Running in the background

[hadifarnoud]

I want to write a workflow in Ruby. It was written in shell script. see here: http://www.alfredforum.com/topic/3289-need-help-with-set-socks-proxy-workflow-i-wrote/

I wonder if I can run anything in background? for this specific example, I want to be able to have an ssh connection until user turns SOCKS proxy off.

[zhaocai]

please be more specific.

[hadifarnoud]

I have a bash script like this:

#!/bin/bash
disable_proxy()
{
        networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Wi-Fi off
        networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Ethernet off
        echo "SOCKS proxy disabled."
}
trap disable_proxy INT

networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxy Wi-Fi 127.0.0.1 8080
networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxy Ethernet 127.0.0.1 8080
networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Wi-Fi on
networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Ethernet on
echo "SOCKS proxy enabled."
echo "Tunneling..."
ssh -ND 8080 user@yourserver.com&

because of ssh and trap template, this script does not work properly in Alfred. Since I know Ruby a bit too, I wonder if I can do this with Ruby?

I want to start a ruby script by an alfred keyword (e.g. "socks on") and terminate the script with another keyword e.g. "socks off". this way I can revert the settings and disconnect SSH tunnel. terminating the ssh tunnel in alfred is very difficult with bash (using 'expect' and all that).

[zhaocai]

terminating the ssh tunnel in alfred is very difficult with bash (using 'expect' and all that).

why expect? because you need to enter password?

[hadifarnoud]

yes. I know I can edit sudoer with NOPASS but I want to keep it simple so others can use this workflow too

[zhaocai]

option 1

check out https://github.com/zhaocai/alfred2-top-workflow . It has a Authenticate.app you can copy to your project and use.

use the sudo.sh to run command. the first time it will ask for password, then it will be memorized in keychain.

#!/usr/bin/env zsh
PASS=$(Authenticate.app/Contents/MacOS/Authenticate -get password)
if [ "$PASS" = "(null)" ] ; then
    Authenticate.app/Contents/MacOS/Authenticate
    PASS=$(Authenticate.app/Contents/MacOS/Authenticate -get password)
fi
echo $PASS | sudo -S "$@"

option 2

use mac built in security command. This is a better solution but I do not have a code snippet right now.