The advantage is that it’s all isolated from the OS X system and using latest cutting edge version of softwares.

I assume you have textmate, because it’s easy to edit files that need sudo access. Textmate will just ask for your password.

Try and download the 30 days trial for easy of this tutorial. http://macromates.com/

Trust me, you will love Textmate, it’s state of the art editor.

ps: I use “mate” instead of “open -a TextMate” but not everyone might have the mate symlink.

Requirements:

• Snow Leopard 10.6.4 or greater
• Xcode 3.2.3, 2.4.1 or greater
• Admin privileges on your mac.

Software preliminary:

• Mysql 5.1.49 (macports)
• Ruby 1.8.7 (macports)
• Apache 2.2.9 (part of OS X)
• Rubygems (download)
• passenger (gem)
• ImageMagick
• rmagick

1. Preparing System

If you are upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard, I recommend you delet your old installation.

sudo rm -rf \
    /opt/local \
    /Applications/DarwinPorts \
    /Applications/MacPorts \
    /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.* \
    /Library/Receipts/DarwinPorts*.pkg \
    /Library/Receipts/MacPorts*.pkg \
    /Library/StartupItems/DarwinPortsStartup \
    /Library/Tcl/darwinports1.0 \
    /Library/Tcl/macports1.0 \
    ~/.macports

1.1 Prepare PATH environment:

$ open -a TextMate ~/.bash_profile

Edit your ~/.bash_profile file and add these 2 line.
Check if they are not there already.

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/man:$MANPATH

1.2 Download and Install Xcode

http://developer.apple.com/technologies/xcode.html

http://developer.apple.com/technologies/xcode.html

1.3 Download Macports and install

Download Page: http://www.macports.org/install.php

Download Direct Link: http://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-1.9.1-10.6-SnowLeopard.dmg

You might use this guide for installing Macports:

Full Install Guide: http://guide.macports.org/#installing

1.3.1 Update macports

sudo port -v selfupdate

2. Mysql

2.1 Intall Mysql

sudo port -v install mysql5-server mysql5

2.2 Make mysql autoload on startup

sudo port load mysql5-server
sudo -u mysql mysql_install_db5

3. Memcached (Optional)

sudo port -v install memcached libmemcached

3.1 Autoload memcached on startup

sudo port load memcached

4. Ruby, Rubygems, Rails, other gems

4.1 Install Ruby from macports

sudo port -v install ruby

$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-08 patchlevel 302) [x86_64-darwin10]

4.2 download rubygems from http://rubygems.org/pages/download

cd /tmp
wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
tar xpf rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.7
sudo ruby setup.rb

4.3 Install rails, rake, rspec etc.

sudo gem install rake rails thin tzinfo capistrano ruby-debug rspec

extra:

4.4 install mysql gem

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysql_config

5. ImageMagick, Rmagick and mini_magick (Optional)

lets install ImageMagick with support for JPEG, TIFF, WMF, PDF, and PNG images, and for Postscript and TrueType fonts.

sudo port -v install tiff -macosx imagemagick +q8 +gs +wmf

sudo gem install mini_magick rmagick

Test rmagick

$ irb -rubygems -r RMagick
>> puts Magick::Long_version
This is RMagick 2.13.1 ($Date: 2009/12/20 02:33:33 $) Copyright (C) 2009 by Timothy P. Hunter
Built with ImageMagick 6.6.3-0 2010-08-19 Q8 http://www.imagemagick.org
Built for ruby 1.8.7
Web page: http://rmagick.rubyforge.org
Email: rmagick@rubyforge.org
=> nil

6. Passenger

6.1 Install Passenger gem

sudo gem install passenger

6.2 Check Passenger path

passenger-config --root

 -> /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15

6.3 Build passenger for apache

follow instructions on screen

sudo passenger-install-apache2-module

6.4 Enable Passenger on apache:

open -a TextMate /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-passenger.conf

Put this on that file, change wherever necessary for your directories.

LoadModule passenger_module /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15
PassengerRuby /opt/local/bin/ruby
PassengerMaxPoolSize 6  # maximum global rails servers
PassengerMaxInstancesPerApp 2  # maximum rails servers per application
RailsFrameworkSpawnerIdleTime 1800
RailsAppSpawnerIdleTime 600
PassengerPoolIdleTime 600
PassengerMaxRequests 1000  # after 1000 requests will restart server, to skip memory leak :)
 
# Enabling NameBased Virtualhost
NameVirtualHost *:80
 
# my rails app virtual host 1
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName my-rails-app.local
    DocumentRoot "/Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/public" # change this to match your folder
    RailsEnv "development"
   <Directory /Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/public>
        # change this to match your folder
        # MultiViews must be turned off
        Options -MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    # logs are optional, change this to match your folder
    CustomLog  "/Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/log/access_log" combined
    ErrorLog   "/Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/log/error_log"
</VirtualHost>
 
# my rails app virtual host 2
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName myapp-xyz.local
    DocumentRoot "/Users/fred/rails/myapp-xyz/public"  # change this to match your folder
    RailsEnv "development"
    <Directory /Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/public>
        # change this to match your folder
        # MultiViews must be turned off
        Options -MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    CustomLog  "/Users/fred/rails/myapp-xyz/log/access_log" combined
    ErrorLog  "/Users/fred/rails/myapp-xyz/log/error_log"
</VirtualHost>

6.5 Enable Virtual host on apache:

open -a TextMate /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Add this new line at the bottom:

# Include Passenger ModRails config file
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-passenger.conf

6.6 Add your .local domain to /etc/hosts/

open -a TextMate /etc/hosts

Add this line to that file and change to the name of your choosen application

You might add as many as you want, each line for each that ServerName on your VirtualHost blocks

127.0.0.1 my-rails-app.local
127.0.0.1 myapp-xyz.local

I have more than 50 .local apps in there.

5 Start Apache

first let’s test apache configuration:

apachectl configtest

if you get “Syntax OK” then you are ready to start it

sudo apachectl start

If you want Apache to autostart when you boot your computer,
then enable Web Sharing from preferences.

7. Final

go to your browser and open the url of your application http://my-rails-app.local

If it works, congratulations.

If didn’t work, let me know here in the comments.

Extras

Nokogiri

  sudo port -v install libxml2 libxslt
  sudo gem install nokogiri -- --with-xml2-include=/opt/local/include/libxml2 --with-xml2-lib=/opt/local/lib --with-xslt-dir=/opt/local

Sqlite

sudo port install sqlite3
sudo gem install sqlite3-ruby

9. Sphinx, thinking-sphinx, sphinxsearchlogic

sudo port install sqlite3
sudo gem install thinking-sphinx sphinxsearchlogic

Update:

From the comments, some people might want to enable php and your Sites folder.

To be able to enable php and others you will have to enable another default vhost with localhost as servername.

Edit the file /etc/apache2/httpd.conf to enable vhosts

# Virtual hosts
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

then open /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf file,
delete or comment everything from there and add this block only:

#
# Use name-based virtual hosting.
#
NameVirtualHost *:80
 
# Change /Users/fred/ to your appropriate login name
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName localhost
    DocumentRoot /Users/fred/Sites/
    RewriteEngine On
    DefaultType text/html
    <Directory "/Users/fred/Sites">
        DefaultType text/html
        Options +ExecCGI FollowSymLinks Indexes
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Links and Resources

http://rmagick.rubyforge.org/install-osx.html

http://wiki.github.com/tenderlove/nokogiri/what-to-do-if-libxml2-is-being-a-jerk

http://www.macports.org/install.php

http://guide.macports.org/#installing

http://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-1.9.1-10.6-SnowLeopard.dmg

http://rob.by/2009/installing-mysql-via-macports-on-snow-leopard-for-ruby-development/

http://macromates.com/

http://github.com/joost/sphinxsearchlogic

http://www.sphinxsearch.com/

The image starts with about 600MB in size, which is not wasted actually.

I use this image to backup my sensitive data such as servers config files, mysql databases and repositories.
I set it to use AES 128bit encryption.
Case-sensitive, because Linux fs are Case-sensitive by default. If you don’t set it Case-sensitive you cannot use for linux backups.

hdiutil create -encryption AES-128 -stdinpass -fs “Case-sensitive HFS+” -type SPARSE -nospotlight -volname Servers Servers

it will create a file named Servers.sparseimage

The way OpenVZ virtual machines offers RAM resource is quite different from XEN.
You get Dedicated Ram (guaranteed ram) and Burstable Ram.

Burstable Ram is good when your server has sporadic load spikes, such as blogs and news sites.
Ideally you should not rely on burstable ram, it depends on the Host System. if the host system starts get low on free ram, you will lose that memory and the kernel will kill your processes to recover the ram.

Best is to keep below 90% of your Dedicated ram.

So, here I have an script that will monitor your memory limits. Also check for errors on your openVZ.
it’s perfect for an hourly cron job. It will print output on warnings and errors only.
Will suppress output if your openVZ container is behaving well.

for example, put on /etc/cron.hourly/

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#!/usr/bin/env ruby
#
# Program to check for failed count on OpenVZ systems
#   Failed counts indicate over commit on memory. 
#   it should always be zero.
 
 
@file = `cat /proc/user_beancounters`.split("\n")
 
# Delete the first 3 lines, which are irrelevant to us.
@file.delete_at(0)
@file.delete_at(0)
@file.delete_at(0)
 
@failcnt = []
 
@file.each do |t|
  tmp = t.split
  unless tmp.last == "0"
    @failcnt << tmp
  end
end
 
# Check that 'held' is less than 'barrier' 
#   held = current count
#   barrier = soft limit
# only checking for:
#   privvmpages @file[1] 
#   oomguarpages @file[7] 
# 
# oomguarpages : 
#   The out-of-memory guarantee, in pages. 
#   Any VE process will not be killed even in case of heavy 
#   memory shortage if the current memory consumption 
#   (including both physical memory and swap) 
#   does not reach the oomguarpages barrier.
#
# privvmpages: 
#  The size of private (or potentially private) memory allocated by an application. 
#  The memory that is always shared among different applications 
#  is not included in this resource parameter.
# 
# Sources: 
#  - http://wiki.openvz.org/UBC_secondary_parameters
#  - http://wiki.vpslink.com/Meaning_of_the_/proc/user_beancounters_Values
 
privvmpages = @file[1].split
privvmpages_current = privvmpages[1].to_i
privvmpages_limit = privvmpages[3].to_i
if privvmpages_current > privvmpages_limit
  puts "WARNING: #{privvmpages[0]} has passed the limit: #{privvmpages_current}/#{privvmpages_limit}"
  puts "WARNING: Server may crash or reboot"
end
# Also check it we are getting close to 70% of usage
privvmpages_pc = ((privvmpages_current.to_f/privvmpages_limit)*100).ceil
if privvmpages_pc > 70
  puts "WARNING: #{privvmpages[0]} is high: #{privvmpages_pc}% of limit"
end
 
oomguarpages = @file[7].split
oomguarpages_current = oomguarpages[1].to_i
oomguarpages_limit = oomguarpages[3].to_i
if oomguarpages_current > oomguarpages_limit
  puts "WARNING: #{oomguarpages[0]} has passed the limit: #{oomguarpages_current}/#{oomguarpages_limit}"
  puts "WARNING: Some Processes may be killed"
end
# Also check it we are getting close to 85% of usage
oomguarpages_pc = ((oomguarpages_current.to_f/oomguarpages_limit)*100).ceil
if oomguarpages_pc > 85
  puts "WARNING: #{oomguarpages[0]} is high: #{oomguarpages_pc}% of limit"
end
 
unless @failcnt.empty?
  puts "=================================="
  puts "Found Memory problems with OpenVZ:"
  puts "=================================="
  @failcnt.each do |t|
    puts "#{t.join(' - ')}"
    puts "=================================="
  end
end

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wget http://github.com/downloads/tiwilliam/istatd/istatd-0.5.7.tar.gz
tar xpf istatd-0.5.7.tar.gz
cd istatd-0.5.7
./configure
make
make install 
useradd istat
mkdir -p /var/{run,cache}/istat /home/istat
chown istat.istat /var/{run,cache}/istat /home/istat

Create and edit /etc/istat.conf to match your server specs.
This config is for my OpenVZ vps.

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#
# /etc/istat.conf: Configuration for iStat server
#
 
# IP Address to listen
network_addr           77.88.xx.xx
 
# choose any port, Default is 5109
network_port           55666 
 
# this is password, 5 digits
server_code            12345
 
server_user            istat
server_socket          /var/run/istat/istat.sock
server_pid             /var/run/istat/istat.pid
cache_dir              /var/cache/istat
monitor_net              venet0
monitor_disk             ( /dev/simfs )

Start istatd server:

1

sudo -u istat istatd -d -c /etc/istat.conf

you might add it to /etc/conf.d/local.start to auload on startup

Then download iStat for iphone http://bjango.com/apps/istat/ it’s only $0.99
and add your server to the list.

Here are some screenshots, first is server and second image is my macbook discovered with bonjour.

Methods I have seen so far:

1. Checking content-type from file name: this inefficient, a user can just rename a file and you are fooled, or the file can have a different file format and you will not get the expected result.

2. Using Rmagick to check if the file is an image. This is so slow and uses so much Ram. You can try to initialize an rmagick object from an image file, then rescue when the file is not an image.

3. Using mini_magick to check if a file. This method is faster than rmagick. Implemen ted same way as rmagick.

A Better method for OSX and Linux,  is to use the command line tool “file” included in most UNIX operating systems.

It is very fast and very accurate.

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file = "/path/to/file.ext"
if RUBY_PLATFORM.match(/darwin|linux|unix|solaris|bsd/)
 content_type = `file --raw --brief "#{file}"`.chomp
 case
  when content_type.match(/image|png|jpg|jpeg|gif/)
   real_type = "image"
  when content_type.match(/pdf/)
   real_type = "pdf"
  when content_type.match("Microsoft Word|Microsoft Office Document")
   real_type = "doc"
  else # This can go on and on
   real_type = "Unknown"
  end
end

Some examples of content types:

.doc = Microsoft Word document data

.doc = Microsoft Office Document

.pdf = PDF document, version 1.4

.pdf = PDF document, version 1.3

.psd = Adobe Photoshop Image

.png = PNG image data, 3508 x 4961, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced

.gif = GIF image data, version 89a, 195 x 109

.jpg = JPEG image data, EXIF standard

etc…

I hope this can be useful to someone.

1. XCODE you can download xcode from http://developer.apple.com/tools/xcode/index.html

2. OSX 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6

Procedures:

1. Install Passenger

$ sudo gem install passenger

now check where is passenger installed:

$ passenger-config --root

in my case is: /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.5

2. Install nginx

If you have nginx from macports, deactivate it in case of conflicts.

You can activate anytime later

$ sudo port deactivate nginx

$ wget http://sysoev.ru/nginx/nginx-0.7.59.tar.gz

$ wget http://sysoev.ru/nginx/nginx-0.7.62.tar.gz

$ tar xpf nginx-0.7.62.tar.gz

$ cd nginx-0.7.62

I Recommend using nginx 0.6 series because I had a lot of “502 Bad Gateway” with 0.7 series.

$ wget http://sysoev.ru/nginx/nginx-0.6.37.tar.gz

$ tar xpf nginx-0.6.37.tar.gz

$ cd nginx-0.6.37

$ sudo ./configure --add-module=/opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.5/ext/nginx/ \
  --with-http_ssl_module --user=nobody --group=nobody --with-http_gzip_static_module \
  --with-poll_module --prefix=/opt/local --with-pcre

Configuration summary
+ using system PCRE library
+ using system OpenSSL library
+ md5: using OpenSSL library
+ sha1 library is not used
+ using system zlib library

nginx path prefix: "/opt/local"
nginx binary file: "/opt/local/sbin/nginx"
nginx configuration prefix: "/opt/local/conf"
nginx configuration file: "/opt/local/conf/nginx.conf"
nginx pid file: "/opt/local/logs/nginx.pid"
nginx error log file: "/opt/local/logs/error.log"
nginx http access log file: "/opt/local/logs/access.log"
nginx http client request body temporary files: "client_body_temp"
nginx http proxy temporary files: "proxy_temp"
nginx http fastcgi temporary files: "fastcgi_temp"

$ sudo make

$ sudo make install

$ cd /opt/local/conf

$ sudo cp mime.types.default mime.types

$ sudo cp nginx.conf.default nginx.conf

Edit nginx.conf

$ mate nginx.conf

or

$ sudo vi nginx.conf

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user nobody;
worker_processes  2;
 
#error_log  logs/error.log;
#error_log  logs/error.log  notice;
error_log  logs/error.log  info;
 
# Pid
pid  logs/nginx.pid;
 
events {
worker_connections 1024;
}
 
http {
include       mime.types;
default_type  application/octet-stream;
 
sendfile        on;
#tcp_nopush     on;
 
#keepalive_timeout  0;
keepalive_timeout  65;
 
gzip  on;
# if a precompiled gzip of the file exists, use it and force http proxies
# to use separate cache's based on User-Agent
gzip_static on;
gzip_min_length 2000;
gzip_buffers    16 8k;
gzip_types      text/plain text/html text/css image/x-icon application/xml application/xml+rss text/javascript;
gzip_disable    "MSIE [1-6] \.";
gzip_vary         on;
gzip_comp_level   2;
 
gzip_proxied any;
 
server {
listen       80;
server_name  localhost;
location / {
root   /Users/fred/Sites ;
autoindex on;
index  index.html index.htm;
}
}
 
passenger_root /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.2;
passenger_max_pool_size 8;
passenger_max_instances_per_app 1;
# The maximum number of seconds that an application instance may be idle.
# That is, if an application instance hasn’t received any traffic after the given number of seconds,
# then it will be shutdown in order to conserve memory.
passenger_pool_idle_time 3600;
 
# Project 1
server {
listen 80;
client_max_body_size 250M;
server_name project1.local;
root /Users/fred/rails/project1/public;
passenger_enabled on;
rails_env development;
access_log  /Users/fred/rails/project1/log/nginx.access.log;
error_log  /Users/fred/rails/project1/log/nginx.error.log info;
}
 
# Project 2
server {
listen 80;
client_max_body_size 250M;
server_name project2.local;
root /Users/fred/rails/project2/public;
passenger_enabled on;
rails_env development;
access_log  /Users/fred/rails/project2/log/nginx.access.log;
error_log  /Users/fred/rails/project2/log/nginx.error.log info;
}
 
# Project 3
server {
listen 80;
client_max_body_size 250M;
server_name project3.local;
root /Users/fred/rails/project3/public;
passenger_enabled on;
rails_env development;
access_log  /Users/fred/rails/project3/log/nginx.access.log;
error_log  /Users/fred/rails/project3/log/nginx.error.log info;
}
 
# And so on... as many projects as you want
 
}

Now edit your /etc/hosts and add the hosts for your local project

$ mate /etc/hosts

127.0.0.1   project1.local

127.0.0.1   project2.local

127.0.0.1   project3.local

3. Start nginx

sudo nginx

4. go to your browser and open project1.local

5. Easy start/restart/stop

add this to your ~/.bash_profile file

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function nginx_reload() {
FILE="/opt/local/logs/nginx.pid"
if [ -e $FILE ]; then
echo "Reloading NGINX..."
PID=`cat /opt/local/logs/nginx.pid`
sudo kill -HUP $PID
else
echo "Nginx pid file not found"
return 0
fi
}
 
function nginx_stop() {
FILE="/opt/local/logs/nginx.pid"
if [ -e $FILE ]; then
echo "Stopping NGINX..."
PID=`cat /opt/local/logs/nginx.pid`
sudo kill -INT $PID
else
echo "Nginx pid file not found"
return 0
fi
}
 
function nginx_restart() {
FILE="/opt/local/logs/nginx.pid"
if [ -e $FILE ]; then
echo "Stopping NGINX..."
PID=`cat /opt/local/logs/nginx.pid`
sudo kill -INT $PID
sleep 1
echo "Starting NGINX..."
sudo nginx
else
echo "Nginx pid file not found"
return 0
fi
}

Troubleshooting

1. Nginx is not running

- check the logs

- check if it is really not running:

$ ps aux | grep nginx

2. you see the nginx error “502 Bad Gateway”

- may there is a problem with the /var/folders/ permissions on OSX:

2009/06/13 16:14:33 [crit] 1106#0: *1 connect() to unix:/var/folders/xl/xlSRYvzFHH8Fcehc51ciyE+++TI/-Tmp-//passenger.1091/master/helper_server.sock failed (13: Permission denied) while connecting to upstream, client: 127.0.0.1, server: hassan.local, request: "GET / HTTP/1.1", upstream: "unix:/var/folders/xl/xlSRYvzFHH8Fcehc51ciyE+++TI/-Tmp-//passenger.1091/master/helper_server.sock:", host: "hassan.local"

to fix it I did this:

$ sudo find /var/folders/xl/ -name “master” -exec chmod 755 {} \;

$ sudo find /var/folders/xl/ -name “-Tmp-” -exec chmod 755 {} \;

everytime I reboot my mac I had to do that… I still dont know how to fix it…

anybody knows?

That is it for now.

You can do it by typing about:config in your firefox url tab.

Most blogs and tutorial will tell you to set high values to improve the speed, such as this one: www.mydigitallife.info/2007/10/16/speed-up-your-firefox-by-adjusting-your-http-pipelining/

Many people will go crazy and make values even higher such as:

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests 32
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy 128
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server 128
network.http.max-connections-per-server 256

These settings are very high and will create at least 32 connections to your server.

if you have many images and SSI includes, it could overload your apache webserver.
If you use apache2.2 with worker_mpm it will create 1 thread for each connection, thus you will have 32 new threads forked within just a few seconds.

Of course if you have a quad-core server with lots of ram you should not bother to read this.
But for most cheap vps and single core servers, it can really help.

so how you do it? simple, just use iptables conn_limit module

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --syn --dport 80 -m connlimit --connlimit-above  8 -j REJECT

you may need to adjust the order or to insert or append like

# to apped to the end of the INPUT chain:
iptables -A input …
or
# to insert at position 10 of the input chain:
iptables -I input 10 …

I have tested this schema and work very well with firefox pipeline freaks.

the server will only then take up to 8 simultaneously connections per IP

to test the established connections you can try with netstat from the server:

netstat -na | grep -i esta | grep -v 127.0.0.1 | sort -n -t. -k2

Any comments, suggestions are welcome …

Update:

This can be not so good to legit users behind a proxy or firewall, because the the IP will be unique to all users behind the proxy/firewall.

in this case, you would increase the limit value.

requirements:
- app-admin/sysstat
- net-mail/sendEmail
- app-admin/procinfo
- local postfix server able to deliver emails.
- perl

emerge -va app-admin/sysstat net-mail/sendEmail app-admin/procinfo

I put the script under /etc/cron.daily

 
#!/bin/bash
 
SERVER="mydomain.com"
EMAIL_TO="your_email@gmail.com"
EMAIL_FROM="amin@mydomain.com"
 
# logged in users and what are they running
WHO=`w`
 
# processor stats
MPSTAT=`mpstat`
 
# virtual memory stats
VMSTAT=`vmstat`
 
# Top 20 memory hog applications
PS_MEM=`ps -A -o pid,pcpu,pmem,start_time,state,time,comm | perl -e '($_ = join "",<>) =~ s/(\t)/     /g; print;' |sort -g -k 3 -r | head -20`
 
# Top 10 CPU usage applications
PS_CPU=`ps -A -o pid,pcpu,pmem,start_time,state,time,comm | perl -e '($_ = join "",<>) =~ s/(\t)/     /g; print;' | sort -g -k 2 -r | head -10`
 
#  memory usage in MB
FREE=`free -m`
 
PROCINFO=`procinfo`
 
# iptables status
IPTABLES=`iptables -nL`
 
# established connections
NETSTAT=`netstat -na |grep -i esta |grep -v 127.0.0.1 |sort -n -t. -k2`
 
# line divider
DL="=================================================================================="
 
FINAL="${DL} 
`date`
${DL}
${SERVER} 
${DL} 
${WHO} 
${DL}
${FREE}
${DL}
${MPSTAT}
${DL}
${VMSTAT} 
${DL}
${PROCINFO}
${DL} 
Top 10 CPU processes
${PS_CPU} 
${DL}
Top 20 Memory processes
${PS_MEM} 
${DL}
${IPTABLES}
${DL}
${NETSTAT}
${DL}
"
 
echo "${FINAL}" | 
  perl -e '($_ = join "",<>) =~ s/(\t)/     /g; print;' | 
  sendEmail -f "${EMAIL_FROM}" -u "${SERVER} comparator" -t ${EMAIL_TO}

Resources:

- http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i-find-out-linux-cpu-utilization.html
- http://pagesperso-orange.fr/sebastien.godard/documentation.html
- http://caspian.dotconf.net/menu/Software/SendEmail/

To make Firefox faster is to store the whole profile folder into a Ram Disk.
RamDisk in Linux are called TmpFS. You can also use shared memory folder /dev/shm if you have it in your fstab.

This post in the gentoo forums explains how to do it in Gentoo linux.

I made a similar script to make it work in OSX Leopard.

The Script have 2 parts, Start.sh and Stop.sh
Here are the Scripts:

Start.sh

#!/bin/bash
# Run this script to enable the Ramdisk for Firefox profiles
VolumeName="Mozilla"
 
# Size in MB, make sure is not too low or not too high
SizeInMB=220
 
NumSectors=$((2*1024*SizeInMB))
 
DeviceName=`hdid -nomount ram://$NumSectors`
 
echo $DeviceName
 
diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ RAMDisk $DeviceName
 
# move the current profiles folder
mv Profiles Profiles_ &&
 
# make a symlink to the ramdisk
ln -s /Volumes/RAMDisk ./Profiles &&
 
# then copy it to the ramdisk
/bin/cp -r Profiles_/* Profiles

Stop.sh

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/Library/Cache/Firefox/
 
# clean the cache
rm -rf  Profiles/*/Cache/* &&
 
# will save your modifications back to the DISK
/usr/bin/rsync -av --delete ./Profiles/ ./Profiles_/ &&
 
# sometimes during unmount it will say disk is in use.
# make sure you close firefox before.
umount /Volumes/RAMDisk &&
rm -rf Profiles &&
mv Profiles_ Profiles

You can also use ‘tar’ instead of ‘rsync’. I just love rsync more.

* Warning: The ramdisk contents will be erased after you umount the ramdisk.

Have fun.

Gentoo Linux ROCKS

Update:

To speed up firefox even more  run these commands:

cd ~/Library/Caches/Firefox/Profiles
 
for i in */*.sqlite; do sqlite3 $i VACUUM;done;
 
cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Firefox/Profiles
 
for i in */*.sqlite; do sqlite3 $i VACUUM;done;

But there is a trick, when creating a “new” clean user it will allow you to enable filevault for that new user.

So, here is how you do it.

But before you try, make sure you have enough free space, try to get rid of huge files and folders, backup your data. (in this case, we will copy your data, so you will have 2 copies for safety)

Also clean your applications cache, such as firefox cache, camino, opera,
~/Library/caches/com.apple.Safari/Webpage\ Previews/ , etc…: and close most of your applications.

$ cd ~/Library/Caches

$ find ./ -name “Cache” -exec rm -rf {} \;

$ rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Webpage\ Previews/Incoming/*

Steps

1. Create another admin user, for example “admin”, with administrator privileges

2. login as that user.

3. move your old user folder.

$ cd /Users/

$ sudo mv myusername myusername.bak

3. delete your old user from the “Accounts” preferences pane.

4. then create it again and check the option to use filevault

5. Logout from “admin” and login again as newuser.

6. Now copy the old data to your home folder. ( will take a very long time for that)
update: You must use rsync instead of cp, so that you also copy your VERY important hidden files. such as .ssh .gnupg .vimrc .gem .gitconfig etc..

$ sudo /usr/bin/rsync -av /Users/myusername.bak/ /Users/myusername/

# watch out if you have files that should not change the ownership, such as server backups.
$ sudo chown -R myusername ~/

7. Logout and login again, for your preferences to take effect

8. If everything looks fine, you might just delete the backup folder.

$ sudo rm -rf /Users/myusername.bak

if you have any confusions let me know in comments.