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View any already in progress copy command in detail
If you spot a dubious looking cp command running you can use this command to view what is being copied and to where. 1234 is the PID of the cp command being passed to the lsof utility. 3r.*REG will display the file/directory that is being read/copied. 4w.*REG will display the destination it is being written to.

Monitor a file with tail with timestamps added

find all files containing a pattern, open them using vi and place cursor to the first match, use 'n' and ':n' to navigate

Testing ftp server status
I must monitorize a couple of ftp servers every morning WITHOUT a port-scanner Instead of ftp'ing on 100 ftp servers manually to test their status I use this loop. It might be adaptable to other services, however it may require a 'logout' string instead of 'quit'. The file ftps.txt contains the full list of ftp servers to monitorize.

grep certain file types recursively
-exec works better and faster then using a pipe

See KeepAlive counters on tcp connections
See connection's tcp timers

Send pop-up notifications on Gnome
The title is optional. Options: -t: expire time in milliseconds. -u: urgency (low, normal, critical). -i: icon path. On Debian-based systems you may need to install the 'libnotify-bin' package. Useful to advise when a wget download or a simulation ends. Example: $ wget URL ; notify-send "Done"

calulate established tcp connection of local machine
If you want prepend/append text just wrap in echo: $echo Connected: `netstat -an|grep -ci "tcp.*established"`

Position the cursor under the current directory line
In case you're like me and like your commands to start on clean lines, especially when you're deep into a 10-level directory tree. This can be added to .bashrc.

BASH one-liner to get the current week number
Not as cool as the python example, but it still works.


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