marie, one of the friends of Amy’s nephew, who was attending her first concert at Chastain.

A few of Amy’s younger relatives came out on stage and sang a chorus of This Little Light of Mine at the end of Let It Ring, during the encore.

The set list from the concert as played is:

Pendulum Swinger
Ozilline
Fill It Up Again
Yield
Power of Two
Wish You Were Here
Run
Money Made You Mean
The Wood Song
Moment of Forgiveness
Fleet of Hope from the new album
Go
Happy Birthday for Marie
Prince of Darkness
Sugar Tongue from the new album
Yield
Heartache for Everyone
Get out the Map
Weary of the World  from the new album (they didn’t give us the actual song name on this one)
Watershed
Shame on you
Closer to Fine

Encore
Fly Away
Let It Ring - Amy Ray from Prom
Galileo

So there is a nice report on cnet about an human denial of service attack on the Apple Retail Store Genius Bars.

According to this story, and the FSF site DefectiveByDesign, the goal is to book as many 10-minute time slots as possible over a two-day period at the Apple Store in a lame attempt to bring more attention to what the FSF sees as the defective nature of the iPhone 3G.

Richard Stallman, the founder of the FSF, has stated:

The motive for DRM schemes is to increase profits for those who impose them, but their profit is a side issue when millions of people’s freedom is at stake; desire for profit, though not wrong in itself, cannot justify denying the public control over its technology. Defending freedom means thwarting DRM.

He also describes DRM as Digital Restrictions Management:

However, since its purpose is to restrict you the user, it is more accurate to describe DRM as Digital Restrictions Management.

If Stallman’s purpose is to be obstructionist and unhelpful then he and his campaign has succeeded.

While it is laudable for Stallman and his FSF pals to despise DRM, it is definitely not laudable for him to block well meaning customers from receiving customer support by the vendor of a product they have purchased or use.

As for his whole campaign against DRM, I think that he is barking up the wrong tree.  If he really wants to eliminate the completely legal restrictions against the usage of DRM files on his favorite platform, then maybe he needs to work on changing the law.

It’s fine and good for him to characterize the anti-piracy claims as being propaganda by the media companies, but if people weren’t stealing the movies and music, then there wouldn’t be a need for the DRM.  I know plenty of people that download illegal copies of music, movies and television shows.  That means that no money is going to the artists, actors, and producers for those copies that are stolen.  And while I don’t agree on the statistics that the media companies are touting when it comes to the stolen media, I do agree that these thefts are making it more expensive to abide by the law.

As for not having a legal player on the free software platforms, maybe if the GNU and Linux crowd weren’t quite so rabidly against paying for software then there might be some incentive for a developer to license the codecs from Microsoft and Apple.  If these companies are as greedy as Stallman claims then it is doubtful that they would pass up the chance to have yet another market for their products.  I know that I would personally pay for the ability to legally play all of my iTunes Music Store purchases on a Linux-based media center computer.

This is the first post using the Wordpress app for the iPhone.

It’s a pretty nice application, but it would be better if it supported the rotation feature to get the horizontal keyboard.

I do like the fact that you can add photos.