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Quick key/value display within /proc or /sys
Within /proc and /sys there are a lot of subdirectories, which carry pseudofiles with only one value as content. Instead of cat-ing all single files (which takes quite a time) or do a "cat *" (which makes it hard to find the filename/content relation), just grep recursively for . or use "grep . /blabla/*" (star instead of -r flag). For better readability you might also want to pipe the output to "column -t -s : ".

Find usb device in realtime
Using this command you can track a moment when usb device was attached.

Display which distro is installed
Works on nearly all linux distros

ps with parent/child process tree
Shows a tree view of parent to child processes in the output of ps (linux). Similar output can be achieved with pstree (also linux) or ptree (Solaris).

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"

Synchronize date and time with a server over ssh
If you are stuck behind a firewall and want to synchronize time with another server but you do not want to port forward NTP (which uses UDP) then this command is handy. It gets the time from a server and sets the local time. It is not that accurate but I can live with a second or so drift.

Print trending topics on Twitter

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

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"

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\"";}


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