Commands by xeen (1)

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lotto generator
note the xargs at the end

do something else while waiting for an event, such as reboot
until (ssh root@10.1.1.39 2> /dev/null); do date; sleep 15; done In this case will execute "date" then "sleep 15" until we are able to ssh into server, such as after a reboot Could also be like: until ( ping 10.1.1.39 1> /dev/null); do echo "server 10.1.1.39 is down"; sleep 15; done

Use /dev/full to test language I/O-failsafety
The Linux /dev/full file simulates a "disk full" condition, and can be used to verify how a program handles this situation. In particular, several programming language implementations do not print error diagnostics (nor exit with error status) when I/O errors like this occur, unless the programmer has taken additional steps. That is, simple code in these languages does not fail safely. In addition to Perl, C, C++, Tcl, and Lua (for some functions) also appear not to fail safely.

Convert your favorite image in xpm for using in grub
* size must be 640?480 pixels * only has 14 colors * save it in XPM format Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst and add splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/grubimg.xpm make sure for your path name and hard disk

A "Web 2.0" domain name generator and look for register availability
You would need pwgen installed first, on ubuntu you can get it by apt-get $ sudo apt-get install pwgen

Recursive cat - concatenate files (filtered by extension) across multiple subdirectories into one file
Useful if you have to put together multiple files into one and they are scattered across subdirectories. For example: You need to combine all .sql files into one .sql file that would be sent to DBAs as a batch script. You do get a warning if you create a file by the same extension as the ones your searching for. find . -type f -name *.sql -exec cat {} > BatchFile.txt \;

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"

get detailed info about a lan card on HP-UX 11.31

For a $FILE, extracts the path, filename, filename without extension and extension.
Useful for use in other scripts for renaming, testing for extensions, etc.

Watch YouTube and other Flash videos via mplayer (or whatever)
Many sites with Flash video players will download video files to /tmp on Linux, with temporary filenames like "FlashbGTHm4". These will often play in mplayer, totem, or other movie playing software. You must first navigate to a video page, let it start loading, and then pause playback.


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