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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
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

cp -pr olddirectory newdirectory

stanishjohnd · 2009-08-22 22:11:24 8
Download Youtube Playlist

This will download a Youtube playlist and mostly anything http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/2.0/reference.html#Video_Feeds The files will be saved by $id.flv
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

y=http://www.youtube.com;for i in $(curl -s $f|grep -o "url='$y/watch?v=[^']*'");do d=$(echo $i|sed "s|url\='$y/watch?v=$.*$&.*'|\1|");wget -O $d.flv "$y/get_video.php?video_id=$d&t=$(curl -s "$y/watch?v=$d"|sed -n 's/.* "t": "$[^"]*$",.*/\1/p')";done

matthewbauer · 2009-08-22 21:31:29 53
YES = NO
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

yes n

elzapp · 2009-08-22 20:32:23 116
Copy via tar pipe while preserving file permissions (run this command as root!)

It's the same like 'cp -p' if available. It's faster over networks than scp. If you have to copy gigs of data you could also use netcat and the tar -z option in conjunction -- on the receiving end do: # nc -l 7000 | tar -xzvpf - ...and on the sending end do: # tar -czf - * | nc otherhost 7000
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

tar -C /oldirectory -cvpf - . | tar -C /newdirector -xvf -

Cowboy · 2009-08-22 20:05:49 5
Print a random 8 digit number
This is sample output - yours may be different.
5

jot -r -n 8 0 9 | rs -g 0

curiousstranger · 2009-08-22 19:31:17 6
watch iptables counters

This will allow you to watch as matches occur in real-time. To filter out only ACCEPT, DROP, LOG..etc, then run the following command: watch 'iptables -nvL | grep -v "0 0" && grep "ACCEPT"' The -v is used to do an inverted filter. ie. NOT "0 0"
This is sample output - yours may be different.
7

watch --interval 0 'iptables -nvL | grep -v "0 0"'

Code_Bleu · 2009-08-22 18:18:05 51
Verbosely delete files matching specific name pattern, older than 15 days.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
6

find /backup/directory -name "FILENAME_*" -mtime +15 | xargs rm -vf

monkeymac · 2009-08-22 16:58:23 6
Remove empty directories

It only works in zsh
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

rmdir **/*(/^F)

unixmonkey5248 · 2009-08-22 12:31:55 3
Cleanup firefox's database.

Sqlite database keeps collecting cruft as time passes, which can be cleaned by the 'vacuum;' command. This command cleans up the cruft in all sqlite files relating to the user you have logged in as. This command has to be run when firefox is not running, or it will exit displaying the pid of the firefox running.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
11

pgrep -u `id -u` firefox-bin || find ~/.mozilla/firefox -name '*.sqlite'|(while read -e f; do echo 'vacuum;'|sqlite3 "$f" ; done)

kamathln · 2009-08-22 10:36:05 10
List files and sizes

List files and sizes
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

find / -type f -exec wc -c {} \; | sort -nr | head -100

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:38:44 10
Reverse DNS lookups

Reverse DNS lookups, from a file with list of IP's, here the file is called lookups.txt
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

sed 's/$[0-9]*$\.$[0-9]*$\.$[0-9]*$\.$[0-9]*$.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer$.*$\./\4.\3.\2.\1\5/' \ lookups.txt

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:37:20 4
Ping sweep without NMAP

Ping sweep without NMAP
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

for i in `seq 1 255`; do ping -c 1 10.10.10.$i | tr \\n ' ' | awk '/1 received/ {print $2}'; done

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:34:27 12
DNS cache snooping

DNS cache snooping
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

for i in `cat names.txt`; do host -r $i [nameserver]; done

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:26:31 3

Show account security settings Show Sample Output

chage -l <user>

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:12:03 6

List all groups and the user names that were in each group

"cut" the user names from /etc/passwd and then running a loop over them. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
avahi-autoipd:avahi-autoipd
avahi:avahi
backup:backup
bin:bin
daemon:daemon
debian-tor:debian-tor
debian-transmission:debian-transmission
games:games
gdm:gdm
gnats:gnats
haldaemon:haldaemon
```
3

for u in `cut -f1 -d: /etc/passwd`; do echo -n $u:; groups $u; done | sort

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:06:02 7
Remove empty directories

You can also use, $ find . -depth -type d -exec rmdir {} \; 2>/dev/null
This is sample output - yours may be different.
6

find . -type d -empty -delete

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:03:14 8
Random number generation within a range N, here N=10
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

echo $(( $RANDOM % 10 + 1 ))

hemanth · 2009-08-22 08:57:01 5
power off system in X hours form the current time, here X=2
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

echo init 0 | at now + 2 hours

hemanth · 2009-08-22 08:10:46 3
Day Date Time> Instead of $ or # at the terminal
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

export PS1='\D{%a %D %T}> '

hemanth · 2009-08-22 08:07:47 4
check open ports

Tested in Linux and OSX Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
kopete  1782   user   18u  IPv4  12568      0t0  TCP *:8010 (LISTEN)
sshd    2215   root    3u  IPv4  35583      0t0  TCP *:22 (LISTEN)
```
19

lsof -Pni4 | grep LISTEN

evenme · 2009-08-21 22:51:41 71
purge old stale messages on a qmail queue
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

for i in `grep "unable to stat" /var/log/syslog | cut -d "/" -f 3 | sort | uniq`; do find /var/qmail/queue -name $i -type f -exec rm -v {} \; ; done

foob4r · 2009-08-21 22:03:39 3
delete all DrWeb status, failure and other messages on a postfix server
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

mailq | grep DrWEB | awk {'print $1'} | sed s/*//g | postsuper -d -

foob4r · 2009-08-21 22:01:41 3
less an message on a postfix mailsystem with a specific message-id
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

id=<XXXX>; find /var/spool/postfix/ -name $id -exec less {} \;

foob4r · 2009-08-21 21:58:58 3
replace old htaccess php AddHandler values with new one

Alter "AddHandler php5-cgi .php" and "AddHandler php4-cgi .php" entries to new "AddHandler x-httpd-php5 .php" respective php4 entries in all .htaccess files under /var/www Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
-
```
0

find /var/www/ -type f -name ".htaccess" -exec perl -pi -e 's/AddHandler[\s]*php(4|5)-cgi/AddHandler x-httpd-php\1/' {} \;

foob4r · 2009-08-21 21:55:22 3
floating point operations in shell scripts

allows you to use floating point operations in shell scripts Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
.6000
```
3

echo "scale=4; 3 / 5" | bc

foob4r · 2009-08-21 21:51:46 3
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Find files that are older than x days

Find files that are older than x days in the working directory and list them. This will recurse all the sub-directories inside the working directory. By changing the value for -mtime, you can adjust the time and by replacing the ls command with, say, rm, you can remove those files if you wish to.

list block devices

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

Delete specific sender in mailq

convert vdi to vmdk (virtualbox hard disk conversion to vmware hard disk format)

Converts a .vdi file to a .vmdk file for use in a vmware virtual machine. The benefit: using this method actually works. There are others out there that claim to give you a working .vmdk by simply using the qemu-img command alone. Doing that only results in pain for you because the .vmdk file will be created with no errors, but it won't boot either. Be advised that these conversions are very disk-intensive by nature; you are probably dealing with disk images several gigabytes in size. Once finished, the process of using the new .vmdk file is left as an exercise to the reader.

Git diff last two commits

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Rip a DVD to AVI format

Substitute whatever track number you want into the "dvd://1" parameter. The "-aid 128" is to select the English language.

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.

Output files without comments or empty lines

Filter comments and empty lines in files. I find this very useful when trying to find what values are actually set in a very long example config file. I often set an alias for it, like : alias nocomment='grep -v "^$$\|#$"'

Change the homepage of Firefox

Pros: Works in all Windows computers, most updated and compatible command. Cons: 3 liner Replace fcisolutions.com with your site name.

Calculate days on which Friday the 13th occurs (inspired from the work of the user justsomeguy)

Friday is the 5th day of the week, monday is the 1st. Output may be affected by locale.

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