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It seems like each year Apple lets us see less of our filesystem. So after logging in for the first time on a new macOS installation, there are a few Finder preferences that I always change.

Here’s what a vanilla macOS Monterey Finder window looks like and then after the changes:

The first two changes are in the View menu. Show Path Bar and Show Status Bar

Now your Finder window will look like this with the two new bars at the bottom.

Before and After setting Calculate all sizes:

The last changes happen in Finder > Preferences.

I enable Hard disks and Connected servers so they show on the desktop.

And then in the Sidebar and Advanced tabs:

Now Finder should look like this:

Check out our other posts on customizing macOS:

• Finder Tweaks After a Fresh macOS Install
• Use TouchID to Authenticate sudo on macOS
• Automatically Disconnect Wifi When Wired Interface Is Detected.

Your TouchID equipped Mac can easily be configured to use your fingerprint to approve sudo commands.

Use your favorite text editor and open the file

/etc/pam.d/sudo

and add the following line

auth sufficient pam_tid.so

below the pam_smartcard.so line as shown below and then save (Ctrl+O for pico) the file.

$ sudo pico /etc/pam.d/sudo

  UW PICO 5.09                     File: /etc/pam.d/sudo                        

# sudo: auth account password session
auth       sufficient     pam_smartcard.so
auth       sufficient     pam_tid.so
auth       required       pam_opendirectory.so
account    required       pam_permit.so
password   required       pam_deny.so
session    required       pam_permit.so



^G Get Help  ^O WriteOut  ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg   ^K Cut Text  ^C Cur Pos   
^X Exit      ^J Justify   ^W Where is  ^V Next Pg   ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell

File Name to write : /etc/pam.d/sudo                                            
^G Get Help  ^T  To Files                                                     
^C Cancel    TAB Complete                                                     

                               [ Wrote 7 lines ]                                
^G Get Help  ^O WriteOut  ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg   ^K Cut Text  ^C Cur Pos   
^X Exit      ^J Justify   ^W Where is  ^V Next Pg   ^U UnCut Text^T To Spell  
  

That’s it. Now when you open a new Terminal window you can use TouchID to approve sudo commands. If you also have your Apple Watch set to unlock your Mac, you will also be able to approve sudo commands by double-clicking the side button on the watch.

Keep in mind that this file is somewhat protected by macOS so after each OS update you will need to add the line to the file. Other than that, it works perfectly!

EDIT: So it looks like some people are concerned with the sudo requirement. I need AirDrop and other macOS services that rely on WiFi to continue working so I cannot afford to disable the wireless interface. As far as I know there is no way to just disassociate from the network without sudo or turning off the interface. Since I have https://digitaino.com/use-touchid-to-authenticate-sudo-on-macos/ also enabled, it just brings up a Touch ID prompt on my screen whenever it needs to run the sudo command.

After using a Sonnet Solo10G SFP+ network adapter with my 14″ MacBook Pro for a few months it was great but something felt off. I was looking for a way to have wifi automatically disconnect (not turn off) when the SFP adapter established a connection and then reconnect once the SFP adapter was removed.

The issue is that since each network interface gets its own IP from the router’s DHCP, it fails to register the DNS record for the new interface since one already exists with the same name. This causes macOS to throw an error that the hostname is already in use and then appends a number to the hostname as a workaround to resolve the conflict. After a month your mac’s hostname would look something like ”macbook pro-1-5-9” or something weird like that. Not ideal.

So I started looking for ways to interface with airport from the terminal.

Connect to a network:

networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 "$WIFI_SSID"

Get current network SSID:

networksetup -getairportnetwork en0 

Disconnect from current network:

sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport "en0" -z

Then, a shell script based on the commands above:

#!/bin/sh

WIFI_INTERFACE=en0
WIRED_INTERFACE=en4
DEFAULT_SSID="Your SSID"
TEMP_LOCATION="/Users/YOURUSER/.wifi_ssid"


WIFI_STATUS=$(ifconfig $WIFI_INTERFACE | grep status | awk -F' ' '{ print$2 }')

if [[ ("$(ifconfig $WIRED_INTERFACE | grep status | awk -F' ' '{ print$2 }')" = "active" ) ]]
then
	WIRED_STATUS="active"
else
	WIRED_STATUS="disconnected"
fi

echo "------------Network Check RUN------------"
echo $(date)
echo "WIFI_STATUS: $WIFI_STATUS"
echo "WIRED_STATUS: $WIRED_STATUS"


if [[ ("$WIRED_STATUS" = "active" ) && ("$WIFI_STATUS" = "active" ) ]]
then
	networksetup -getairportnetwork $WIFI_INTERFACE | awk -F':' '{ print$2 }' | cut -c 2- > $TEMP_LOCATION
	read WIFI_SSID < $TEMP_LOCATION
	sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/airport "$WIFI_INTERFACE" -z
	echo "Action: WiFi disconnecting from $WIFI_SSID"
elif [[ ("$WIRED_STATUS" != "active" ) && ("$WIFI_STATUS" != "active" ) ]]; then
	read WIFI_SSID < $TEMP_LOCATION
	if [[ -z "$WIFI_SSID"  ]]; then
		WIFI_SSID=$DEFAULT_SSID
		echo "No wifi_ssid found in $TEMP_LOCATION. Using default_ssid $DEFAULT_SSID"
	fi
	networksetup -setairportnetwork $WIFI_INTERFACE "$WIFI_SSID"
	echo "Action: WiFi connecting to $WIFI_SSID"
else
	echo "Action: NO CHANGE"
fi

Remember to update the WIFI_INTERFACE=en0, WIRED_INTERFACE=en4, DEFAULT_SSID="Your SSID" and TEMP_LOCATION="/Users/YOURUSER/.wifi_ssid" variables for your system.

Saving this to ~/network_check and then running:

sudo chmod u+x ~/network_check

Now we need a way to run this script each time there is a change in the network configuration. Based on some google research it seems like a good file to watch for changes is:

/private/var/run/resolv.conf

Set up a user agent to watch for this file and then run the script.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
	<key>Label</key>
	<string>local.network_check</string>
	<key>Program</key>
	<string>/Users/YOURUSER/network_check</string>
	<key>RunAtLoad</key>
	<false/>
	<key>StandardErrorPath</key>
	<string>/Library/Logs/local.network_check.error.log</string>
	<key>StandardOutPath</key>
	<string>/Library/Logs/local.network_check.log</string>
	<key>WatchPaths</key>
	<array>
		<string>/private/var/run/resolv.conf</string>
	</array>
</dict>
</plist>

Remember to update the Program string with your script path.

Save this plist to:

~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.network_check.plist

Then run the following to load the agent:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/local.network_check.plist

For more details on how macOS daemons and agents work check out this post https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-use-launchd-to-run-services-in-macos-b972ed1e352 .

Now whenever the network adapter is connected or disconnected we see the desired behavior:

------------Network Check RUN------------
Fri Jul 1 12:09:00 CDT 2022
WIFI_STATUS: active
WIRED_STATUS: disconnected
Action: NO CHANGE
------------Network Check RUN------------
Fri Jul 1 12:09:35 CDT 2022
WIFI_STATUS: active
WIRED_STATUS: active
Action: WiFi disconnecting from MYSSID
------------Network Check RUN------------
Fri Jul 1 12:09:46 CDT 2022
WIFI_STATUS: inactive
WIRED_STATUS: active
Action: NO CHANGE
------------Network Check RUN------------
Fri Jul 1 12:19:54 CDT 2022
WIFI_STATUS: inactive
WIRED_STATUS: disconnected
Action: WiFi connecting to MYSSID

Here is a link to my GitHub page for the script.