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Outgoing IP of server
Faster than the curl/wget-approaches.

Save man pages to pdf

Convert a mp3 file to m4a
I use this to convert mp3 files to m4a files that can be used as ringtones on the iPhone. I've documented the process here: http://www.control-d.com/?p=60

Clone or rescue a block device
If you use the logfile feature of ddrescue, the data is rescued very efficiently (only the needed blocks are read). Also you can interrupt the rescue at any time and resume it later at the same point. http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

Renaming a file without overwiting an existing file name
Sometimes in a hurry you may move or copy a file using an already existent file name. If you aliased the cp and mv command with the -i option you are prompted for a confirmation before overwriting but if your aliases aren't there you will loose the target file! The -b option will force the mv command to check if the destination file already exists and if it is already there a backup copy with an ending ~ is created.

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 md5sum to check your music and movie files. Also use diff.
This is a beginning script. You can create a file with > filename. You can also use diff to compare output run at different times to verify no change in your files. I apologize in advance if this is too simple. For some it should be a start.

check open ports without netstat or lsof

Advanced python tracing
Trace python statement execution and syscalls invoked during that simultaneously


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