ConnectMe

Menu bar network toolkit - shows connection info and lets you reset/renew network interfaces from the menu bar, instead of digging through System Preferences or Terminal.

Menu items (all show their result as an AppleScript dialog):

• Show Network Info - hostname, AD domain, active interface, IP, MAC, gateway, DNS
• Show Dot1X Status - checks for 802.1X processes/certificates and shows where 802.1X is configured
• Reset DNS Cache - dscacheutil -flushcache + killall -HUP mDNSResponder (confirms first)
• Renew Ethernet IP / Reset Ethernet - runs the ipconfig/ifconfig commands directly (confirms first)
• Renew Wireless IP / Reset WiFi - same, for WiFi
• Disable IP Tracking - sets the Private WiFi Address default, then points you at the System Preferences toggle for the rest (that part's GUI-only, can't be scripted)
• Open Network Prefs / Open Keychain / Open Directory Utility - opens the relevant system pane/app

How it works

Six of these actions (DNS reset, Ethernet/WiFi renew/reset, IP tracking) need root, so the installer sets up a sudoers drop-in (/etc/sudoers.d/connectme) granting passwordless sudo for just those specific commands (with fixed arguments, not blanket access to ifconfig/networksetup/etc.) - the app itself never shows a password prompt.

If the sudoers drop-in isn't installed for some reason, each action falls back to showing the manual command to paste into Terminal instead.

Installing

Via Homebrew

brew tap aardman/connectMe https://github.com/aardman/connectMe
brew install --cask connectme

The explicit URL on brew tap is needed because this repo isn't named homebrew-connectMe

• Homebrew's short brew tap aardman/connectMe form only looks for a repo with that exact prefix, so the URL tells it where to actually find this one.

brew uninstall --cask connectme removes the app, forgets the package receipt, and removes the sudoers drop-in.

Manually

Download ConnectMe.pkg from the Releases page (or build it yourself, see below) and run:

sudo installer -pkg ConnectMe.pkg -target /

This installs the app to /Applications/ConnectMe.app and sets up the sudoers drop-in via a postinstall script. Launch it from Spotlight, Finder, or your MDM of choice - it isn't set to launch automatically at login.

Building from source

Requires Platypus (/Applications/Platypus.app).

./build.sh      # (re)builds ConnectMe.app from connectMe.sh
./package.sh    # builds ConnectMe.pkg from ConnectMe.app

package.sh also disables pkgbuild's default bundle relocation (BundleIsRelocatable): without this, if Launch Services already knows an app with this identifier exists somewhere (e.g. this very app, having been run once from a local checkout), the installer silently installs there instead of /Applications - no error, no warning. Worth checking pkgutil --payload-files ConnectMe.pkg after any change to confirm it still lands where you expect.

Files

• connectMe.sh - the wrapped script
• network_info_helper.sh - a standalone terminal version of the network-info lookup; not called by connectMe.sh itself, just bundled alongside it for reference
• build.sh - rebuilds ConnectMe.app from connectMe.sh
• postinstall - the package postinstall that installs the sudoers drop-in
• install-sudoers.sh - the same sudoers setup, standalone, for manual/local testing (sudo bash install-sudoers.sh)
• package.sh - builds ConnectMe.pkg from ConnectMe.app
• Casks/connectme.rb - the Homebrew cask definition (this repo doubles as its own tap)

Releasing a new version

1. Bump the version in both build.sh (-V) and package.sh (VERSION=), then ./build.sh && ./package.sh
2. shasum -a 256 ConnectMe.pkg and update version/sha256 in Casks/connectme.rb to match
3. Commit, push, then gh release create vX.Y.Z ConnectMe.pkg (or create the release and upload ConnectMe.pkg as an asset via the GitHub UI) - the cask's url expects it at releases/download/vX.Y.Z/ConnectMe.pkg
4. brew audit --cask and brew style --cask against the tapped cask before calling it done

License

MIT - see LICENSE.