Here are some notes on how I set up a few Apples running OS X 10.3.  I do not claim that this is the best way to go about doing anything and some of this is very specific to my needs, but it seems to work.  If you have any comments, corrections, or suggestions on better ways to do any of this, please let me know!

Some of these things are trivial to do and the way to do them is fairly obvious, i.e., there's absolutely no trick to them.  However they are listed here to remind me they should be done on a fresh install (since I've already had to contend with this stuff three times). Topics:

• Swapping Control and Caps Lock.
• GNU Compiler.
• X Windows Applications, Fink, LaTeX, etc.
• X Windows Server.
• Controlling the start-up chime.
• Getting ls Output To Be in Color.
• Keeping the Machine from Going to Sleep.
• Secure Shell (ssh and Its Friends).
• Safari Download Directory.
• Terminal Key Equivalents.
• More on emacs.
• Installing the Apple Script Menu.
• Getting PostScript from JPEG, GIF, PDF, etc.
• Getting a Good System Beep.
• Sync'ing File Systems.

Cluster-related topics:

• Running a Command (Or Commands) on Client Nodes.
• Installing Packages on Client Nodes.
• Path for LAM/MPI.

Swapping Control and Caps Lock

You want to do this as root, so you'll probably have to do this first:

  sudo su

  /System/Library/Extensions/IOUSBFamily.kext/Contents/PlugIns/IOUSBHIDDriver.kext/Contents/Info.plist

    <key>IOKitPersonalities</key>
    <dict>
         <key>Generic Keyboard</key>
         <dict>
              <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
              <string>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
                              .
                              .
                              .

    <key>IOKitPersonalities</key>
    <dict>
         <key>Generic Keyboard</key>
         <dict>
              <key>Swap control and capslock</key>
              <integer>1</integer>
              <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key>
              <string>com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver</string>
                              .
                              .
                              .

  touch /System/Library/Extensions

It is my experience that this has to be redone after every minor upgrade of the OS (i.e., when 10.3 switched to 10.3.1 I had to re-do this and then again with the switch to 10.3.2).

If you want to use an application to handle the dirty work for you, you may find ucontrol useful. (Thanks to Tim Heany for brining this to my attention.)

After logging in, click on "Download Software" (in orange?) text on the left side of the page.  This expands a bit.  Click on "Developers Tools" (again, on the left side of the page).

Checking things August 12th, things have changed from what was previously described here.  It now appears you can simply download the XcodeTools1.5__CD.dmg bindaries (about 372 MB) as a single-shot thing.  Install this "in the usual way."

X Windows Applications, Fink, LaTeX, etc.

Do not install the Apple X11 server (well, not yet anyway).  If you have done that, then issue this command (which looks drastic, but we'll fix it in a bit):

  sudo rm -rf /usr/X11R6 /etc/X11

Go to http://fink.sourceforge.net/.  Click on Download over on the left.

Click on "Fink 0.7.0 Binary Installer" and install that (you may have to click on an icon of a box being unpacked to get this going).  It should go fairly smoothly and you will see a directory someplace (I think a Finder window pops up) labeled "FinkCommander" (or something like that).  Open that directory and drag the FinkCommander application to your Applications folder (I think a green circle with a plus sign will appear when you've dragged it to a place where it knows its supposed to move to a new directory).  Once you have it there, double-click on it to open it.  I think you have to enter your password twice before it will be happy.

Once it starts, you will see a long list of applications you can install.  Rather than sorting through these collectively, it's much easier to use the "Name" field in the upper right corner to get what you want.

Let's try to install grace (really xmgrace, you have to type xmgrace at the command line).  This is a great plotting package (and free, of course).  Details about grace can be found here.  (But, you can skip this if you have no need for grace.)

Click on the Name field and start typing "grace".  As you type the number of applications which match your selection will be shown (first all those that have a "g" in their name, then a "gr", then and "gra", etc.).

Once you see grace, click on it so that it is highlighted in blue (or whatever).

Now click on the button that looks like a green plus sign on a page with a letter "h" on it.  It will say various things about dependencies and do you want to select this or that.  Just stick with the default choices which you get by just hitting return each time.  Once it starts compiling this will take a very, very long time to compile.  Don't worry about that.  Mostly this is compiling all the stuff that grace requires which is probably stuff you want on your system anyway (assuming you're a bit of a number cruncher).

The applications I typically install are:

• grace: This takes a very, very, long time to compile because of all the dependencies that have to be satisfied and compiled, but you probably want all this in there anyway.
• tetex: LaTeX, TeX, BibTex, etc.  This also takes a long time because its huge -- be patient.  (See additional comments below.)
• emacs21: I'm not sure this is needed...
• ispell: I certainly need this! After installing this I put in a link as follows:

    sudo ln -s /sw/bin/ispell /usr/bin/ispell
  

  I do this so emacs will find ispell (without having to modify emacs's search path or whatever).
• xv: General graphics viewer.
• gv: Frontend viewer for ghostscript (i.e., PostScript files).

  sudo texconfig

  sudo su
  cd /sw/src
  tar zxvf tetex-src-2.0.2.tar.gz
  cd tetex-src-2.0.2
  ./configure
  cd texk/xdvik
  make
  make install
  cp xdvi.bin /sw/bin
  cd  /sw/src/
  rm -rf tetex-src-2.0.2
  exit

  perl -pi -e 's|ld1||g' Makefile

X Windows Server

Go to http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/x11/download/.  Fill in the information they request (don't forget to uncheck the box that says you want Apple spam), and click the "Download X11" button.  You may have to click on an icon of a box being unpacked or the installer may start automatically.  After installing it, fire up the server and see what you get.  I think you will get a xterm that isn't too functional.  I suggest you modify the file

  /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc

  xterm -sb -sl 500 -e /bin/bash -login &

  xterm -sb -sl 500 -e /bin/tcsh -l &

  setenv DISPLAY :0.0

  export DISPLAY=:0.0

Start-up Chime

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20031220154651763

Colorizing ls Output

  export LESS='-X -e'
  export PAGER=less

Go to http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/ and then follow the link to the downloads, i.e., http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/coreutils/. Once there, select the version you want of 'coreutils', i.e., coreutils-5.0.tar.bz2.  (For some reason when I downloaded this with Safari 3.1.1 it added an additional .tar to the end of the file name. Firefox didn't have this problem.)

Assuming you downloaded the .bz2 version of the tar-ball, you can unpack it with a command such as

  tar -xv --use-compress-program bunzip2 -f coreutils-5.0.tar.bz2

From the Terminal cd to wherever it unpacked and then type the following

  ./configure
  make
  sudo make install

  alias ls /usr/local/bin/ls -F --color

  alias ls='/usr/local/bin/ls -F --color'

For those of you who like to get your colors just so, you may want to check out TerminalColors which lets you tweak colors to your heart's content. (Thanks to David Lee for bringing this to my attention.)

Sleeping

Secure Shell (ssh and Its Friends)

  sudo /sbin/service ssh start

Alternatively, Aaron Whiteman clued me in to the "proper" way to start ssh.  Open "System Preferences", choose "Sharing", and select "Remote Login".  Done!

Aaron also writes:

General instructions for generating keys (and getting this going on a generic box) can be found here.

For the Mac, first generate these keys (and put the "pub" part on the machines you want to get to).  Quoting the material from the site mentioned in the previous link, you generate the keys by issuing the command:

  ssh-keygen -t dsa -f ~/.ssh/id_dsa -C "you@example.com"

  Your public key has been saved in ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub

  scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa you@another-host:.ssh/

  cat ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub | ssh you@other-host 'cat - >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys'

To get this to work on my cluster, where every node shares a common home directory, in the directory .ssh I issue the following command:

  ln -s id_dsa.pub authorized_keys

# The following is for getting password-less logins to work.  Much of           
# what I've done here is described at                                           
#    http://mah.everybody.org/docs/ssh                                          
# but, I did have to tweak things a bit to get them to work here.  One          
# of the changes I needed was to add the hostname to the SSH_ENV                
# variable to ensure there was a unique "environment" for each host.            

SSH_ENV="$HOME/.ssh/environment-$HOSTNAME"

function start_agent {
     echo "Initialising new SSH agent..."
     /usr/bin/ssh-agent | sed 's/^echo/#echo/' > "${SSH_ENV}"
     echo succeeded
     chmod 600 "${SSH_ENV}"
     . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
     /usr/bin/ssh-add;
}

# Source SSH settings, if applicable                                            
if [ -f "${SSH_ENV}" ]; then
     . "${SSH_ENV}" > /dev/null
     ps -xuww | grep ${SSH_AGENT_PID} | grep ssh-agent$ > /dev/null || {
         start_agent;
     }
else
     start_agent;
fi

That should, I believe, be it.  When you log on to one of the hosts the first time you will be prompted for the password you used to generate the keys.  However, after that, you should be able to access the host without a password for subsequent log-ins.

If you use the application SSH Agent, click the "Add Identity..." button.  You want to add the id_dsa file.  Enter your password to unlock the keys and then you should be done! No more need to enter passwords for your ssh-related connections (well, until you log-out and log-in again or shut down SSH Agent).

If you use SSH Agent, be sure to go to its Preferences and check the "Make Agent Global" box.

Safari Download Directory

In the Preferences of Safari, click on "General".

You will see a menu item that says "Save download files to:".  Click on that and select Other...

Then the window comes up type command-shift-G (upper case).  You will be prompted for a directory.  Type "/tmp".

Now click "Select" and hopefully you'll be all set.

Terminal Key Equivalents

First, you probably want to say you want the option key to act as the meta key.  Do this by going to the "Show Info" window (command-i).  At the top, select "Keyboard" from the menu list.  Click on the box at the bottom that says "Use option key as meta key".

Another thing that is helpful at times: I think by default the emulation is such that if you're looking at a man page or something and then you hit 'q' to get out of it the entire man page disappears and you're original screen is displayed.  No good.  I typically want to see what the man page just said while I struggle over some command.

In the Terminal Preferences (command-,), select "vt100" in the "Declare terminal type ($TERM) as:" menu.

To make it so that you have to hit command-shift-Q to quit Terminal, issue the following command at the command line (but not from the Terminal command line as noted below):

  defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSUserKeyEquivalents '{"Quit Terminal" = "@$Q";}'

There are other keyboard tweaks that are important for me.  You can tweak this from the command line (using defaults), but I went directly to the file ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Terminal.plist.  I now have the following in there:

  <key>NSUserKeyEquivalents</key>
  <dict>
       <key>Open URL</key>
       <string>@$U</string>
       <key>Close</key>
       <string>@$W</string>
  </dict>

The first thing (i.e., the Open URL command) makes it so that after you select some text in a terminal window you can open it as a URL by hitting command-shift-U.  The second thing makes it so that you have to hit command-shift-W to close a window (important for those used to hitting meta-W to select text in emacs). I believe you could do the same thing and avoid editing the file if you issue this command:

  defaults write com.apple.Terminal NSUserKeyEquivalents '{"Open URL" = "@$U";"Close" = "@$W";}'

More on emacs

Since I like larger fonts than what you get by default, I added this to my .emacs file

(modify-frame-parameters (selected-frame) '((font . "-*-courier-medium-r-*--*-140-*-*-*-*-*-*")))

Installing the Apple Script Menu.

Simply use the Finder to go to /Applications/AppleScript then double-click on "Install Script Menu".  If this works properly you should notice something that looks like as S in the upper right corner of your screen (by the clock and the volume-control icon).  Supposedly this S is a scroll.  I can see that.

Alternatively, for those averse to using the Finder, you can enter this at the command line

  open "/Applications/AppleScript/Install Script Menu.app/"

Getting PostScript from JPEG, GIF, PDF, etc.

If you have the need to convert a JPEG, GIFf, PICT, TIFF, PDF, or TEXT (RTF) file to PostScript, use the finder to select the desired file.  Now click on the Apple Script Menu.  Move the mouse over the Printing Scripts selection and then click on the Convert to PostScript that appears in the other menu.  You should notice in the Finder window that there is now a new version of your file with a .ps appended.  (The original is left unchanged.)

It is also possible to convert this script to an application so that you just drag files to it and it will convert them to PostScript.  (But we won't get into that here.)

From any application on which you can print, you can also print to file (and have the output PostScript or PDF).  From the Apple help information:

• Choose File > Print.
• Choose a printer from the Printer pop-up menu.  Note: If you have not defined any printers, you will need to make one up.  Go to "/Applications/Utilities/Printer Setup Utility" and make up a printer.  (Don't worry that this doesn't exist -- we're printing to a file after all.)
• Choose "Output Options" from the "Copies & Pages" pop-up menu.
• Select the "Save as File" checkbox, and then choose PostScript or PDF from the Format pop-up menu.
• Click Save.

Getting a Good System Beep.

Synch'ing File Systems.

#!/bin/bash -norc
#
# A shell script to 'sync' two file systems (or portions of file systems.)

# Default "remote" host with which we're sync'ing.
REMOTE=encephal2.eecs.wsu.edu

# Default directory on local machine to which we're reading or
# writing is the current working directory.
LOCAL_DIR=`pwd`/

# Create default directory on remote host to which we're reading or writing.
# Strip out home directory part if there is any.
REMOTE_DIR=`echo ${LOCAL_DIR} | sed s#${HOME}/##`

# By default we do a get and then a put.
GET=1
PUT=1

while getopts ":r:l:R:gpvh" opt; do
    case $opt in
	r ) REMOTE_DIR=$OPTARG ;;
	R ) REMOTE=$OPTARG ;;
	l ) LOCAL_DIR=$OPTARG ;;
	g ) PUT=0 ;;
	p ) GET=0 ;;
	v ) VERBOSE=1 ;;
	* )
	  echo "usage: ${0##*/} [-r remote_dir]  [-R remote_host]"
	  echo "         [-l local_dir] [-g] [-p] [-v] [-h]"
	  echo "  By default ${0##*/} will sync the current working directory with"
	  echo "  the corresponding directory on ${REMOTE}."
	  echo "  Flags:"
	  echo "       r  specify the remote directory"
	  echo "       R  specify the remote host"
	  echo "       l  local directory"
	  echo "       g  only do a 'get' from the remote host"
	  echo "       p  only do a 'put' to the remote host"
	  echo "       v  verbose"
	  echo "       h  print this message"
	  exit 1
    esac
done
shift $(($OPTIND-1))

if [ "$VERBOSE" = "1" ]; then
    echo "remote host:      ${REMOTE}"
    echo "remote directory: ${REMOTE_DIR}"
    echo "local directory:  ${LOCAL_DIR}"
    GET_FLAGS=-avuzb
    PUT_FLAGS=-Cavuzb
else
    GET_FLAGS=-auzb
    PUT_FLAGS=-Cauzb
fi


# Get the latest version of the routines from the remote host.
if [ "$GET" = "1" ]; then
    rsync ${GET_FLAGS} -e ssh --exclude '*~' --exclude 'junk*' ${REMOTE}:${REMOTE_DIR} ${LOCAL_DIR}
fi

# Put the latest version of the routines onto the remote host.
if [ "$PUT" = "1" ]; then
    rsync ${PUT_FLAGS} -e ssh --exclude '*~' --exclude 'junk*' ${LOCAL_DIR} ${REMOTE}:${REMOTE_DIR}
fi

exit

For those interested in something much more sophisticated, you should check out unison. (Thanks to Derek Teaney for bringing this to my attention.)

Running a Command (Or Commands) on Client Nodes.

#!/bin/bash -norc
#
# Simple script to run a command on each of the client nodes.

if [ "$1" = "" -o "$1" = "-h" -o "$1" = "-?" ]; then
    echo usage: ${0##*/} [-h] command_to_be_run
    echo "       (enclose compound commands in quotes)"
    exit
fi

echo Command to be run on each node: $*

for i in 1 2 3 4; do

    echo
    echo ====== Running on comp$i.local ======
    echo
    ssh comp$i.local "$*"

done
echo

   run-on-clients date

   run-on-clients "cd /tmp; ls"

   run-on-clients "cd /tmp
   ls"

Installing Packages on Client Nodes.

   sudo installer -pkg Fink\ 0.7.0\ Installer.pkg -target /

run-on-clients "cd Desktop; tar cvf - Fink\ 0.7.0\ Installer.pkg |
  (cd /tmp; tar xvf -); cd /tmp;
  sudo installer -pkg Fink\ 0.7.0\ Installer.pkg -target /"

Another thing to note about the previous command!  Since the sudo command is used to give superuser privlidges, you will be prompted for your password.  Unfortunately since you are typing this on the local host but the command is being requested by the remote host, your password will be echoed to the screen as you type it.  To avoid this, you can modify the run-on-clients script to turn off echoing, or you can wrap a stty -echo and stty echo around the command.  So, something like this:

stty -echo; run-on-clients "cd Desktop; tar cvf - Fink\ 0.7.0\ Installer.pkg |
  (cd /tmp; tar xvf -); cd /tmp;
  sudo installer -pkg Fink\ 0.7.0\ Installer.pkg -target /"
stty echo

Path for LAM/MPI.

   export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/bin

John Schneider's home page.