Desktop Manager 0.6 - Universal Binary, Now with fixed mach_inject! Options

[Jason_Thames]

Our good friend Bertrand Guihéneuf, former Apple employee, and the man responsible for iCal, has ported a UniBin version of the Desktop Manager 0.6 Snapshot from SVN, along with a fixed version of the mach_inject function (He is actually the person responsible for porting mach_inject to Intel as well...). It works very well and has a new look and new functionality. It is however, still not complete as far as I know. Give it a go if you would like a great, stable virtual desktop app.

Desktop Manager 0.6 Universal Binary (It says it is 0.5.3, but the app is really version 0.6)

P.S.

For anyone running 10.4.4 or above:

Important restriction: In 10.4.4 (intel build), Apple removed the ability to send low-level mach commands from one task to another.

A task trying to control another one must now be root or belong to the procmod group.

If you want to allow mach_inject to work again for your account, you need to add yourself to the procmod group.

Another option is to enable it to work for all accounts on the system, by changing the security policy for task_for_pid().

Please understand that both options re-open what some consider as a security risk.


Enabling mach_inject for your account

One way to do it is to execute the following command in a terminal:

CODE

sudo niutil -appendprop "/" "/groups/procmod" "users" `id -un`

Unfortunately, group modifications are not taken into account immediately. You have to wait one minute or two before the kernel realizes you now belong to procmod (yes, memberd -r normally resets the cache, but the kernel seems to maintain it’s own cache). Obviously, rebooting your computer will empty kernel cache.

To remove yourself from procmod group, use the inverse command:

CODE

sudo niutil -destroyval "/" "/groups/procmod" "users" `id -un`

To check who is in the procmod group, use the following command:

CODE

sudo niutil -readprop "/" "/groups/procmod" "users"

Enabling mach_inject for all accounts

You can do this by changing the security policy for task_for_pid():

CODE

sudo sysctl -w kern.tfp.policy=1

You can disable mach_inject back with :

CODE

sudo sysctl -w kern.tfp.policy

[natefrogg]

i followed your instructions, but it won't run for me, won't even bounce in the dock at all...

running 10.4.5..

:::[edit]::..

seems that there was a dialogue box open that was somehow under all of my other open windows, it said something to the effect of not being able to do something to the dock, therefore it may not run correctly, after i clicked "ok" i saw it running in the taskbar or whatever it's called, menu bar? at the top of the screen, i could switch between desktops, but i was not able to access any options menu, normally with desktop manager there is an options menu next to the diagram of the desktops, with this release there was not one, the only way i could close it was by opening up a terminal and using kill on it's process id...

[Jason_Thames]

Desktop Manager is running as a menu item now... it no longer runs in the dock. After updating your user permissions, reboot your Hackintosh. Desktop Manager has to use mach_inject to "inject" some code into the Dock in this new release to work properly. I have tested it on 10.4.4 and 10.4.5 with success... Give it another go and make sure that You are indeed added to the "procmod" group with this command:

CODE

sudo niutil -readprop "/" "/groups/procmod" "users"

Let me know if this resolves your issue.

Regards,

-Jason

[alc0h0lic]

Thx, 0.6 works great

[domino]

It's back and better than ever . Tested on 10.4.4 and works great!! I did what's instructed above but didn't have restart. Looking forward to the final product. Just one question though. Why does the Dock disappear when I fool around with DM's settings?

[Jason_Thames]

Well... My "Guess" is that the mach_inject function is causing the dock to disappear momentairly *for some reason*. Lucky for us, there is an active interest in both Desktop Manager and the old Virtue project. Both are being developed by new developers now. I am really happy to see this as I really miss the great window manager that was included with NeXTSTEP and of course other .nix platforms.

Regards,

-Jason

[JimBob]

Great Program!

I thought I read somewhere that you could have it automatically change desktops by moving the mouse all the way to a side of the current desktop? So, if you move the mouse to the far right, it would switch to the desktop to the right of the current one.

How do you move a window from one desktop to another (besides minimizing it to the dock then restoring it)? I thought most WMs allowed you to draw a window from one to the next?

Thanks.

[domino]

I picked up something from MacUpdate but I haven't tried it yet.

Virtue is a virtual desktop manager for Mac OS X 10.4. It is based upon the work done by Rich Wareham on DesktopManager.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/16530

[thelord]

Hi,
I've downloaded virtue, and pretty much like ti so far. It has nice transition effects between virtual desktops.. I have 10.4.3 1111g build, I'm unable to add my self to procmod group (i guess it wasn't introduced until 10.4.4 release) and i've changed security policy for task_for_pid() in kernel. In spite I get error message (taken from console.log):

CODE

2006-03-25 16:49:46.599 SystemUIServer[252] lang is:en
Could not access task for pid 251. You probably need to add user to procmod group
Installation of Virtue's dock extension has failed. Some of Virtue's features will not work as expected.

And indeed I'm unable to make an application sticky (to show on all desktops) So if anyone knows how to resolve this or have any ideas please help me.

[domino]

Post #9, why are you still editing the security policy? Change them back to default and use virtue like a normal application.

[thelord]

Hi, thanx for interesting,
I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean. I figured that changing policy can't hurt virtue so i changed them to see what happens. It didn't help so I figure I should get them back as they were. That leaves me with the problem, virtue (and desktop manager for what it's worth) is unable to insert code into dock app

OK, here's the update. I logged on as root and run virtue. As I expected everything was working fine, running as root virtue was allowed to modify dock app which didn't come as surprise.
I also run:

CODE

nireport . /groups name

and there's no procmod group ie:

CODE

/Users/theLord root# nireport . /groups name | grep -i procmod
110-166-222-85:/Users/theLord root#

[thelord]

Tada,
I finally did it =) I created new group named procmod and added my self to it, and imagine it worked

[domino]

Great job! Now you did all that for the sake of one application? I personally don't think virtue or any applcation is worthy enough to be adding a new group so it can be used properly . Thanks for the information though. I know it will he handy in the forure.

[Jason_Thames]

Linky updated...

Regards,

-Jason

[xtraa]

Linky updated...

Regards,

-Jason

another mirror available? Can't get connected to the server.

[cyclonefr]

same here

[xtraa]

same here

@cyclonefr:

hi Mate, I just found a way:

Just download http://virtuedesktops.info/

Before starting the app, open up the terminal and type:

sudo niutil -appendprop "/" "/groups/procmod" "users" `id -un`

restart

[cyclonefr]

hum virtuedesktops isnt the same interface...
i'll wait for desktopmanager 0.6....0.53 is fine for me tho
thanx anyway

[BRP]

So, who else here is using a SmackBook?

[kinlen]

thanks,i like it.