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Make a ready-only filesystem ?writeable? by unionfs
First look into /etc/modules if you have unionfs (or squashfs) support. If not, add the modules. UnionFS combines two filesystems. If there is a need to write a file, /tmp/unioncache will be used to write files (first create that directory). Reads will be done where the file is found first. http://tldp.org/HOWTO/SquashFS-HOWTO/creatingandusing.html

Find files and list them sorted by modification time
Works with files containing spaces and for very large directories.

ssh autocomplete
Autocomplete from .ssh/config

Print line immediately before a matching regex.
Use this if you don't have access to GNU grep's -B option.

check open ports without netstat or lsof

cat stdout of multiple commands
Concatenate the stdout of multiple commands.

List only hidden files
You can omit the -d to see what's inside directories. In that case, you may want -a to see dotfiles inside those directories. (Otherwise you don't need -a since you're explicitly looking at them.)

Check a server is up. If it isn't mail me.
Joker wants an email if the Brand X server is down. Set a cron job for every 5 mins with this line and he gets an email when/if a ping takes longer than 3 seconds.

Sort a character string
Sorts a character string, using common shell commands.

find and delete empty dirs, start in current working dir


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