Multihomed Ethernet Interfaces on Mac OS X server 10.4

I had a Mac OS X 10.4 server with two ethernet interfaces configured so that eth0 connected to my internal network and eth1 connected directly to the Internet.

I could access either interface just fine from my internal network. But unbeknownst to
me, the outside world was not able to access the external interface.

Checking the firewall or even turning the firewall off completely had no effect. The output of ifconfig looked like it should, the cables were plugged in where they ought to be. You just couldn't get to the external interface from the Internet...

It turns out that Mac OS X expects eth0 to connect to the Internet and I had it connected to my internal network. The server could see the Internet via that interface. Because it passed through my restrictive firewall, the outside world could not see it but from my subnet I could see it just fine... a nasty little gotcha.

I swapped the network configuration parameters for that eth0 was the external interface and eth1 was internal and the problem was solved.

Look at the Network control panel under 'Network Status'. Both interfaces will be active in a configuration like mine but only one will state 'You are connected to the Internet via...'. That needs to be the external interface.

There must be some way to configure which interface connects to the Internet but it is easier to follow their convention and not worry about it.

Ortho - JavaScript Graphics Library

I've written a JavaScript library called Ortho (http://www.craic.com/ortho) on top of Prototype for creating 'diagram-style' graphics in JavaScript. You can create histograms, graphs, timeline plots, 'maps' of genomic data, annotated images, tree diagrams, etc.

Unlike Canvas, it seamlessly integrates text with graphics and the output looks the same across browsers and in *print*. Unlike Flash it does not require third party software.

It uses associated CSS styles to draw rectangles (divs with a border) and horizontal or vertical lines (divs with a border on one side). A bit of a hack? You might say that, but it turns out to be very effective for the sort of graphics that I need to create on the fly.

It cannot draw curved lines or arbitrary shapes - hence the name 'ortho' for orthogonal. But for a range of applications it may offer a simple solution for creating sophisticated graphics.

It is built on top of the wonderful Prototype library. As a result it is very amenable to being extended with Prototype and Scriptaculous.

Ortho is released under an MIT-style license.

The initial release only covers 'static' graphics but functions for user interaction and Ajax are under development.

The Ortho project site (http://www.craic.com/ortho) has a number of examples that show you what you can do with the library.