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Copy via tar pipe while preserving file permissions (cp does not!; run this command with root!)
cp options: -p will preserve the file mode, ownership, and timestamps -r will copy files recursively also, if you want to keep symlinks in addition to the above: use the -a/--archive option

Random Number Between 1 And 256
It takes a byte from /dev/random whose source is the kernel entropy pool (better source than other solutions).

Find the package that installed a command

Replace spaces in filenames with underscores
It's the rename-tool from debians perl-package.

List recorded formular fields of Firefox
When you fill a formular with Firefox, you see things you entered in previous formulars with same field names. This command list everything Firefox has registered. Using a "delete from", you can remove anoying Google queries, for example ;-)

Get AWS temporary credentials ready to export based on a MFA virtual appliance
You might want to secure your AWS operations requiring to use a MFA token. But then to use API or tools, you need to pass credentials generated with a MFA token. This commands asks you for the MFA code and retrieves these credentials using AWS Cli. To print the exports, you can use: `awk '{ print "export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=\"" $1 "\"\n" "export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=\"" $2 "\"\n" "export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=\"" $3 "\"" }'` You must adapt the command line to include: * $MFA_IDis ARN of the virtual MFA or serial number of the physical one * TTL for the credentials

Quick searching with less
This command enables the user to append a search pattern on the command line when using less as the PAGER. This is especially convenient (as the example shows) in compressed files and when searching man pages (substituting the zcat command with man, however).

use SHIFT + ALT to toggle between two keyboard layouts
change the last two-character abbreviation to any layout abbreviation you want. This command will only run in the current session, add to your ~/.bashrc to make this permanent.

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

Run the last command as root
Useful when you forget to use sudo for a command. "!!" grabs the last run command.


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