Ever since the upgrade to Apple
OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) on my MacBook (v5.1) I encountered wireless
problems every now and then. These 'experiences' are documented in two
different blog posts here and here.
At
the time I was also running an 'old' version of Little Snitch (v2.x).
After installing v3.0.1 my problems seemed to have solved... Seemed,
until I upgraded Little Snitch to v3.0.2.
After
the (mandatory) reboot my wireless connections were gone. The adapter
wouldn't go active. The symptoms being the exactly the same as before.
So I have no doubt, that Little Snitch had something to do with it.
A while back I had regular issues with the wireless adapter on my MacBook after I had upgraded to OSX Mountain Lion, but after the removal of Little Snitch (I still ran the beta version) it seemed that times were a changing... Seemed that is.
This morning I was fiddling about with my photo website, and needed to see the results in several different browsers. One of them being Google Chrome.
Trying to launch the Chrome app, it crashed immediately. Reopening didn't help. So I tried to download a newer version, since I hadn't updated mine since the upgrade to Mountain Lion. The result; It still crashed. Even after removing all Chrome (and Google) references on the disk, it still crashed.
So, it became time to consult the book of knowledge, and see what the Internets had to say about my little ordeal.
At the house I have currently two ISP delivering broadband. Well, broadband isn't the correct word, since the the one of them is only a mere 256kbps (I think). The other is a 'whopping' 20Mbps.
The 20Mb connection is provided by XS4ALL, and the 256kbps is for free (if you have a phone subscription with Ziggo). The 256kbp is the minimum they provide to transport the phone calls, but if you're a masochist you can also browse the internet over that connection.
So, two ISP @ home. Combine that with a Juniper SRX firewall, and a dual ISP setup is born. The theory of that setup is that I connect both ISP's to the firewall, and use the 20Mb line as a default internet connection, but when that one dies, I automatically get switched to the backup line (256kbps).
Last night I was minding my own business on the couch, when the wireless connection on my MacBook (UniBody) decided to call it a day. According to the symptoms (no bars visible in the WiFi icon in the menu bar, no visible wireless networks in the vicinity), the WiFi adapter was turned off. Turning the WiFi back on was not possible though.
In my line of work I get to work with a lot of security devices which run self-signed certificates. Those certificates are most of the time generated when the device / appliance is installed, or configured for the very first time. When you connect to one of those devices with a web browser, you tend to see the warnings displayed by the browser that the connection is not to be trusted.
In Firefox, you can add an exception in the browser. When you've done that, the next time you go to the website, the browsers treats the website as trusted.
When you install a Perfect Server based on Centos and ISPConfig v3.x, the system / 'installer' creates for the components self-signed certificates. All these certificates will generate different warnings in your browser, mail clients etc. So time to eliminate those warnings.
First I needed to find out where all those certificates are located, and what there formats are. In my case, there are three services that use SSL/TLS in some form;
- Postfix SMTP service
- Courier IMAP service
- http / Apache2 webservice
Checking the configuration files will reveal their locations.
;)