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Watch several log files of different machines in a single multitail window on your own machine
this way you have the multitail with all its options running on your own machine with the tails of the two remote machines inside :)

Check a nfs mountpoint and force a remount if it does not reply after a given timeout.
Based on the execute with timeout command in this site. A more complex script: #!/bin/sh # This script will check the avaliability of a list of NFS mount point, # forcing a remount of those that do not respond in 5 seconds. # # It basically does this: # NFSPATH=/mountpoint TIMEOUT=5; perl -e "alarm $TIMEOUT; exec @ARGV" "test -d $NFSPATH" || (umount -fl $NFSPATH; mount $NFSPATH) # TIMEOUT=5 SCRIPT_NAME=$(basename $0) for i in $@; do echo "Checking $i..." if ! perl -e "alarm $TIMEOUT; exec @ARGV" "test -d $i" > /dev/null 2>&1; then echo "$SCRIPT_NAME: $i is failing with retcode $?."1>&2 echo "$SCRIPT_NAME: Submmiting umount -fl $i" 1>&2 umount -fl $i; echo "$SCRIPT_NAME: Submmiting mount $i" 1>&2 mount $i; fi done

display date of last time a process was started in `date` format
STARTED Mon Oct 18 04:02:01 2010

Your GeoIP location on Google Maps

Ctrl+S Ctrl+Q terminal output lock and unlock
These are simple shortcuts to pause and continue terminal output, works in most terminals and screen multiplexers like screen. You can use it to catch something if things change too fast, and scroll with Shift + PgUp PgDown. On linux console ScrollLock can also be used.

Print a random 8 digit number

FizzBuzz in one line of Bash
The (in)famous "FizzBuzz" programming challenge, answered in a single line of Bash code. The "|column" part at the end merely formats the output a bit, so if "column" is not installed on your machine you can simply omit that part. Without "|column", the solution only uses 75 characters. The version below is expanded to multiple lines, with comments added. for i in {1..100} # Use i to loop from "1" to "100", inclusive. do ((i % 3)) && # If i is not divisible by 3... x= || # ...blank out x (yes, "x= " does that). Otherwise,... x=Fizz # ...set x to the string "Fizz". ((i % 5)) || # If i is not divisible by 5, skip (there's no "&&")... x+=Buzz # ...Otherwise, append (not set) the string "Buzz" to x. echo ${x:-$i} # Print x unless it is blanked out. Otherwise, print i. done | column # Wrap output into columns (not part of the test).

Realtime lines per second in a log file
Using tail to follow and standard perl to count and print the lps when lines are written to the logfile.

Set laptop display brightness
Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)
swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"


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