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commandlinefu.com is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again. That way others can gain from your CLI wisdom and you from theirs too. All commands can be commented on, discussed and voted up or down.

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list file descriptors opened by a process
Useful for examining hostile processes (backdoors,proxies)

command line fu roulette
retrieves the html from a random command line fu page, then finds commands on the page and prints them alternatively, pipe to bash (add "| bash" to the end) to execute the command (very risky) edit: had to adjust to properly display the portion that replaces HTML characters (e.g. " -> ")

Create the signature base string required for a Twitter stream feed
This is the SECOND command in a set for five that are needed for a Twitter stream feed. This command creates variable "b", the so-called "base string" required for oauth in Twitter stream feed requests. (The 256 char limit prevents giving it a better name) We use five environment variables created by a previous step: id, k1, once, ts and k3. The five environment variables are created in a separate command, please see my other commands. For more information on the signature base string, see dev.twitter.com/apps, click on any app (or create a new one) and then go to the "OAuth Tool" tab.

Backup with versioning

Start an X app remotely
Launch a gui app remotely. In this example smplayer is installed on the remote machine, and movie.avi is in the remote user's home dir. Note that stdout/stderr is still local, so you'll have feedback locally, add '&>/dev/null' to suppress. This is surprisingly not well known (compared to running an X app locally via ssh -X). (NB. if your distro requires ~/.Xauthority file present, then try -fX if you have problems) Resubmitted (and trimmed, thanks sitaram) due to ridiculous voting on previous submission. Fingers crossed, it gets a better rating this time.

SVN script for automatically adding and deleting files

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.

Benchmark SQL Query
Benchmark a SQL query against MySQL Server. The example runs the query 10 times, and you get the average runtime in the output. To ensure that the query does not get cached, use `RESET QUERY CACHE;` on top in the query file.

Go up multiple levels of directories quickly and easily.
Change to your taste. Much quicker than having to add 'cd' every time. Add it to your .bashrc or .bash_profile.

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.


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