I am trying to create a solution that scans all network traffic and pulls out the jpg and gif images. These images could be saved to a directory and displayed by any of several "slideshow" applications or perhaps there is a simple way to show them in real time.
At my disposal is a Mac Laptop running Mountsin Lion, a terminal, and the built in wireless.
Any suggestions on an app that already does this that will run under those system requirements or perhaps a simple set if shell commands I could put together?
After a little searching I stumbled on some software called driftnet which is a network image sniffer, and is actually in Fedora's yum repo (and probably available in other distros).
Here is a description from the official site:
Driftnet is a program which listens to network traffic and picks out
images from TCP streams it observes. Driftnet is free software,
licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL.
I didn't see a homebrew package for Mac OSX so you might have to download the tar.gz and compile it yourself. It comes with very good man pages and hopefully suits your needs.
Related
i want to create a virtual monitor. The way this would work is that the virtual monitor would appear in a window on my desktop. As far as Windows knows it is just another monitor.
It occurs to me that it would, as a practical matter, have to be done as video card driver (i.e. rather than the video going out a wire to an LCD panel, it would go into another window on the desktop).
Does what i'm describing sound, technically, possible? (from a DDK point of view)
Note: i can't use a virtual pc, because no virtual PC has resolutions high enough for my needs. Also because it's not what i asked for.
Note: My reasons are unimportant, but i can make some up:
i want to test my application under high-dpi settings (288dpi)
i want to create a monitor that my iPad can VNC to
the family TV runs on the main monitor
the hijacker is monitoring the bus, and he'll blow it up if he suspects we're getting the passengers off
i'm trying to expand the limits of human knowledge and understanding, for the good of all man-kind
I'd say it's definitely possible, since that's what virtualization tools do for their guest utilities, but I wouldn't be able to tell you how in details. I'd suggest looking at the VirtualBox guest driver code as a starting point:
http://www.virtualbox.org/browser/trunk/src/VBox/Additions/WINNT/Graphics
(This is released under GPL as far as I'm aware.)
It's definitely possible, see for example the UltraVNC mirror driver. But I don't know of any virtual video driver that makes source code available.
I have been searching for something similar and I found a nice solution: spacedesk. You can download it here: http://spacedesk.ph/
In windows, it installs an extra monitor, which you can open in a browser or a viewer. Enjoy!
Don't know about Windows, but for X (Linux) there is Xvfb (X Virtual Frame Buffer), which is quite a useful thing.
I already have experience with setting up virtual machines, running them and other minor tasks. Im a gamer, so I wont get rid of windows (for now at least...) but I do want to be a great programmer and to be involved with the Open-Source community.
Id like to know if its a good idea to do my programming in linux through a virtual machine, vs giving it a partitioned section of the HDD. Id like to know about performance pros and cons and functionality.
All responses are appreciated, thanks in advance.
The type of programming I intend to dive into :
Android Dev, Web Dev, Desktop Dev...More Android and Web right now though.
So im looking at C#,C,C++,Java,PHP,HTML,MySQL...Off the top of the dome.
I do web designing as well, so dreamweaver is added as an "essential". But im sure I can do dreamweaver files and upload them to the server after programming in Linux...Right?
And any info on IDE's in Linux for the above mentioned are appreciated, but i would prefer going the coding route and understanding the essence of whats happening "under the covers"
Thanks to all for reading, I appreciate it.
Hope this isnt confusing :S
There is an easier solution..
I still have to use Windows for Symbian programming so I use a Wubi and Ubuntu to provide my double bout into Linux..you deploy Wubi uses a large file and thus no need to worry or mess with creating a partition..
I have used it for 18 months with no data loss and no worries..
There is also another tool called andlinux:
http://www.andlinux.org/
It uses colinux to run Linux as a program inside windows..
A couple things:
If you're using an IDE, there's no point to coding on Linux. Linux is nice for programming because the command line tools are awesome. Netbeans and Eclipse both work fine on Windows. All you'd be missing is makefiles (which IDEs don't use anyway).
Using a virtual machine would be annoying (working with the window and stuff) and slow. Try AndLinux if you want to have Linux running in Windows. It sets up X and Pulseaudio for you, so all of your programs will appear to be native. It's basically a way to run Ubuntu as a Windows service (all Ubuntu packages for your architecture are installable).
If you just want the fun of Linux command line programs without access to all of Ubuntu, cygwin is smaller and might be faster.
If by "Dreamweaver files", you mean HTML/PHP/CSS, then yes, you can just upload them to the server. As far as I know, the only ASP or ASP.net compatible server is Microsoft's, but why use that anyway?
EDIT: SO didn't give me enough space in the comments to answer your question..
AndLinux and Cygwin are basically just better ways to do your "virtual machine" idea.
Cygwin adds a posix layer to Windows (basically everything you need to compile Unix/Linux/BSD programs). This means that you can generally take a Linux program and just compile it on Windows and have it work. They also have repositories, but in my experience, the cygwin installer is slow and hard to use.
AndLinux runs the Linux kernel as a Windows service, giving you a similar experience as running it in VirtualBox/other virtualization programs. However, it also sets up X (the graphics layer for Linux) and PulseAudio (a sound system that lets you run sound over a network), so that when you run Linux programs they act and sound like native programs. I also like AndLinux better because you have access to all of Ubuntu's programs, and apt-get is easier to use than cygwin's installer. Also, if you use AndLinux and later to decide to go 100% Linux, you're basically already using it that way.
What I'm getting at is: If you want to run Linux in a virtual machine, don't. Just install AndLinux. It will be faster and it's much easier to work with (since everything is just a normal window).
Here's an example of the difference:
Screenshot of AndLinux: The program in the bottom right corner is running in AndLinux. Notice how it just looks like a badly themed Windows program? Compare that to something like this, where you have another desktop in a Window.
And still.. there's no reason to virtualize Netbeans. It's a native Windows program and you can gain nothing and lose a lot of speed.
If you're interested in Android development and you want to use Linux, then I would recommend you do your development in Eclipse. Eclipse is available for Linux and if you get Ubuntu then Eclipse is amazingly easy to install. I used VirtualBox + Ubuntu + Eclipse for several projects I worked on. If you decide that Linux is not for you and your project was in Eclipse then you will have no problem switching back to Windows since Eclipse is available for both operating systems.
The ONLY problem I had was the screen size on the virtual machine... if you have a big screen and you use a virtual machine then you might get limited to a fraction of your actual screen resolution. It's very easy to install Linux on a second partition, so I would just recommend you go with a second partition if you want to fully utilize the size of your monitor.
My setup is sort of the opposite: I run Linux as my main OS, both at work an at home, and I have Windows in a virtual machine. On a modern computer with adequate memory the performance of development tools is not a problem. I work with Visual Studio in the virtual machine, and I have seen few performance issues. (But note that this is on a fast computer, and that you may need more memory than otherwise, since you are running two OS:es at the same time. On an old computer with less memory it can become unbearable.)
Dual-boot, where you have to restart the computer to switch OS, doesn't work well for me. It takes way too much time to switch, and really need to switch back and forth. Having Windows in a window works much better for me, and you can maximize that "Windows window", so it looks like you're just running Windows.
One thing you may want to look at is to have Linux running in a VM, then configuring Samba to allow the host to network-mount pieces of the Linux filesystem so that you can operate using Windows tools, and have Linux running the server processes (e.g., httpd). Alternatively, I'm sure that there are shell extensions for using FTP, NFS, or SSH/SFTP servers from within Explorer, but I've not looked at any for a long time.
If you should happen to need to use graphical Linux tools then you can use the X server found in cygwin for that.
The downside of this plan is that Samba can be a bit tricky to configure, but you get to use the Windows tools you're already familiar with.
I had no issues running Ubuntu via VMWare. You can easily switch to full screen mode anytime. Strongly recommended. One shortcoming is that Linux will not be exposed to the full potential of your hardware. Compbiz Fusion failed to work as a result.
Given that you're a gamer, I'm thinking your machine should be fast enough to run Linux in a VM. Best to try out the VM before messing with disk partitions.
I use physically separate machines to run Linux and Windows (and MacOS X). This means that I don't have to reboot to do something different, and each system gets the full power of the hardware.
Disadvantages: more desk space used, more time and money spent maintaining hardware (though if you do a rolling upgrade, this is mitigated - Linux runs most happily on not-quite-new machines). Doesn't work so well if you like carrying laptops around.
Be aware that VMs universally don't give you full graphics acceleration. This can be a non-issue (many programs must cope with Intel GMA anyway), or it can be a showstopper. Your choice.
What do you recommend for quickly creating images for testing a software product (that needs hardware access - full USB port access)? Does virtualization cover this? I need to be able to quickly re-image the system to test from scratch again, and need good options for Windows and Mac OS.
Virtualization may work for you as long as it is only USB access.
VirtualBox is available with USB support either for "private use or evaluation" or commercially and works on Win, Mac and Linux. USB support on Linux and Mac is somewhat sporadical though and does not work with all devices. VBox supports snapshots.
VMWare has one free product called VMWare Server for Win and Linux but I'm not sure how far USB support is included in their server products. For Mac there is VMWare Fusion but that's not available for free. Fusion should work with most USB devices. Workstation products for Windows are more expensive. I think there is a trial version for all of them. All do snapshots.
I don't know how far Parallels (Mac) supports USB devices or snapshots.
You don't need snapshot functionality if you can afford some short downtime between re-imaging. You can shut down the VM and then just copy the disk image (which is nothing else but one or multiple regular files) and start the VM again. Snapshots can be reverted to a lot faster (without rebooting).
If virtual machines will work for you, you can choose between Virtual PC, VMWare and VirtualBox.
Virtual PC supports Win host and Win/linux guests. Although there are some caveats with regards to the X resolution support.
VMWare supports Win, OS X and Linux host. It supports Win and Linux guests.
VirtualBox supports same hosts and guests as VMWare.
None of the three supports OS X as guest officially. The reason is that OS X is licensed only for Apple machines. However, there are some hacks that allow installing OS X under VMWare. It might be also possible to install it under VirtualBox or Virtual PC, although I have not seen specific instructions.
If virtualization is not good enough for you, you can use precreated installation images or a disk imaging program.
For precreated installation images for Windows, you can use the sysprep tool (search for sysprep or system preparation tool). I don't know if there are equivalent tools for OS X from Apple.
For disk imaging programs, I know quite a lot people swear by Symantec Ghost. I personally have not used it, so can't give you much info about it. There's also a list of disk imaging programs on Wikipedia, so you evaluate these as well.
Hope that helps.
If virtualization is right for you depends on how much access direct access you actually need.
But if virtualization works then vmware offers products for Windows and Mac that support a Snapshot feature.
Or there's also VirtualBox which works on Linux, Windows and Mac, also supports snapshots and is free.
I use VMWare Player for this sort of stuff. I've not tested it with the sort of access you discuss (since I mostly do apps rather than driver-level stuff) but the advantages are many, specifically being able to copy the VM when it's shut down for later restore to a specific point (sort of a poor man's snapshot) and being able to have lots of configurations without blowing the hardware budget.
It certainly provides USB virtualization and I would say it's the best bet for providing the full device access. I would suggest testing it since, if it provides the hardware support you need, it's a very good solution for the other reasons given. The only other (non-VM) suggestion I can think of which would match it would be hard disk image backups which can be restored at will.
I've used Virtual PC heavily for this kind of thing in Windows, without ever hitting any issues. It's free, which is always a bonus ;o)
Edit: Just re-read the question - not sure that it has USB support. Should tick all the other boxes though
CloneZilla is a great, free way to reimage machines.
Once I worked for some company where we needed to test our software for various combinations of versions of OS, SPs and some other libraries which our application was dependent on. For each separate identified combination we had a separate partition image created with the help of Norton Ghost (DOS version). All images were put to a server. Whenever a tester got the next version of the system core to test, they would just methodically restore from all applicable images, install the application, test it and report it.
This approach though a straightforward one would allow full access to the hardware and will provide you with 100% native installation.
Nowadays, I still use this approach for my private PC. I'm sure you can try the latest achievements like Hyper-V. We use it nowadays where I work. When we tried to install Team Foundation Server (the process is far from being easy) we also had to drop the process at some point and just restore a virtual machine from an image because we realized we made a few mistakes during installation. Conceptually the same approach that saves a great deal of time. I'm not really sure though how compatible a virtual PC is in the sense of hardware access.
You can try both approaches.
P.S. Today there are two Ghost products, Symantec Ghost (good old one) for corporate use and Norton Ghost for home use (bloatware in my opinion). If you decide to try this option, I would recommend the Symantec Ghost (part of Ghost Solution Suite).
If you can't just use a virtual machine and take snapshots of the fresh install then do a fresh install onto real hardware and use a disk imaging tool (Ghost comes to mind).
If cost is a factor then there's a few Linux live CDs that will do what you want. This comes to mind. Put a second disk in the machine and image from the second disk unless you have fast networks and network storage; it's way to slow to go to and from the network regularly. If you're using a Linux live CD then you can actually set the second disk to EXT3 so Windows won't detect it and assign a drive letter too.
If you have a dedicated workstation for testing then I would highly recommend Symantec Ghost. Simply get the workstation to the clean state, reboot to ghost and 'take a snapshot' of the HD or partition. You can then replace the HD or partition from the image say from CD or multicasted over a network connection from another PC.
I have used it for years now, even to the point of automating the build of 60 test workstations (at the same time).
I'm not familiar with kernel driver development, so I want to know if there are other easy ways to add a virtual driver like CD Emulation in Windows Explorer.
One approach that might be worth considering is the Dokan project.
From the web site:
By using Dokan library, you can create your own file systems very easily
without writing device driver. Dokan Library is similar to FUSE (Linux user
mode file system) but works on Windows.
The DLL is directly usable from C/C++. There is a .NET binding, and a Ruby binding, both from the "official" project. Samples include a SSHFS, which mounts a remote file system over SSH, a ramdisk, and a mirror among others.
I've seen a whitepaper that demonstrated a file system organized by the tags present in a collection of MP3 files based on the Dokan library. I've also seen an description and demo that mirrored a user's Flickr photo stream in a file system.
I haven't tried it myself, yet, but plan to play with it "soon".
More detail would help a lot on this, but here are some good general suggestions:
If you're trying to mount some kind of virtual filesystem for manipulation within Explorer, a straightforward approach that Just Might Work is that you could expose your filesystem over WebDAV. There are WebDAV libraries for almost any development platform, and all of the major OSes come with the ability to map WebDAV folders for use from within their explorer UI.
Question about your question,
are you looking for a virtual driver that is similar to how explorer handles CD Emulation,
OR
Virtual CD Emulation Driver for windows explorer?
Does anyone know of a similar product to Citrix Server that'll run on the Mac OS?
Essentially, I'm looking to allow multiple remote users to log in to the same OSX Server at the same time (with full visual desktop, not SSH).
OS X's Quartz window server has no remoting abilities, unlike its predecessor. X11 does, but 'native' OS X applications don't use that; of the few Mac apps typically run in X11 (such as GIMP or CrossOver), none are specific to the Mac, so you might as well run them on a different OS.
That said, if all you want is to visually remote-control a session, it is possible to use VNC or a derivative, such as Apple Remote Desktop. Since 10.4, this allows for multiple simultaneous sessions, as implemented with Vine Server. Remote Desktop also has other abilities such as remotely installing and updating software.
(Unlike Citrix and X11, VNC does not send drawing commands over the network; it instead transmits a compressed image representation pixel-per-pixel.)
You should specify your exact needs. You will not get a Citrix-like experience where you can run single Mac apps in their own remote session. You will, however, get remote graphical control, and that may be more than enough for you.
I've never heard of it, but from their blog:
Aqua Connect Terminal Server uses the VNC (Virtual Network Computing) protocol to send data between Mac OS X and the client application.
Now, if someone does know of a non-VNC solution, I'd be happy to hear it.
Anyone have experience with Aqua Connect? Found them from Google, and they claim the next version works on RDP as well as VNC. Wondering if it's just a nice wrapper around the VNC capabilities #Soeren Kuklau pointed out.
Thanks for the link to Vine Server, that's worth investigating.
John Vasileff,
Back to My Mac is a tunnelling / NAT traversal technique that enables the use of any networking (including VNC-based remote control). iChat screen sharing, Finder Screen Sharing and Remote Desktop all use VNC. Apple does not offer any non-VNC solutions.
Citrix XenDesktop iPhone Demo