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Optimal way of deleting huge numbers of files

Using xargs is better than: find /path/to/dir -type f -exec rm \-f {} \; as the -exec switch uses a separate process for each remove. xargs splits the streamed files into more managable subsets so less processes are required.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
12

find /path/to/dir -type f -print0 | xargs -0 rm

root · 2009-01-26 11:30:47 63
Display PHP files that directly instantiate a given class

This greps all PHP files for a given classname and displays both the file and the usage. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
tao/tests/filter/TestUrl.php:        $this->objFilter = new filter_Url();
tao/classes/local/view/Photos.php:        $objFilter  = new filter_Url();
```
1

find . -name "*.php" -exec grep \-H "new filter_" {} \;

root · 2009-01-26 10:43:09 73
Run the last command as root

Useful when you forget to use sudo for a command. "!!" grabs the last run command.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1219

sudo !!

root · 2009-01-26 10:26:48 262
Creates a customized search command

Creates a command alias ('cr' in the above example) that searches the contents of files matching a set of file extensions (C & C++ source-code in the above example) recursively within the current directory. Search configured to be in colour, ignore-case, show line numbers and show 4 lines of context. Put in shell initialisation file of your choice. Trivially easy to use, e.g: cr sha1_init Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
./openssl/signatures.c-600-xmlSecOpenSSLDsaSha1EvpInit(EVP_MD_CTX *ctx)
./openssl/signatures.c-601-{
./openssl/signatures.c:602:    return SHA1_Init(ctx->md_data);
./openssl/signatures.c-603-}
./openssl/signatures.c-604-
--
./openssl/signatures.c-706-    NULL,
./openssl/signatures.c-707-#else /* XMLSEC_OPENSSL_096 */
./openssl/signatures.c:708:    SHA1_Init,
./openssl/signatures.c-709-    SHA1_Update,
./openssl/signatures.c-710-    SHA1_Final,
```
0

alias cr='find . 2>/dev/null -regex '\''.*\.$c\|cpp\|pc\|h\|hpp\|cc$$'\'' | xargs grep --color=always -ni -C2'

chrisdrew · 2009-01-26 08:54:25 56
Outputs a sorted list of disk usage to a text file

Recursively searches current directory and outputs sorted list of each directory's disk usage to a text file. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
712     .
328     ./test
176     ./lib
144     ./doc
100     ./test/data
96      ./lib/rake
64      ./doc/release_notes
```
6

du | sort -gr > file_sizes

chrisdrew · 2009-01-26 01:12:54 62
Watch how fast the files in a drive are being deleted

This can be useful when a large remove operation is taking place.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
6

watch "df | grep /path/to/drive"

root · 2009-01-25 21:16:41 674
Execute a command at a given time

This is an alternative to cron which allows a one-off task to be scheduled for a certain time.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
266

echo "ls -l" | at midnight

root · 2009-01-25 21:07:42 85
Analyse an Apache access log for the most common IP addresses

This uses awk to grab the IP address from each request and then sorts and summarises the top 10.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
22

tail -10000 access_log | awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n | tail

root · 2009-01-25 21:01:52 47
Add SVN keywords property to all PHP and Javascript files
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

find . $ -name "*.php" -o -name "*.js" $ -exec svn propset svn:keywords Id {} \;

root · 2009-01-24 00:54:35 63
Count files beneath current directory (including subfolders)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
18

find . -type f | wc -l

root · 2009-01-23 17:19:32 74

Display the top ten running processes - sorted by memory usage

ps returns all running processes which are then sorted by the 4th field in numerical order and the top 10 are sent to STDOUT. Show Sample Output

106

ps aux | sort -nk +4 | tail

root · 2009-01-23 17:12:33 295

Checks all MySQL tables

See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/myisamchk.html for further details. You can also repair all tables by running: myisamchk -r *.MYI
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-2

myisamchk /path/to/mysql/files/*.MYI

root · 2009-01-22 10:20:00 133
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list block devices

Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.

Dump an aspell dictionary as a word list

Automatic ssh Session Logger

A wrapper around ssh to automatically provide logging and session handling. This function runs ssh, which runs screen, which runs script. . The logs and the screen session are stored on the server. This means you can leave a session running and re-attach to it later, or from another machine. . . Requirements: * Log sessions on a remote server * Transparent - nothing extra to type * No installation - nothing to copy to the server beforehand . Features: * Function wrapper delegating to ssh - so nothing to remember - uses .ssh/config as expected - passes your command line option to ssh * Self-contained: no scripts to install on the server * Uses screen(1), so is: - detachable - re-attachable - shareable * Records session using script(1) * Configurable log file location, which may contain variables or whitespace L="$HOME" # local variable L="\$HOME" # server variable L="some space" . Limitations: * Log dir/file may not contain '~' (which would require eval on the server) . . The sessions are named by the local user connecting to the server. Therefore if you detach and re-run the same command you will reconnect to your original session. If you want to connect/share another's session simply run: $ USER=bob ssh root@server . The command above is stripped down to an absolute minimum. A fully expanded and annotated version is available as a Gist (git pastebin): https://gist.github.com/flatcap/3c42326abeb1197ee714 . If you want to add timing info to script, change the command to: $ ssh(){ L="\$HOME/logs/$(date +%F_%H:%M)-$USER";/usr/bin/ssh -t "$@" "mkdir -p \"${L%/*}\";screen -xRRS $USER script --timing=\"$L-timing\" -f \"$L\"";}

count how many times a string appears in a (source code) tree

grep -o puts each occurrence in a separate line

Use the builtin ':' bash command to increment variables

I just found another use for the builtin ':' bash command. It increments counters for me in a loop if a certain condition is met... : [arguments] No effect; the command does nothing beyond expanding arguments and performing any specified redirections. A zero exit code is returned.

Reclaim standard in from the tty for a script that is in a pipeline

This will grab the controlling tty regardless of what STDOUT and STDERR are doing.

For Gentoo users : helping with USE / emerge

This command puts all the flags of the USE variable actually used by the packages you emerged to the file "use", and those which are unused but available to the file "notuse"

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"

LVM2 Reduce

Just the commands for the lvreduce I keep forgetting.

Compare a remote file with a local file

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