How to unpack a .deb file on Mac OS X without installing it

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If you use Xcode, a utility called ar is installed. You can run the following command:

ar -x path/to/filename.deb

If you don't use Xcode, you could also install ar using Homebrew and run the same command.

Alternatively, you could use Homebrew to install the dpkg utility which has many more options to work against .deb files.

dpkg -c path/to/filename.deb

How to Create Symbolic Links at the Command Line of Mac OS X

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If you want to create and set a symbolic link at the command line in OS X, you will need to use the ln command with the -s flag (if you don't use the -s flag a hard link is set). You'll need to launch a terminal session in order to follow along.

How to Create a Symbolic Link

Here is the syntax for creating a symbolic link:

ln -s /path/to/original_file /path/to/symlink_file

After running this command the symlink will point to the original location. Depending on which directory you are setting up the link in you may need to sudo:

sudo ln -s /path/to/original_file /path/to/symlink_file

How to Remove a Symbolic Link

rm is your friend => but use it wisely:

rm /path/to/symlink_file

You can also use unlink:

unlink /path/to/symlink_file 

 

How to restrict access for a JIRA group or user to one project

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My JIRA instance needs to include not only folks from within my organization but external contractors as well.  The challenge I had was how to restrict access for the external folks to only a particular project.

It's taken a bit of fiddling to get this figured out as it's not entirely clear in the Atlassian documentation. I think JIRA is an amazing product but there are times when I find the configuration of the system to be quite baroque.

Following these steps should allow you to accomplish the restriction goal and still have time for lunch.

  1. Create a contractors group.
  2. Add the contractors as members of the contractors group and be sure to remove them from the users group.
  3. Assign the contractors group to the users and / or developers project role in the target project.
  4. Assign the JIRA Users global permission to the contractors group. This assignment is needed since they are not members of the users group.

That should do it.  Do let me know if you find a more elegant way than what I've presented above.