Commands by Alanceil (12)

  • In Python version 3, the module was merged into http.server. Gentlemen, change your aliases. Show Sample Output


    40
    python -m http.server
    Alanceil · 2010-12-17 12:52:45 47
  • The unlock command for KDE 4.3 has changed from krunner_lock, this process doesn't exist anymore. So here's the update :-) If qdbus complains about not being able to find X, put a "DISPLAY=:0 " (:0 being your X server display) in front of the command.


    6
    qdbus org.kde.screenlocker /MainApplication quit
    Alanceil · 2009-08-27 13:57:00 4
  • On a Gentoo system, this command will tell you which packets you have installed and sort them by how much space they consume. Good for finding out space-hogs when tidying up disk space. Show Sample Output


    1
    equery s | sed 's/(\|)/ /g' | sort -n -k 9 | gawk '{print $1" "$9/1048576"m"}'
    Alanceil · 2009-07-30 01:12:10 6
  • Intended for dynamic ip OpenDNS users, this command will update your OpenDNS network IP. For getting your IP, you can use one of the many one-liners here on commandlinefu. Example: I use this in a script which is run by kppp after it has successfully connected to my ISP: --- #!/bin/bash IP="`curl -s http://checkip.dyndns.org/ | grep -o '[[:digit:].]\+'`" PW="hex-obfuscated-pw-here" if [ "$IP" == "" ] ; then echo 'Not online.' ; exit 1 else wget -q --user=topsecret --password="`echo $PW | xxd -ps -r`" 'https://updates.opendns.com/nic/update?hostname=myhostname&myip='"$IP" -O - /etc/init.d/ntp-client restart & fi --- PS: DynDNS should use a similar method, if you know the URL, please post a comment. (Something with members.dyndns.org, if I recall correctly) Show Sample Output


    5
    wget -q --user=<username> --password=<password> 'https://updates.opendns.com/nic/update?hostname=your_opendns_hostname&myip=your_ip' -O -
    Alanceil · 2009-06-22 18:08:42 27
  • Since bash 4.0, you can use ** to recursively expand to all files in the current directory. This behaviour is disabled by default, this command enables it (you'd best put it in your .profile). See the sample output for clarification. In my opinion this is much better than creating hacks with find and xargs when you want to pass files to an application. Show Sample Output


    11
    shopt -s globstar
    Alanceil · 2009-05-05 16:02:44 8
  • This is a (last resort) way to automate applications that provide no other ways for automation, it would send 'Hello world' to the currently active window. See the manpage (and the -text and -window entries) for how to send special characters and target specific windows. An example: Using xwininfo, I get the id of my XPlanet background window: alanceil@kvirasim:19:51:0:~> xwininfo xwininfo: Please select the window about which you would like information by clicking the mouse in that window. xwininfo: Window id: 0x3600001 "Xplanet 1.2.0" Absolute upper-left X: 0 (..etc..) Now I use xvkbd to tell it to close itself: xvkbd -xsendevent -window 0x3600001 -text "Q" Obviously, the best way is to put these commands in a shellscript - just make sure to include a short sleep (sleep .1 should suffice) after each xvkbd call, or some programs will become confused.


    15
    xvkbd -xsendevent -text "Hello world"
    Alanceil · 2009-03-20 18:58:05 13
  • I had a hard time in finding the correct settings to get reasonable output from a coin selector which sends its data over a serial line. In the end, minicom came to the rescue and pointed me on the right track. So, if you need to do something similar, these settings may help you. Replace ttyUSB0 with your device file, 9600 with your baud rate, 5 with your read timeout (10ths of a second), and 1 with the minimum numbers of characters you want to read. You can then open the device file like you are used to do, example: DATA="`xxd -ps -l 5 \"$DEV\"`"


    1
    stty -F "/dev/ttyUSB0" 9600 ignbrk -brkint -icrnl -imaxbel -opost -onlcr -isig -icanon -iexten -echo -echoe -echok -echoctl -echoke time 5 min 1 line 0
    Alanceil · 2009-03-20 14:48:32 18
  • This command will tell lynx to read keystrokes from the specified file - which can be used in a cronjob to auto-login on websites that give you points for logging in once a day *cough cough* (which is why I used -accept_all_cookies). For creating your keystroke file, use: lynx -cmd_log yourfile


    26
    lynx -accept_all_cookies -cmd_script=/your/keystroke-file
    Alanceil · 2009-03-17 00:38:36 15
  • Suppose you made a backup of your hard disk with dd: dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/disk/backup.img This command enables you to mount a partition from inside this image, so you can access your files directly. Substitute PARTITION=1 with the number of the partition you want to mount (returned from sfdisk -d yourfile.img). Show Sample Output


    8
    INFILE=/path/to/your/backup.img; MOUNTPT=/mnt/foo; PARTITION=1; mount "$INFILE" "$MOUNTPT" -o loop,offset=$[ `/sbin/sfdisk -d "$INFILE" | grep "start=" | head -n $PARTITION | tail -n1 | sed 's/.*start=[ ]*//' | sed 's/,.*//'` * 512 ]
    Alanceil · 2009-03-06 21:29:13 11
  • wrestool can be found in icoutils (http://www.nongnu.org/icoutils) Show Sample Output


    1
    wrestool -x --output . -t14 /path/to/your-file.exe
    Alanceil · 2009-02-28 22:51:32 7
  • This is useful if you have a program which doesn't work well with multicore CPUs. With taskset you can set its CPU affinity to run on only one core.


    20
    taskset -c 0 your_command
    Alanceil · 2009-02-28 22:38:02 30
  • I use this command to save RTSP video streams over night from one of our national TV stations, so I won't have to squeeze the data through my slow internet connection when I want to watch it the next day. For ease of use, you might want to put this in a file: #!/bin/bash FILE="`basename \"$1\"`" mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile "$FILE" -playlist "$1"


    9
    mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile "yourfile" -playlist "URL"
    Alanceil · 2009-02-28 22:18:17 7

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Edit a script that's somewhere in your path.
Often I need to edit a bash or perl script I've written. I know it's in my path but I don't feel like typing the whole path (or I don't remember the path).

Get rid from a blank display without reboot
Killall5 will kill your session and redirect to login screen. -Very useful when suffering display problems. -Can use F1-F6 -Need to login in the particular console if not already

put command in a loop to keep trying a connection
This will keep trying to reconnect your netcat connection can be used with SSH or Telnet, just substitute nc for ssh or telnet very useful for troubleshooting VPNs were you want to send continuous packets towards a destination to trace.

Create a 5 MB blank file via a seek hole
Similar to the original, but is much faster since it only needs to write the last byte as zero. A diff on testfile and testfile.seek will return that they are the same.

grep -v with multiple patterns.
Use multiple patterns with grep -v. So you can print all lines in a file except those containing the multiple patterns you specify.

Burn an ISO on commandline with wodim instead cdrecord

create an screenshot, upload it to your server via scp and then open that screenshot in firefox
I often need to send screenshots to other people to explain settings and whatever. So I created this oneline which I use to create the screenshot with imagemagik, upload it via scp to my server and then the command opens an firefox tab with the screenshot. The screenshot can be a region or a window. You just have to replace the parts beginning with YOUR.

Control ssh connection
SSH can be controlled trough an ~ escape sequence. Example, to terminate the current ssh connection, type a newline, then the ~ character, and last a . character. This is useful eg when an ssh connection hangs after you reboot a machine and the connection hangs.

Escape potential tarbombs
This Anti-TarBomb function makes it easy to unpack a .tar.gz without worrying about the possibility that it will "explode" in your current directory. I've usually always created a temporary folder in which I extracted the tarball first, but I got tired of having to reorganize the files afterwards. Just add this function to your .zshrc / .bashrc and use it like this; $ atb arch1.tar.gz and it will create a folder for the extracted files, if they aren't already in a single folder. This only works for .tar.gz, but it's very easy to edit the function to suit your needs, if you want to extract .tgz, .tar.bz2 or just .tar. More info about tarbombs at http://www.linfo.org/tarbomb.html Tested in zsh and bash. UPDATE: This function works for .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz and .tar in zsh (not working in bash): $ atb() { l=$(tar tf $1); if [ $(echo "$l" | wc -l) -eq $(echo "$l" | grep $(echo "$l" | head -n1) | wc -l) ]; then tar xf $1; else mkdir ${1%.t(ar.gz||ar.bz2||gz||bz||ar)} && tar xf $1 -C ${1%.t(ar.gz||ar.bz2||gz||bz||ar)}; fi ;} UPDATE2: From the comments; bepaald came with a variant that works for .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, .tgz, .tbz and .tar in bash: $ atb() {shopt -s extglob ; l=$(tar tf $1); if [ $(echo "$l" | wc -l) -eq $(echo "$l" | grep $(echo "$l" | head -n1) | wc -l) ]; then tar xf $1; else mkdir ${1%.t@(ar.gz|ar.bz2|gz|bz|ar)} && tar xf $1 -C ${1%.t@(ar.gz|ar.bz2|gz|bz|ar)}; fi ; shopt -u extglob}

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