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Display the number of connections to a MySQL Database
Count the number of active connections to a MySQL database. The MySQL command "show processlist" gives a list of all the active clients. However, by using the processlist table, in the information_schema database, we can sort and count the results within MySQL.

Equivalent to ifconfig -a in HPUX

Get a brief overview of how many files and directories are installed
To start, you first need to make sure updatedb has been run/updatedb, and initialized the db: $ su -l root -c updatedb This locate command is provided through the mlocate package, installed by default on most GNU/Linux distributions. It's available on the BSDs as well. Not sure about support for proprietary UNIX systems. The output is self-explanatory- it provides an overview of how many directories and files are on your system.

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

Binary clock
Fun idea! This one adds seconds and keeps running on the same line. Perl's probably cheating though. :)

Find where a kind of file is stored
In this case searches for where .desktop files are stored. The resulted is a sorted list of the top directories containing such files.

Find the package that installed a command

Set laptop display brightness
Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

Allow any local (non-network) connection to running X server

SMTP Analysis
This works just as well for SMTP. You could run this on your mail server to watch e-mail senders and recipients: tcpdump -l -s0 -w - tcp dst port 25 | strings | grep -i 'MAIL FROM\|RCPT TO'


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