Difference between revisions of "John's Linux page"

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Note: I have some other disorganised notes on [http://www.jj5.net/sixsigma/UNIX UNIX], which include a few tips for MacOS. I also have some tips for [http://www.jj5.net/sixsigma/OS_X OS X].
 
Note: I have some other disorganised notes on [http://www.jj5.net/sixsigma/UNIX UNIX], which include a few tips for MacOS. I also have some tips for [http://www.jj5.net/sixsigma/OS_X OS X].
 +
 +
Note: the info on this page is probably Ubuntu (and Debian as an outside chance) specific, because I use Ubuntu pretty much everywhere these days.
 +
 +
You might also be interested in [[John's hacks]].
 +
 +
Quick jump to: [[#NetBeans|NetBeans]].
 +
 +
= References =
 +
 +
== Command-line ==
 +
 +
See [https://zaiste.net/posts/shell-commands-rust/ Shell Commands I Wish I Knew Earlier] for some interesting options.
  
 
= System =
 
= System =
 +
 +
== Reporting system specifications from the command-line ==
 +
 +
Try any of these:
 +
 +
# neofetch
 +
# inxi
 +
# hwinfo --short
 +
 +
You may need to install the relevant package.
  
 
== Determining which Debian/Ubuntu release your are running ==
 
== Determining which Debian/Ubuntu release your are running ==
Line 13: Line 35:
 
  $ lsb_release
 
  $ lsb_release
  
== Determining which Unix you are running ==
+
== Determining which Linux/Unix you are running ==
  
 
  $ uname
 
  $ uname
 +
 +
Or,
 +
 +
$ uname -mrs
  
 
Or,
 
Or,
  
 
  $ uname -a
 
  $ uname -a
 +
 +
== Determining which Linux kernel you are running ==
 +
 +
$ uname -r
  
 
== Configuring system swappiness ==
 
== Configuring system swappiness ==
Line 36: Line 66:
  
 
  # lshw
 
  # lshw
 
And for CPUs:
 
 
# lscpu
 
  
 
And for PCI devices:
 
And for PCI devices:
Line 48: Line 74:
  
 
  # dmidecode
 
  # dmidecode
 +
 +
Note that the dmidecode command (above) will give you information about your system's motherboard. For motherboard info look for 'System Information' and/or 'Base Board Information'.
  
 
Or the grand daddy of them all:
 
Or the grand daddy of them all:
Line 71: Line 99:
 
  Info:      Processes: 355 Uptime: 11 days Memory: 21198.3/32043.3MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.5
 
  Info:      Processes: 355 Uptime: 11 days Memory: 21198.3/32043.3MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.5
  
= Environment =
+
=== Motherboard info ===
 +
 
 +
# dmidecode -t 2
  
== Configuring vim as your editor ==
+
=== CPU info ===
  
Sometimes all you need is:
+
# lscpu
  
$ export EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim
+
or:
  
Which works for svn, for example. Add it to your ~/.profile file to have it set for all login sessions.
+
# cat /proc/cpuinfo
  
Other times you need to run
+
=== RAM info ===
  
  # update-alternatives --config editor
+
  # dmidecode --type memory
  
And then select vim from the list. This is what you do to configure your visudo editor.
+
=== PCI info ===
  
== Configuring your locale ==
+
# lspci -v
  
$ sudo /usr/sbin/locale-gen en_AU.UTF-8
+
=== Drive info ===
$ sudo /usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 
  
= User and group management =
+
# cat /proc/partitions
  
== Adding a user ==
+
and:
  
To add a new user on a linux system:
+
# hdparm -I /dev/sda
  
# useradd username
+
and:
# passwd username
 
  
To have the home directory created from '/etc/skel' use the 'adduser' script instead:
+
# smartctl --info /dev/sda
  
# adduser username
+
You can check if a drive is SSD or not with:
  
== Adding a user to a group ==
+
# cat /sys/block/sde/queue/rotational
  
To add an existing user to an existing group:
+
0=SSD
 +
1=HDD
  
# gpasswd -a username group
+
== Viewing syslog and other logs with KSystemLog ==
  
e.g. to add user 'jj5' to the 'sudo' group:
+
Run the 'KSystemLog' program under KDE for a handy log viewer GUI.
  
# gpasswd -a jj5 sudo
+
= CPU =
  
Alternatively you can use adduser, passing the username and group:
+
== Monitoring CPU clock speed ==
  
# adduser username group
+
Try something like this:
  
e.g. to add user 'sclaughl' to the 'staff' group:
+
$ watch 'grep MHz /proc/cpuinfo | awk "{ print \$4 }" | sort -n'
  
# adduser sclaughl staff
+
= Power =
  
== Disabling a user account ==
+
== Reporting on PowerShield DEFENDER UPS status ==
  
You can disable a user account with:
+
Before running `upsc` ensure service is running:
  
  # passwd -l user
+
  # upsdrvctl start
  
Note: that's a lower-case L, not a one.
+
To see the status of the [https://powershield.com.au/powersheild_product/defender/ PowerShield DEFENDER] systems on John's LAN:
  
== Enabling a disabled user account ==
+
$ upsc defender
  
To can re-enable a locked user account with:
+
E.g.:
  
  # passwd -u user
+
  jj5@orac:~$ upsc defender
 +
Init SSL without certificate database
 +
battery.charge: 100
 +
battery.voltage: 27.40
 +
battery.voltage.high: 26.00
 +
battery.voltage.low: 20.80
 +
battery.voltage.nominal: 24.0
 +
device.type: ups
 +
driver.name: blazer_usb
 +
driver.parameter.pollinterval: 2
 +
driver.parameter.port: auto
 +
driver.parameter.synchronous: no
 +
driver.version: 2.7.4
 +
driver.version.internal: 0.12
 +
input.current.nominal: 5.0
 +
input.frequency: 50.1
 +
input.frequency.nominal: 50
 +
input.voltage: 242.6
 +
input.voltage.fault: 242.6
 +
input.voltage.nominal: 240
 +
output.voltage: 242.6
 +
ups.beeper.status: disabled
 +
ups.delay.shutdown: 30
 +
ups.delay.start: 180
 +
ups.load: 14
 +
ups.productid: 5161
 +
ups.status: OL
 +
ups.type: offline / line interactive
 +
ups.vendorid: 0665
  
== Finding which user you are logged in as ==
+
== Run commands on PowerShield DEFENDER UPS batteries ==
  
To determine which user you are running as enter the command:
+
You can run "instant commands" using the '''upscmd''' command.
  
$ whoami
+
We use the 'beeper.toggle' instant command in our Salt Stack config to disable the beeper, see e.g.:
  
== Finding which groups you are a member of ==
+
diligence:/srv/salt/conf/app/defender-1200.sls
  
To find which groups you are a member of:
+
To see "instant commands" supported by the PowerShield DEFENDER:
  
  $ groups
+
  $ upscmd -l defender
  
or
+
E.g.:
  
  $ groups username
+
  jj5@orac:~$ upscmd -l defender
 +
Instant commands supported on UPS [defender]:
 +
 +
beeper.toggle - Toggle the UPS beeper
 +
load.off - Turn off the load immediately
 +
load.on - Turn on the load immediately
 +
shutdown.return - Turn off the load and return when power is back
 +
shutdown.stayoff - Turn off the load and remain off
 +
shutdown.stop - Stop a shutdown in progress
 +
test.battery.start - Start a battery test
 +
test.battery.start.deep - Start a deep battery test
 +
test.battery.start.quick - Start a quick battery test
 +
test.battery.stop - Stop the battery test
  
Where 'username' is the username of the user you are querying, e.g.:
+
= Service management =
  
$ groups jj5
+
== Report running services ==
  
== Finding who else is logged in to the system ==
+
# service --status-all
  
To see who else is logged in,
+
= Environment =
  
$ who
+
== Configuring vim as your editor ==
  
== Running a command as a particular user ==
+
Sometimes all you need is:
  
To run "svn update" as the user www-data:
+
$ export EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim
  
$ sudo su -c "svn update" www-data
+
Which works for svn, for example. Add it to your ~/.profile file to have it set for all login sessions.
  
= Memory management =
+
Other times you need to run
  
== Checking available memory ==
+
# update-alternatives --config editor
  
To report memory statistics in megabytes:
+
And then select vim from the list. This is what you do to configure your visudo editor.
  
$ free -m
+
== Configuring your locale ==
  
= Video/display management =
+
$ sudo /usr/sbin/locale-gen en_AU.UTF-8
 +
$ sudo /usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
  
== Viewing EDID data for attached monitor ==
+
= User and group management =
  
To view [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Display_Identification_Data EDID] data for an attached monitor (requires the [https://packages.debian.org/stable/main/edid-decode edid-decode] package):
+
== Adding a user ==
  
$ cd /sys/class/drm
+
To add a new user on a linux system:
$ ls
 
$ cd card0-HDMI-A-1
 
$ edid-decode edid
 
  
= Process management =
+
# useradd username
 +
# passwd username
  
== Using 'top' for dynamic resource usage reporting ==
+
To have the home directory created from '/etc/skel' use the 'adduser' script instead:
  
To run top:
+
# adduser username
  
$ top
+
== Adding a user to a group ==
  
See [https://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/01/15-practical-unix-linux-top-command-examples/ 15 Practical Linux Top Command Examples] for some hints on usage.
+
To add an existing user to an existing group:
  
To see usage for a specific user run e.g.:
+
# gpasswd -a username group
  
$ top -u jj5
+
e.g. to add user 'jj5' to the 'sudo' group:
  
To see full command-line press 'c'.
+
# gpasswd -a jj5 sudo
  
When you're in 'top' you can:
+
Alternatively you can use adduser, passing the username and group:
  
* press '1' (one) to toggle CPU aggregation
+
# adduser username group
* press < and > to change the sort column
 
== Changing memory reporting in 'top' ==
 
  
To run top:
+
e.g. to add user 'sclaughl' to the 'staff' group:
  
  $ top
+
  # adduser sclaughl staff
  
Press 'E' to switch between top memory units (KiB, MiB, GiB, etc.)
+
== Disabling a user account ==
  
Press 'e' to switch between bottom memory units (KiB, MiB, GiB, etc.)
+
You can disable a user account with:
  
Press 'M' to sort by memory utilisation.
+
# passwd -l user
  
Press 'm' to switch between various display modes.
+
Note: that's a lower-case L, not a one.
  
= Disk management =
+
== Enabling a disabled user account ==
  
== Listing disk drives ==
+
To can re-enable a locked user account with:
  
  # fdisk -l
+
  # passwd -u user
  
(That's an L for "list")
+
== Finding which user you are logged in as ==
  
== Checking available disk space ==
+
To determine which user you are running as enter the command:
  
  $ df -h
+
  $ whoami
  
== Getting disk information ==
+
== Finding which groups you are a member of ==
  
  # lsblk
+
To find which groups you are a member of:
 +
 
 +
  $ groups
 +
 
 +
or
  
And
+
$ groups username
  
# cat /proc/partitions
+
Where 'username' is the username of the user you are querying, e.g.:
  
Or the Grand Daddy of them all:
+
$ groups jj5
  
# lshw -class disk
+
== Finding who else is logged in to the system ==
  
(Requires the lshw package.)
+
To see who else is logged in,
  
== Getting partition UUID and file-system type ==
+
$ who
  
# blkid
+
== Running a command as a particular user ==
  
== Checking for SSD vs magnetic disk ==
+
To run "svn update" as the user www-data:
  
  # cat /sys/block/sda/queue/rotational
+
  $ sudo su -c "svn update" www-data
  
Will be 0 for SSD and 1 for magnetic.
+
== Reporting user and group info for the current user ==
  
== Monitoring a ZFS server ==
+
$ id
  
So some commands I run to keep an eye on my new ZFS servers:
+
= Memory management =
  
# top
+
== Checking available memory ==
# iotop
 
# nethogs
 
# watch free -h
 
# watch slabtop -o
 
# slabtop
 
# watch cat /proc/meminfo
 
# perf top
 
# watch "df -h | grep -v -e tmpfs -e udev -e by-uuid"
 
# watch zpool iostat -v
 
# zpool iostat -v 2
 
# watch 'zpool list; echo; zfs list'
 
# watch zfs get compressratio -o all
 
# watch cat /proc/spl/kstat/zfs/arcstats
 
  
If you have a scrub or resilvering in progress you can report on progress with:
+
To report memory statistics in megabytes:
  
  # watch zpool status -v
+
  $ free -m
  
You can poke about in internals, e.g.:
+
== Check for swap thrashing ==
  
# cat /proc/spl/kstat/zfs/arcstats
+
Check your virtual memory status with vmstat:
  
  root@orac:/sys/module/zfs/parameters# tail *
+
  $ vmstat
  
You can report on property values with e.g.:
+
== Report memory type ==
  
# zfs get all data
+
Report on RAM DIMMs:
  
If you want to get funky:
+
# dmidecode --type 17
  
# cd /tmp
+
Report on RAM and CPU cache (including L1, L2, and L3):
# perf record -ag #(Ctrl+C after ~15 seconds)
 
# perf report --stdio
 
  
You can search for ZFS files like e.g. this:
+
# lshw -short -C memory
  
root@orac:/# find / -name '*zfs*' -or -name '*zpool*'
+
Or for more detail:
  
You can report history of a zpool:
+
# lshw -C memory
  
# zpool history $poolname
+
= Video/display management =
  
You can get a report on the dedup tables:
+
== Viewing EDID data for attached monitor ==
  
# zpool status -D $poolname
+
To view [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Display_Identification_Data EDID] data for an attached monitor (requires the [https://packages.debian.org/stable/main/edid-decode edid-decode] package):
  
Or more detailed dedup table info:
+
$ cd /sys/class/drm
 +
$ ls
 +
$ cd card0-HDMI-A-1
 +
$ edid-decode edid
  
# zdb -DDD $poolname
+
= Process management =
  
Note in the output see [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/405700 here] for details, basically:
+
== Using 'top' for dynamic resource usage reporting ==
  
{|class="wikitable"
+
To run top:
! Abbr  !! Description
 
|-
 
| LSIZE  || logical size (in memory)
 
|-
 
| PSIZE  || physical size
 
|-
 
| DSIZE  || size on disk
 
|-
 
| refcnt || reference count
 
|}
 
  
== Measure data throughput ==
+
$ top
  
Use the 'pv' command from the 'pv' package, e.g.:
+
See [https://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/01/15-practical-unix-linux-top-command-examples/ 15 Practical Linux Top Command Examples] for some hints on usage.
  
# cat /dev/sda | pv | cat > /dev/null
+
To see usage for a specific user run e.g.:
  
Or for ZFS:
+
$ top -u jj5
  
# zfs send data/example | pv | cat > /dev/null
+
To see full command-line press 'c'.
  
== Using Smartctl, Smartd and Hddtemp on Debian ==
+
When you're in 'top' you can:
  
For notes on using smartctl see [https://www.lisenet.com/2014/using-smartctl-smartd-and-hddtemp-on-debian/ Using Smartctl, Smartd and Hddtemp on Debian].
+
* press '1' (one) to toggle CPU aggregation
 +
* press < and > to change the sort column
  
== Report hard disk usage ==
+
== Changing memory reporting in 'top' ==
  
So you might want to know how much data a process reads or writes to a hard disk. You can monitor process total disk utilisation with the 'iotop' command. Run 'iotop' and then press 'a' for --accumulated.
+
To run top:
  
= Monitoring disk I/O =
+
$ top
  
There's an app for that! iotop.
+
Press 'E' to switch between top memory units (KiB, MiB, GiB, etc.)
  
== Using iotop, top for disks ==
+
Press 'e' to switch between bottom memory units (KiB, MiB, GiB, etc.)
  
# iotop -oPa
+
Press 'M' to sort by memory utilisation.
  
= File management =
+
Press 'm' to switch between various display modes.
  
== Listing only directories ==
+
== Showing full command-line in 'top' ==
  
$ ls -l | egrep '^d'
+
To see the full command-line for processes run with -c:
  
== Listing only files ==
+
$ top -c
  
$ ls -l | egrep -v '^d'
+
== Listing all processes currently running which were started in your current shell session ==
  
== Listing hidden files ==
+
$ ps -fl
  
$ ls -al .[!.]*
+
== Killing specific processes ==
  
== Creating a symbolic link ==
+
# ps aux | grep -e "this\|that" | grep -v grep | tr -s " " | cut -d " " -f 2 | xargs kill -9
 +
 
 +
== Run a command for a specified time using timeout ==
 +
 
 +
$ timeout 3 ping jj5.net
  
$ ln -s /path/to/target link-name
+
= Disk management =
  
== Creating a hard-link ==
+
== Power-off a hard drive ==
  
$ ln /path/to/target file-name
+
For instance if it's a USB drive or in a mobile rack and you want to remove it.
  
== Changing the owner of a file ==
+
# udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sdi
  
$ chown user:group <files>
+
== Reporting ext4 file-systems mounted without noatime ==
  
E.g.
+
$ cat /proc/mounts | grep ext | grep -v noatime | sort
  
$ chown jj5:staff README
+
== Creating a partition table ==
$ chown root:root *
 
  
To apply recursively into sub-directories use -R,
+
# parted /dev/xvdf
  
  $ chown -R root:root /etc/*
+
  mktable msdos
  
== Changing file permissions ==
+
== Creating a partition ==
  
{|class="wikitable"
+
# parted /dev/xvdf
|+ Object codes
 
! User !! Group !! Other
 
|-
 
| u    || g    || o
 
|}
 
  
{|class="wikitable"
+
u MiB
|+ Permission codes
+
mkpart primary 1 100%
! Read !! Write !! Exectue
 
|-
 
| r    || w    || x
 
|-
 
| 4    || 2    || 1
 
|}
 
  
{|class="wikitable"
+
== Creating an ext4 file-system ==
|+ Numeric codes
 
! 0
 
| None
 
|-
 
! 1
 
| Execute
 
|-
 
! 2
 
| Write
 
|-
 
! 3
 
| Write, Execute
 
|-
 
! 4
 
| Read
 
|-
 
! 5
 
| Read, Execute
 
|-
 
! 6
 
| Read, Write
 
|-
 
! 7
 
| Read, Write, Execute
 
|}
 
  
See [http://catcode.com/teachmod/numeric2.html Numeric Mode in Action].
+
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/xvdf1
  
$ chmod <user numeric code><group numeric code><other numeric code> <files>
+
== Listing disk drives ==
$ chmod <object codes>+|-<permission codes> <files>
 
  
E.g.
+
# fdisk -l
  
$ chmod 600 my-private-file
+
(That's an L for "list")
$ chmod go-rwx my-private-file
 
$ chmod u+rw my-private-file
 
$ chmod +x my-script
 
  
== Updating config files ==
+
== Checking available disk space ==
  
If you get given a new config file called new.conf and you want to integrate it with your old config file old.conf then:
+
$ df -h
  
$ cp old.conf updated.conf
+
== Getting disk information ==
$ merge -A updated.conf new.conf old.conf
 
  
Then go through and edit updated.conf resolving all the merge errors, picking and choosing what to update and what to keep. When you're done copy updated.conf to old.conf so it becomes the new config file.
+
# lsblk
  
The merge program is a part of the RCS package. If you don't have it:
+
And
  
  $ sudo apt-get install rcs
+
  # cat /proc/partitions
  
== Listing open files ==
+
Or the Grand Daddy of them all:
  
Use lsof to list open files. E.g.:
+
# lshw -class disk
  
# lsof
+
(Requires the lshw package.)
  
See man lsof for options.
+
== Getting partition UUID and file-system type ==
  
== List permissions on a whole directory path ==
+
# blkid
  
E.g.:
+
== Checking for SSD vs magnetic disk ==
  
  $ namei -om /home/jj5/workspace
+
  # cat /sys/block/sda/queue/rotational
  
Outputs:
+
Will be 0 for SSD and 1 for magnetic.
  
f: /home/jj5/workspace/
+
== Monitoring a ZFS server ==
  drwxr-xr-x root root /
 
  drwxr-xr-x root root home
 
  drwxr-xr-x jj5  jj5  jj5
 
  drwxr-xr-x jj5  jj5  workspace
 
  
== Counting non-blank lines in a file ==
+
So some commands I run to keep an eye on my new ZFS servers:
  
E.g.:
+
# top
 +
# iotop
 +
# nethogs
 +
# watch free -h
 +
# watch slabtop -o
 +
# slabtop
 +
# watch cat /proc/meminfo
 +
# perf top
 +
# watch "df -h | grep -v -e tmpfs -e udev -e by-uuid"
 +
# watch zpool iostat -v
 +
# zpool iostat -v 2
 +
# watch 'zpool list; echo; zfs list'
 +
# watch zfs get compressratio -o all
 +
# watch cat /proc/spl/kstat/zfs/arcstats
  
$ cat foo.c | sed '/^\s*$/d' | wc -l
+
If you have a scrub or resilvering in progress you can report on progress with:
  
== Cloning one directory to another with rsync ==
+
# watch zpool status -v
  
E.g.:
+
You can poke about in internals, e.g.:
  
rsync --acls --xattrs --stats --human-readable --recursive --del --force --times --links --hard-links --executability --numeric-ids --owner --group --perms --sparse --compress-level=0 /data/source/ hostname:/data/target/
+
# cat /proc/spl/kstat/zfs/arcstats
  
== Counting number of files in current directory and all subdirectories ==
+
root@orac:/sys/module/zfs/parameters# tail *
  
$ ls -AlhR . | egrep '^-' | wc -l
+
You can report on property values with e.g.:
  
== Counting number of directories in current directory and all subdirectories ==
+
# zfs get all data
  
$ ls -AlhR . | egrep '^d' | wc -l
+
If you want to get funky:
  
= Symbolic-link management =
+
# cd /tmp
 +
# perf record -ag #(Ctrl+C after ~15 seconds)
 +
# perf report --stdio
  
== Data used by sym-linked files:
+
You can search for ZFS files like e.g. this:
  
This will de-reference the sym-links in the current directory and tell you how much data the files pointed to by the sym-links are using:
+
root@orac:/# find / -name '*zfs*' -or -name '*zpool*'
  
jj5@tact:/data/backup/unity/latest$ du -hD * | sort -h
+
You can report history of a zpool:
  
= File searching =
+
# zpool history $poolname
  
== Finding a file with a particular name ==
+
You can get a report on the dedup tables:
  
  $ find -iname "*some-part-of-the-file-name*"
+
  # zpool status -D $poolname
  
Will start searching from the current directory, so maybe
+
Or more detailed dedup table info:
  
  $ cd /
+
  # zdb -DDD $poolname
  
first. For a case-sensitive search:
+
Note in the output see [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/405700 here] for details, basically:
  
  $ find -name "*eXaCT CaSE*"
+
{|class="wikitable"
 +
! Abbr  !! Description
 +
|-
 +
| LSIZE || logical size (in memory)
 +
|-
 +
| PSIZE  || physical size
 +
|-
 +
| DSIZE  || size on disk
 +
|-
 +
| refcnt || reference count
 +
|}
  
== Finding a file with particular content ==
+
== How to tell if zfs scrub is running ==
  
To search in /etc/ for a file with particular content:
+
You can get the status from the "scan:" line from:
  
  $ grep -R "search-string" /etc/*
+
  $ zpool status
  
To search the current directory for *.cs files containing the word "Up":
+
== Measure data throughput ==
  
$ find . -name '*.cs' -exec grep --color=auto -H Up {} \;
+
Use the 'pv' command from the 'pv' package, e.g.:
  
== Finding a list of files with particular content ==
+
# cat /dev/sda | pv | cat > /dev/null
  
E.g. to find all the files with the word 'creativity':
+
Or for ZFS:
  
  $ grep -R creativity . | sed 's/:/ /' | awk '{ print $1 }' | sort | uniq
+
  # zfs send data/example | pv | cat > /dev/null
  
== Using the locate command to find files ==
+
== Using Smartctl, Smartd and Hddtemp on Debian ==
  
$ locate part-of-filename
+
For notes on using smartctl see [https://www.lisenet.com/2014/using-smartctl-smartd-and-hddtemp-on-debian/ Using Smartctl, Smartd and Hddtemp on Debian].
  
E.g.
+
== Report hard disk usage ==
  
$ locate texvc
+
So you might want to know how much data a process reads or writes to a hard disk. You can monitor process total disk utilisation with the 'iotop' command. Run 'iotop' and then press 'a' for --accumulated.
  
== Updating locate command's database ==
+
== Report hard disk temperatures ==
  
# updatedb
+
E.g.
  
= Job control =
+
# hddtemp /dev/sd[a-e]
  
== Stopping a running process ==
+
== Burning an ISO image to USB on Mac ==
  
Press Ctrl+Z to stop a running process.
+
First insert your USB key and find the appropriate disk with:
  
== Listing current jobs and their status ==
+
# diskutil list
  
$ jobs
+
Then unmount it with:
  
== Resuming a stopped job in the backgroud ==
+
# diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk4
  
To resume a stopped process in the background
+
Then copy ISO image with 'dd':
  
  $ bg %1
+
  # dd if=ubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/disk4
  
where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').
+
You can get dd to report progress by sending it the SIGINFO signal:
  
== Resuming a stopped job in the foreground ==
+
# kill -s info 12345
  
To resume a stopped process in the foreground
+
== Listing all ext4 file systems ==
  
$ fg %1
+
To see a list only of the mounted ext4 file systems:
  
where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').
+
# df -t ext4
  
== Killing a stopped job ==
+
== Report hierarchical file system mount points and mount options ==
  
To kill a job
+
$ findmnt
  
$ kill %1
+
== Report the mount point for the current working directory ==
  
where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').
+
$ findmnt "$PWD"
  
== Periodically run a program and watch its output ==
+
= Monitoring disk I/O =
 +
 
 +
There's an app for that! iotop.
  
$ watch /your/command
+
== Using iotop, top for disks ==
  
= Debian/Ubuntu package management =
+
# iotop -oPa
  
Also see [https://wiki.debian.org/WhereIsIt Where "is" it?] on the Debian Wiki.
+
== Monitor disk I/O for performance issues ==
  
== configuring debconf ==
+
# watch iostat
  
# dpkg-reconfigure debconf
+
Or e.g.
  
Set priority to low to get asked detailed questions.
+
# watch iostat -xd /dev/sd[abc]
  
== Showing list of installed packages ==
+
Or use groupings like this command for 'tact':
  
  # dpkg --get-selections
+
  $ iostat -g system nvme0n1 -g fast sda sdb -g data sdc sdd -d 2
  
== Searching for installed package ==
+
= Monitoring a system =
  
# dpkg --get-selections | grep package-name
+
== Simple ZFS monitoring ==
  
or
+
# watch iostat
 +
# iotop
 +
# zpool iostat -v 5
 +
# watch 'hddtemp /dev/sd[a-e]; echo; zpool list; echo; zfs list'
 +
# nethogs
 +
# top
  
# aptitude search package-name
+
= Monitoring temperature =
  
== Showing which files are installed as part of a package ==
+
See [https://askubuntu.com/a/854029 temperature without third-party apps] for:
  
  # dpkg -L package-name
+
  $ cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp
  
== Installing a package ==
+
and:
  
  # apt-get install package-name
+
  $ paste <(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/type) <(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp) | column -s $'\t' -t | sed 's/\(.\)..$/.\1°C/'
  
== Uninstalling a package ==
+
== Monitoring CPU temperature ==
  
  # apt-get remove package-name
+
  $ watch sensors
  
== Showing system architecture ==
+
== Monitoring HDD temperature ==
  
$ dpkg --print-architecture
+
For e.g. SATA drives sda to sdd:
  
== Showing which package a file belongs to ==
+
# watch hddtemp /dev/sd[a-d]
  
$ which echo
+
= ZFS =
/bin/echo
 
$ dpkg -S /bin/echo
 
coreutils: /bin/echo
 
$ dpkg -l | grep coreutils
 
ii  coreutils                        6.10-6                  The GNU core utilities
 
  
== Showing package information ==
+
== How can I determine the current size of the ARC in ZFS, and how does the ARC relate to free or cache memory? ==
  
$ apt-cache showpkg coreutils
+
See [https://superuser.com/q/1137416 How can I determine the current size of the ARC in ZFS, and how does the ARC relate to free or cache memory?]
  
Or for even more information:
+
$ cat /proc/spl/kstat/zfs/arcstats
  
$ apt-cache show coreutils
+
Then:
  
== List all installed packages with package version info ==
+
c is the target size of the ARC in bytes
 +
c_max is the maximum size of the ARC in bytes
 +
size is the current size of the ARC in bytes
  
dpkg-query -l
+
== Stopping a ZFS scrub in progress ==
  
== Reporting which version of a package is installed ==
+
# zpool scrub -s $pool
  
$ dpkg -l | grep package-name
+
e.g. for the 'data' pool:
  
E.g.:
+
# zpool scrub -s data
  
root@hope:~/letsencrypt# dpkg -l | grep augeas
+
= File management =
ii  augeas-lenses                  0.7.0-1ubuntu1                Set of lenses needed by libaugeas0 to parse
 
ii  libaugeas0                      0.7.0-1ubuntu1                The augeas configuration editing library and
 
  
== Comprehensive upgrade ==
+
== Listing files by size ==
  
Try the following:
+
Use capital S for Size:
  
  # apt-get update
+
  $ ls -S
# apt-get dist-upgrade
 
# apt-get autoremove
 
# apt-get remove $(deborphan)
 
# update-flashplugin-nonfree --install
 
  
== Searching all available packages ==
+
== Listing only directories ==
  
  $ apt-cache search . | sort -d | less
+
  $ ls -l | egrep '^d'
  
= Networking =
+
== Listing only files ==
  
== net-tools vs iproute2 ==
+
$ ls -l | egrep -v '^d'
  
The older 'net-tools' package has been replaced with 'iproute2' e.g. in [https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/amd64/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#iproute2 stretch].
+
== Listing hidden files ==
  
{|class="wikitable"
+
$ ls -al .[!.]*
! legacy net-tools commands
 
! iproute2 replacement commands
 
|-
 
| arp      || ip n (ip neighbor)
 
|-
 
| ifconfig || ip a (ip addr), ip link, ip -s (ip -stats)
 
|-
 
| iptunnel || ip tunnel
 
|-
 
| iwconfig || iw
 
|-
 
| nameif  || ip link, ifrename
 
|-
 
| netstat  || ss, ip route (for netstat-r), ip -s link (for netstat -i), ip maddr (for netstat-g)
 
|-
 
| route    || ip r (ip route)
 
|}
 
  
== Restart networking ==
+
== Creating a symbolic link ==
  
For servers:
+
$ ln -s /path/to/target link-name
  
# service networking restart
+
== Creating a hard-link ==
  
For desktops:
+
$ ln /path/to/target file-name
  
# service network-manager restart
+
== Changing the owner of a file ==
  
== Pinging with particular packet size ==
+
  $ chown user:group <files>
 
 
  $ ping -M do -s <packet size in bytes> <host>
 
  
 
E.g.
 
E.g.
  
  $ ping -M do -s 1400 charity.progclub.org
+
  $ chown jj5:staff README
 +
$ chown root:root *
  
== Setting [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_segment_size MSS] for a particular IP address on a particular interface ==
+
To apply recursively into sub-directories use -R,
  
  # ip route add <host> dev <interface> advmss <packet size>
+
  $ chown -R root:root /etc/*
  
E.g.
+
== Changing file permissions ==
  
# ip route add 10.0.0.1 dev eth0 advmss 1400
+
{|class="wikitable"
 +
|+ Object codes
 +
! User !! Group !! Other
 +
|-
 +
| u    || g    || o
 +
|}
  
== Dropping configured MMS for a particular IP address ==
+
{|class="wikitable"
 
+
|+ Permission codes
# ip route flush <host>
+
! Read !! Write !! Exectue
 +
|-
 +
| r    || w    || x
 +
|-
 +
| 4    || 2    || 1
 +
|}
  
E.g.
+
{|class="wikitable"
 
+
|+ Numeric codes
# ip route flush 10.0.0.1
+
! 0
 
+
| None
== Listing open ports and socket information ==
+
|-
 
+
! 1
Including which process is listening on which port.
+
| Execute
 
+
|-
# netstat -tulpn
+
! 2
 
+
| Write
Or use the 'ss' command:
+
|-
 
+
! 3
# ss -s
+
| Write, Execute
# ss -l
+
|-
# ss -pl
+
! 4
# ss -o state established '( dport = :smtp or sport = :smtp )'
+
| Read
 +
|-
 +
! 5
 +
| Read, Execute
 +
|-
 +
! 6
 +
| Read, Write
 +
|-
 +
! 7
 +
| Read, Write, Execute
 +
|}
  
== Listing open IPv4 connections ==
+
See [http://catcode.com/teachmod/numeric2.html Numeric Mode in Action].
  
  # lsof -Pnl +M -i4
+
  $ chmod <user numeric code><group numeric code><other numeric code> <files>
 +
$ chmod <object codes>+|-<permission codes> <files>
  
You might need to install the lsof package:
+
E.g.
  
  # apt-get install lsof
+
  $ chmod 600 my-private-file
 +
$ chmod go-rwx my-private-file
 +
$ chmod u+rw my-private-file
 +
$ chmod +x my-script
  
== Query for DNS MX record ==
+
== Updating config files ==
  
$ nslookup
+
If you get given a new config file called new.conf and you want to integrate it with your old config file old.conf then:
> server 127.0.0.1
 
> set q=mx
 
> mail.blackbrick.com
 
  
== Query for DNS SOA record ==
+
$ cp old.conf updated.conf
 +
$ merge -A updated.conf new.conf old.conf
  
$ dig @ns2.staticmagic.net -t SOA staticmagic.net
+
Then go through and edit updated.conf resolving all the merge errors, picking and choosing what to update and what to keep. When you're done copy updated.conf to old.conf so it becomes the new config file.
  
== Using nmap to list open ports on remote host ==
+
The merge program is a part of the RCS package. If you don't have it:
  
To check the 1,000 most common ports:
+
$ sudo apt-get install rcs
  
# nmap server.example.com
+
== Listing open files ==
  
Or for a specific port range (e.g. 101 to 102):
+
Use lsof to list open files. E.g.:
  
  # nmap -p 101-102 server.example.com
+
  # lsof
  
Or for all ports (1 to 65,535):
+
See man lsof for options.
  
# nmap -p- server.example.com
+
== List permissions on a whole directory path ==
  
== Network monitoring ==
+
E.g.:
  
See [http://www.binarytides.com/linux-commands-monitor-network/ here] for details. Basically:
+
$ namei -om /home/jj5/workspace
  
# Overall bandwidth: nload, bmon, slurm, bwm-ng, cbm, speedometer, netload
+
Outputs:
# Overall bandwidth (batch style output): vnstat, ifstat, dstat, collectl
 
# Bandwidth per socket connection: iftop, iptraf, tcptrack, pktstat, netwatch, trafshow
 
# Bandwidth per process: nethogs
 
  
== nload ==
+
f: /home/jj5/workspace/
 +
  drwxr-xr-x root root /
 +
  drwxr-xr-x root root home
 +
  drwxr-xr-x jj5  jj5  jj5
 +
  drwxr-xr-x jj5  jj5  workspace
  
You can watch network traffic in real-time with nload:
+
== Counting non-blank lines in a file ==
  
# nload -u M
+
E.g.:
  
== Reporting network (NIC) speed ==
+
$ cat foo.c | sed '/^\s*$/d' | wc -l
  
From [https://askubuntu.com/questions/431911/how-can-i-verify-the-speed-of-my-nic-in-ubuntu#431912 here]:
+
== Cloning one directory to another with rsync ==
  
# dmesg | grep eth0
+
E.g.:
# mii-tool -v eth0
 
# ethtool eth0
 
  
Note: use ifconfig to get device name.
+
rsync --acls --xattrs --stats --human-readable --recursive --del --force --times --links --hard-links --executability --numeric-ids --owner --group --perms --sparse --compress-level=0 /data/source/ hostname:/data/target/
  
== Path MTU discovery ==
+
== Counting number of files in current directory and all subdirectories ==
  
To do a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_MTU_Discovery Path MTU Discovery], from the iputils-tracepath package:
+
$ ls -AlhR . | egrep '^-' | wc -l
  
# tracepath host.example.com
+
== Counting number of directories in current directory and all subdirectories ==
  
== Listing available Ethernet devices ==
+
$ ls -AlhR . | egrep '^d' | wc -l
  
To see a list of NICs available on the host:
+
== Getting the status of a 'dd' process ==
  
$ cat /proc/net/dev
+
First figure out the 'dd' process number, with e.g. 'top' or 'ps aux | grep dd'
  
Also
+
Then send the dd process the SIGINFO signal, which for dd process 40947 would be:
  
  $ ip link
+
  # kill -s info 40947
  
== Links ==
+
The dd process will report its status in the terminal its running in.
  
* [http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-open-ports/ HowTo: UNIX / Linux Open TCP / UDP Ports]
+
== Transferring a large file via FAT32 file system ==
  
= IPTables =
+
So the maximum file size supported by a FAT32 file system (commonly used on USB keys) is 4 GB per file. If you have a file larger than 4 GB you can split it into parts and then reassemble the parts once transferred:
  
== Applying firewall rules ==
+
$ split -b 4000m input.tgz input.tgz-parts-
  
For configuration info see [http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/4/25/ubuntu-hardy-setup-page-1 this article].
+
Then copy the small files and reassemble:
  
  $ sudo vim /etc/iptables.test.rules
+
  $ cat input.tgz-parts-* > output.tgz
$ sudo /sbin/iptables -F
 
$ sudo /sbin/iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.test.rules
 
$ sudo iptables -L
 
$ sudo -s
 
# iptables-save > /etc/iptables.up.rules
 
# exit
 
  
= ufw =
+
== Find the difference between two directories ==
  
== Denying hosts with ufw ==
+
$ diif -qr $DIR_A $DIR_B
  
See [[Admin_reference#Denying_hosts_with_UFW|denying hosts with ufw]].
+
== Merging two directories ==
  
= Bind9 =
+
$ cp -RT source/ destination/
  
== Viewing Bind9 querylog ==
+
Files from source will be merged into destination.
  
$ sudo rndc querylog
+
== Generating a replacement file ==
$ tail -f /var/log/syslog
 
  
= IPSec =
+
So you generate the file into a temp file, then hard link the temp file to where you want the replacement to go, then you delete the temp file:
  
== Disabling IPSec ==
+
$ generate-file.sh > file.txt.tmp
 +
$ ln -f file.txt.tmp file.txt
 +
$ rm file.txt.tmp
  
# setkey -FP
+
= NFS =
  
= OpenSSL =
+
== List NFS shares ==
  
== Debugging IMAPS with OpenSSL ==
+
To e.g. show NFS shares on 'love':
  
  # openssl s_client -connect localhost:993
+
  $ showmount -e love
> a1 LOGIN username@host password
 
> a2 LOGOUT
 
  
== Debugging HTTPS with OpenSSL ==
+
= Compression =
  
$ openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443
+
== How to use pigz with tar ==
GET /example.html HTTP/1.1
 
host: www.example.com
 
  
== Links ==
+
See [https://stackoverflow.com/a/39904353 here]:
  
* [http://www.madboa.com/geek/openssl/ OpenSSL Command-Line HOWTO]
+
$ tar cf - paths-to-archive | pigz --best -p 8 > archive.tgz
  
= Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) =
+
Note: don't use --best unless you're being stingy, running without it will be much faster.
  
== Links ==
+
Also from [https://stackoverflow.com/a/50586833 here]:
  
* [http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/Deployment_Guide-en-US/ch-pam.html 42.4. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)]
+
Fast pack:
  
= SSH =
+
tar -I 'pigz --fast' -cf my.tar.gz whatver
  
== Configuring SSH key login ==
+
Best pack:
  
On the client machine generate a key-pair (if necessary, check for existing ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub):
+
tar -I 'pigz --best' -cf my.tar.gz whatver
  
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa
+
Fast unpack:
  
Copy the public key from the client to the server:
+
tar -I pigz -xf my.tar.gz
  
$ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub user@example.org:
+
== Best compression with tar ==
  
Configure the authorized keys on the server:
+
From [https://superuser.com/questions/514260/how-to-obtain-maximum-compression-with-tar-gz#544643 here]:
  
  $ ssh user@example.org
+
  export GZIP=-9
$ mkdir ~/.ssh
+
  tar cvzf file.tar.gz /path/to/directory
$ chmod go-w .ssh
 
  $ cat ~/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
 
$ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
 
$ rm ~/id_rsa.pub
 
  
== Tunneling over SSH ==
+
or
  
For example, connecting a remote MySQL server to the localhost:
+
env GZIP=-9 tar cvzf file.tar.gz /path/to/directory
  
$ ssh -L 3306:localhost:3306 jselliot@ssh.progsoc.org
+
== Best parallel compression with pigz ==
  
If the machine you want to connect to is not the localhost of the machine you're ssh'ing to,
+
$ pigz --best
 +
 
 +
== Best parallel compression with xz ==
  
  $ ssh -L 3306:muspell.progsoc.uts.edu.au:3306 ssh.progsoc.uts.edu.au
+
$ xz -9e -T 0
  
The -L stanza is localport:remotehost:remoteport where localport is a
+
== Reporting compression ratios with xz ==
port on your machine, forwarded to remoteport on remotehost.
 
  
== Tunneling over SSH with PuTTY ==
+
e.g.
  
See [http://www.anchor.com.au/hosting/support/MySQL/Connecting_to_mysql_remotely Connecting to the MySQL database remotely (via an SSH Tunnel)]
+
root@love:/data/image/archive# xz -l *
 +
Strms  Blocks  Compressed Uncompressed  Ratio  Check  Filename
 +
    1      3    372.2 MiB    442.3 MiB  0.841  CRC64  1999.txz
 +
    1      29  5,281.3 MiB  5,542.5 MiB  0.953  CRC64  2001.txz
 +
    1      11  1,364.3 MiB  2,084.3 MiB  0.655  CRC64  2002.txz
 +
    1      9    568.5 MiB  1,660.2 MiB  0.342  CRC64  2003.txz
 +
    1    639    66.8 GiB    119.6 GiB  0.558  CRC64  2004.txz
 +
    1    313    12.7 GiB    58.6 GiB  0.217  CRC64  2005.txz
 +
    1    414    35.0 GiB    77.4 GiB  0.452  CRC64  2006.txz
 +
    1    485    44.5 GiB    90.9 GiB  0.490  CRC64  2007.txz
 +
    1  1,690    150.0 GiB    316.8 GiB  0.473  CRC64  2008.txz
 +
    1      3    457.9 MiB    526.0 MiB  0.871  CRC64  2009.txz
 +
    1    168    27.3 GiB    31.4 GiB  0.868  CRC64  2010.txz
 +
    1      4    477.1 MiB    702.8 MiB  0.679  CRC64  2011.txz
 +
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 +
    12  3,768    344.6 GiB    705.5 GiB  0.488  CRC64  12 files
  
* run putty.exe
+
= Symbolic-link management =
* Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels
 
** Port forwarding: source port to 3306
 
** destination: 127.0.0.1:3306
 
** check Local
 
** click Add
 
  
== Enabling verbose SSH logging ==
+
== Data used by sym-linked files:
  
To see what's going on with your ssh connections,
+
This will de-reference the sym-links in the current directory and tell you how much data the files pointed to by the sym-links are using:
  
  $ ssh -v user@host
+
  jj5@tact:/data/backup/unity/latest$ du -hD * | sort -h
  
Or
+
= File searching =
  
$ ssh -vv user@host
+
== Finding a file with a particular name ==
  
== Unlocking SSH key for session ==
+
$ find -iname "*some-part-of-the-file-name*"
  
jj5@orac:~/.config/autostart$ cat ssh-add.desktop
+
Will start searching from the current directory, so maybe
[Desktop Entry]
 
Type=Application
 
Name=ssh-add
 
Comment=Adds my private key to my session.
 
Exec=/usr/bin/konsole -e 'ssh-add /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa'
 
  
== Links ==
+
$ cd /
  
* [http://blogs.perl.org/users/smylers/2011/08/ssh-productivity-tips.html SSH Can Do That? Productivity Tips for Working with Remote Servers]
+
first. For a case-sensitive search:
* [http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html PuTTY Download Page]
 
  
= Standard IO =
+
$ find -name "*eXaCT CaSE*"
  
== cat EOF ==
+
== Finding a file with particular content ==
  
$ cat > output <<EOF
+
To search in /etc/ for a file with particular content:
> text
 
> EOF
 
  
  $ cat output
+
  $ grep -R "search-string" /etc/*
text
 
  
= Script =
+
To search the current directory for *.cs files containing the word "Up":
  
== Creating a session log with script ==
+
$ find . -name '*.cs' -exec grep --color=auto -H Up {} \;
  
$ script -t 2> timing
+
== Finding a list of files with particular content ==
  
The session log is in the file 'typescript' and the timing data is in 'timing'.
+
E.g. to find all the files with the word 'creativity':
  
== Replaying a scripted session ==
+
$ grep -R creativity . | sed 's/:/ /' | awk '{ print $1 }' | sort | uniq
  
$ scriptreplay timing
+
== Using the locate command to find files ==
  
Uses the default file 'typescript' and the 'timing' file as specified.
+
$ locate part-of-filename
  
= Screen =
+
E.g.
  
== Creating a new screen or reconnecting to a detached screen ==
+
$ locate texvc
  
$ screen -R
+
== Updating locate command's database ==
  
== Detaching a screen ==
+
# updatedb
  
$ screen -D
+
== Select a random line from a text file ==
  
== Reconnecting to screen ==
+
$ shuf -n 1 input.txt
  
$ screen -D
+
== Extra context for grep ==
$ screen -R
 
  
I have a script in ~/bin/reconnect like so,
+
If you need to show extra lines before or after your grep results use -B NUM to set how many lines before the match and -A NUM for the number of lines after the match:
  
  #!/bin/bash
+
  $ grep -B 3 -A 1 ...
screen -D
 
screen -R
 
  
This will detach your last screen, and reconnect it on the current terminal.
+
= Job control =
  
== Scrolling in screen ==
+
== Stopping a running process ==
  
See [https://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2008/01/how-to-scroll-in-gnu-screen/ How to scroll in GNU Screen]. Basically press Ctrl+A ESC then use Page Up and Page Down. Press ESC again to exit copy mode. As usual you can use Ctrl+[ in place of ESC.
+
Press Ctrl+Z to stop a running process.
  
= Vim =
+
== Listing current jobs and their status ==
  
== First, why Vim? ==
+
$ jobs
  
Read [http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?]
+
== Resuming a stopped job in the backgroud ==
  
== Visual modes ==
+
To resume a stopped process in the background
  
Use 'v' for visual mode, 'V' for visual line mode and Ctrl+V for visual block mode.
+
$ bg %1
  
== Configuring spaces instead of tabs ==
+
where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').
  
I use two spaces instead of tabs. To configure, edit your .vimrc file:
+
== Resuming a stopped job in the foreground ==
  
$ vim ~/.vimrc
+
To resume a stopped process in the foreground
  
and include the following lines:
+
$ fg %1
  
set tabstop=2
+
where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').
set shiftwidth=2
 
set expandtab
 
  
== Configuring syntax highlighting ==
+
== Killing a stopped job ==
  
See [http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/turn-on-or-off-color-syntax-highlighting-in-vi-or-vim/ here].
+
To kill a job
  
Use:
+
$ kill %1
  
:syntax on
+
where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').
  
to turn on syntax highlighting.
+
== Periodically run a program and watch its output ==
  
Use:
+
$ watch /your/command
  
:syntax off
+
= Debian/Ubuntu package management =
  
to turn off syntax highlighting.
+
Also see [https://wiki.debian.org/WhereIsIt Where "is" it?] on the Debian Wiki.
  
To always use syntax highlighting:
+
== configuring debconf ==
  
  $ vim ~/.vimrc
+
  # dpkg-reconfigure debconf
  
and add:
+
Set priority to low to get asked detailed questions.
  
syntax on
+
== Showing list of installed packages ==
  
To get a list of supported colour schemes open vim and type:
+
# dpkg --get-selections
  
:colorscheme[space][Ctrl+D]
+
== Searching for installed package ==
  
To always use a particular colorscheme edit ~/.vimrc and add (for example):
+
# dpkg --get-selections | grep package-name
  
colorscheme desert
+
or
  
== Inserting a TAB character when expandtab is on ==
+
# aptitude search package-name
  
The problem here is that you have configured vim to insert spaces, but for a particular file (e.g. a Makefile) you need to insert a character.
+
== Showing which files are installed as part of a package ==
  
Press Ctrl+V TAB to insert a literal tab character.
+
# dpkg -L package-name
  
Or you can disable tab expansion altogether with:
+
== Installing a package ==
  
  :set expandtab!
+
  # apt-get install package-name
  
== Changing 2 space indent to 4 space indent (e.g. for python files) ==
+
== Uninstalling a package ==
  
  :%s/^\s*/&&/g
+
  # apt-get remove package-name
  
For more information [https://www.progclub.org/blog/2013/08/10/vim-reformat-a-python-file-to-have-4-space-indentations/ see here].
+
== Showing system architecture ==
  
== Recording and replaying a macro ==
+
$ dpkg --print-architecture
  
To record a macro press 'q' and then a number between 1 and 9. E.g. press "q1". The macro is now recording. When you've finished issuing your commands press 'q' again to finish recording. To replay a macro press '@' followed by the number of the macro. That is, if you pressed "q1" to record the macro, press "@1" to replay the macro. To replay the last macro again press "@@".
+
== Showing which package a file belongs to ==
  
== Deleting to end of line ==
+
$ which echo
 +
/bin/echo
 +
$ dpkg -S /bin/echo
 +
coreutils: /bin/echo
 +
$ dpkg -l | grep coreutils
 +
ii  coreutils                        6.10-6                  The GNU core utilities
  
d$
+
== Showing package information ==
  
== Deleting to beginning of line ==
+
$ apt-cache showpkg coreutils
  
d^
+
Or for even more information:
  
== Finding text ==
+
$ apt-cache show coreutils
  
To search forward for "text":
+
== List all installed packages with package version info ==
  
  /text
+
  dpkg-query -l
  
To search backward for "text":
+
== Reporting which version of a package is installed ==
  
  ?text
+
  $ dpkg -l | grep package-name
  
To repeat the last search in a forward direction press 'n', or to search again backwards press 'N'.
+
E.g.:
  
== Finding and replacing text ==
+
root@hope:~/letsencrypt# dpkg -l | grep augeas
 +
ii  augeas-lenses                  0.7.0-1ubuntu1                Set of lenses needed by libaugeas0 to parse
 +
ii  libaugeas0                      0.7.0-1ubuntu1                The augeas configuration editing library and
  
To replace the first instance of "search" on the current line with "destroy":
+
== Comprehensive upgrade ==
  
:s/search/destroy/
+
Try the following:
  
To replace all instances of "search" on the current line with "destroy":
+
# apt-get update
 +
# apt-get dist-upgrade
 +
# apt-get autoremove
 +
# apt-get remove $(deborphan)
 +
# update-flashplugin-nonfree --install
  
:s/search/destroy/g
+
== Searching all available packages ==
  
To replace all instances of "search" on lines 13 to 37 with "destroy":
+
$ apt-cache search . | sort -d | less
  
:13,37 s/search/destroy/g
+
== Reporting unattended upgrades status ==
  
To replace all instances of "search" in the entire file with "destroy":
+
See [https://askubuntu.com/questions/934807/unattended-upgrades-status#934863 here] for more info.
  
  :%s/search/destroy/g
+
  # tail -f /var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades.log
  
== Changing DOS/Windows line-endings (CRLF) to Unix line-endings ==
+
== Searching for Debian packages and versions ==
  
To set the line-ending to Unix line endings run the command:
+
* [https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=dnscrypt-proxy Debian package search]
  
:setlocal ff=unix
+
= Networking =
  
More information on managing file formats [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/File_format available here].
+
== Determining throughput between two hosts ==
  
== Disabling auto-indent etc. to paste from clipboard ==
+
# apt install iperf3
  
To disable smart indenting when you're going to paste in text:
+
On the server:
  
  :set paste
+
  # iperf3 -s
  
To turn it off again:
+
On the client:
  
  :set nopaste
+
  # iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP
  
There's more info in this article: [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Toggle_auto-indenting_for_code_paste Toggle auto-indenting for code paste]
+
For more info see: [https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/how-to-test-the-network-speedthroughput-between-two-linux-servers/ How to test the network speed/throughput between two Linux servers].
  
== Positioning windows ==
+
== net-tools vs iproute2 ==
  
Use -o for horizontal split, e.g.:
+
The older 'net-tools' package has been replaced with 'iproute2' e.g. in [https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/amd64/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#iproute2 stretch].
  
  vim -o a.txt b.txt
+
{|class="wikitable"
 +
! legacy net-tools commands
 +
! iproute2 replacement commands
 +
|-
 +
| arp      || ip n (ip neighbor)
 +
|-
 +
| ifconfig || ip a (ip addr), ip link, ip -s (ip -stats)
 +
|-
 +
| iptunnel || ip tunnel
 +
|-
 +
| iwconfig || iw
 +
|-
 +
| nameif  || ip link, ifrename
 +
|-
 +
| netstat || ss, ip route (for netstat-r), ip -s link (for netstat -i), ip maddr (for netstat-g)
 +
|-
 +
| route    || ip r (ip route)
 +
|}
  
Use -O for vertical split, e.g.:
+
== Restart networking ==
  
vim -o a.txt b.txt
+
For servers:
  
Use ^W to navigate windows then use directional keys h, j, k, l, etc.
+
# service networking restart
  
Use ^W and &lt; or &gt; to resize windows.
+
For desktops:
  
== To indent a block of text in Vim ==
+
# service network-manager restart
  
Use the > command. E.g. to indent five lines:
+
== Pinging with particular packet size ==
  
  5 > >
+
  $ ping -M do -s <packet size in bytes> <host>
  
Press . (dot) to keep indenting.
+
E.g.
  
Or inside a block (e.g. curly brace, HTML/XML element, etc.) you can put your cursor in the element on on the curly brace and then:
+
$ ping -M do -s 1400 charity.progclub.org
  
> %
+
== Setting [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_segment_size MSS] for a particular IP address on a particular interface ==
  
See [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/235839/indent-multiple-lines-quickly-in-vi#235841 here] for more.
+
# ip route add <host> dev <interface> advmss <packet size>
  
== Open a file in a new window/tab ==
+
E.g.
  
To open a file on the left hand side:
+
# ip route add 10.0.0.1 dev eth0 advmss 1400
  
:vert new filename.ext
+
== Dropping configured MMS for a particular IP address ==
  
Note: ':vnew filename.ext' and ':vsp filename.ext' also work.
+
# ip route flush <host>
  
To open a file at the top:
+
E.g.
  
  :new filename.ext
+
  # ip route flush 10.0.0.1
  
See [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10760310/how-to-open-a-new-file-in-vim-in-a-new-window#10762678 here] for more.
+
== Listing open ports and socket information ==
  
== Explore files in Vim ==
+
Including which process is listening on which port.
  
Enter:
+
# netstat -tulpn
  
:Explore
+
Or use the 'ss' command:
  
== Switch between Vim tabs ==
+
# ss -s
 +
# ss -l
 +
# ss -pl
 +
# ss -o state established '( dport = :smtp or sport = :smtp )'
  
Use gt and gT.
+
== Listing open IPv4 connections ==
  
== Switch between Vim windows ==
+
# lsof -Pnl +M -i4
  
To toggle between open windows use:
+
You might need to install the lsof package:
  
  Ctrl+W W
+
  # apt-get install lsof
  
To move in a direction use:
+
== Query for DNS MX record ==
  
  Ctrl+W h/j/k/l
+
  $ nslookup
 
+
> server 127.0.0.1
See [http://superuser.com/questions/280500/how-does-one-switch-between-windows-on-vim#280501 here] for more.
+
> set q=mx
 +
> mail.blackbrick.com
  
== Insert block comment in Vim ==
+
== Query for DNS SOA record ==
  
See [https://stackoverflow.com/a/253391/868138 here] for line-commenting.
+
$ dig @ns2.staticmagic.net -t SOA staticmagic.net
  
So it's:
+
== Using nmap to list open ports on remote host ==
  
# Ctrl+V (Note: not Shift+V!)
+
To check the 1,000 most common ports:
# Up/Down to select rows
 
# Shift+I
 
# Enter your text, e.g. '#' or '//'
 
# Ctrl+[ (or 'Esc')
 
  
== Navigate to matching tag ==
+
# nmap server.example.com
  
To navigate to the matching beginning or end tag use '%'.
+
Or for a specific port range (e.g. 101 to 102):
  
You can also use e.g. '[{' to match the previous '{', or e.g. '])' to match the next ')'.
+
# nmap -p 101-102 server.example.com
  
== Auto-format HTML tags ==
+
Or for all ports (1 to 65,535):
  
Stolen from [https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-auto-format-HTML-in-Vim here].
+
# nmap -p- server.example.com
  
# first join all the lines - ggVGgJ
+
== Network monitoring ==
# Now break tags to new lines - :%s/>\s*</>\r</g
 
# Now set filetype - :set ft=html (you can do this before too)
 
# Now Indent - ggVG=
 
  
== Links ==
+
See [http://www.binarytides.com/linux-commands-monitor-network/ here] for details. Basically:
  
* [http://www.vim.org/ Vim: the editor]
+
# Overall bandwidth: nload, bmon, slurm, bwm-ng, cbm, speedometer, netload
* [http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Learn-Vim-Progressively/ Learn Vim Progressively]
+
# Overall bandwidth (batch style output): vnstat, ifstat, dstat, collectl
* [http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/vim/ Vim cheat sheet for programmers]
+
# Bandwidth per socket connection: iftop, iptraf, tcptrack, pktstat, netwatch, trafshow
* [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4781070/how-to-insert-tab-character-when-expandtab-option-is-on-in-vim How to insert Tab character when expandtab option is ON in VIM]
+
# Bandwidth per process: nethogs
* [https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/8255-vim-tips-the-basics-of-search-and-replace Vim tips: the basics of search and replace]
 
* [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/File_format File format]
 
* [http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html Graphical vi-vim Cheat Sheet and Tutorial]
 
* [http://www.angelwatt.com/coding/notes/vim-commands.html Vim Commands Cheat Sheet]
 
  
= Write =
+
== nload ==
  
== Talking to other users on the system ==
+
You can watch network traffic in real-time with nload:
  
'''write''' is a unix command for talking to other users on the system. To use '''write''':
+
# nload -u M
  
1. SSH to <username>@<hostname> and login with your username and password.
+
== Reporting network (NIC) speed ==
  
2. Issue the following command to find out who is logged onto the system:
+
From [https://askubuntu.com/questions/431911/how-can-i-verify-the-speed-of-my-nic-in-ubuntu#431912 here]:
  
  $ who
+
  # dmesg | grep eth0
 +
# mii-tool -v eth0
 +
# ethtool eth0
  
3. Issue the following command to talk to a specific user:
+
Note: use ifconfig to get device name.
  
$ write <username>
+
== Path MTU discovery ==
  
4. Enter the message you'd like to send the user, followed by Ctrl+C to send. Press Ctrl+D to cancel.
+
To do a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_MTU_Discovery Path MTU Discovery], from the iputils-tracepath package:
  
= Date =
+
# tracepath host.example.com
  
== Reporting the time on the server ==
+
== Listing available Ethernet devices ==
  
$ date
+
To see a list of NICs available on the host:
  
== Reporting UTC time ==
+
$ cat /proc/net/dev
  
$ date --utc
+
Also
  
== Getting the date in yyyy-MM-dd-hhmmss format ==
+
$ ip link
  
$ date="`date +%F-%H%M%S`"
+
== 59 Linux Networking commands and scripts ==
  
== Getting the year in four digits ==
+
See [https://haydenjames.io/linux-networking-commands-scripts/ 59 Linux Networking commands and scripts].
  
$ year="`date +%Y`"
+
== Links ==
  
== Getting the month in two digits ==
+
* [http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-open-ports/ HowTo: UNIX / Linux Open TCP / UDP Ports]
  
$ month="`date +%m`"
+
= IPTables =
  
== Getting the day of the month in two digits ==
+
== Applying firewall rules ==
  
$ day="`date +%d`"
+
For configuration info see [http://articles.slicehost.com/2008/4/25/ubuntu-hardy-setup-page-1 this article].
  
== Getting yesterday's date ==
+
$ sudo vim /etc/iptables.test.rules
 +
$ sudo /sbin/iptables -F
 +
$ sudo /sbin/iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.test.rules
 +
$ sudo iptables -L
 +
$ sudo -s
 +
# iptables-save > /etc/iptables.up.rules
 +
# exit
  
$ date --date='1 day ago' +%Y-%m-%d
+
== Blocking an IP address with iptables ==
  
== Converting Unix time (seconds since epoch) ==
+
To drop IP address 1.2.3.4:
  
For timestamp '1501370200':
+
# iptables -A INPUT -s 1.2.3.4 -j DROP
  
$ date -d @1501370200 +%F-%H%M%S
+
= ufw =
  
== Running timedatectl from systemd ==
+
== Denying hosts with ufw ==
  
There's a new command bundled with systmed:
+
See [[Admin_reference#Denying_hosts_with_UFW|denying hosts with ufw]].
  
# timedatectl
+
= Bind9 =
  
It reports on (and controls) how the system time is configured.
+
== Viewing Bind9 querylog ==
  
= MySQL =
+
$ sudo rndc querylog
 +
$ tail -f /var/log/syslog
  
== Run mysql without authentication/authorisation ==
+
= IPSec =
  
# service mysql stop
+
== Disabling IPSec ==
# mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
 
  
Then you can connect without a password, e.g.:
+
# setkey -FP
  
# mysql -u root mysql
+
= OpenSSL =
  
To stop the unauthenticated service:
+
== Debugging IMAPS with OpenSSL ==
  
  # mysqladmin shutdown
+
  # openssl s_client -connect localhost:993
 +
> a1 LOGIN username@host password
 +
> a2 LOGOUT
  
Then restart a normal service:
+
== Debugging HTTPS with OpenSSL ==
  
  # service mysql start
+
  $ openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443
 +
GET /example.html HTTP/1.1
 +
host: www.example.com
  
== Logging all database queries ==
+
== Links ==
  
# vim /etc/mysql/my.cnf
+
* [http://www.madboa.com/geek/openssl/ OpenSSL Command-Line HOWTO]
  
In the [mysqld] section add:
+
= Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) =
  
log=/tmp/mysql.log
+
== Links ==
  
Then:
+
* [http://www.centos.org/docs/5/html/Deployment_Guide-en-US/ch-pam.html 42.4. Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)]
  
# service mysql restart
+
= SSH =
  
Watch the log with:
+
== Configuring SSH key login ==
  
# tail -f /tmp/mysql.log
+
On the client machine generate a key-pair (if necessary, check for existing ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub):
  
== Dumping a MySQL database ==
+
$ ssh-keygen -t rsa
  
You can dump the database into a file using:  
+
Copy the public key from the client to the server:
 
$ mysqldump -h hostname -u user --password=password databasename > filename
 
  
== Loading a MySQL database from a dump file ==
+
$ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub user@example.org:
  
You can create a database using:
+
Configure the authorized keys on the server:
  
  $ echo create database databasename | mysql -h hostname -u user -p
+
  $ ssh user@example.org
 +
$ mkdir ~/.ssh
 +
$ chmod go-w .ssh
 +
$ cat ~/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
 +
$ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
 +
$ rm ~/id_rsa.pub
  
You can restore a database using:
+
== Tunneling over SSH ==
 
$ mysql -h hostname -u user --password=password databasename < filename
 
  
== Creating a MySQL user ==
+
For example, connecting a remote MySQL server to the localhost:
  
  # mysql -h localhost -u root --password=<password>
+
  $ ssh -L 3306:localhost:3306 jselliot@ssh.progsoc.org
mysql> create user 'username'@'localhost' identified by '<password>';
 
  
== Granting all MySQL user permissions ==
+
If the machine you want to connect to is not the localhost of the machine you're ssh'ing to,
  
# mysql -h localhost -u root --password=<password>
+
  $ ssh -L 3306:muspell.progsoc.uts.edu.au:3306 ssh.progsoc.uts.edu.au
mysql> grant all privileges on dbname.* to user@host;
 
  
== Select domain name from email address ==
+
The -L stanza is localport:remotehost:remoteport where localport is a
 +
port on your machine, forwarded to remoteport on remotehost.
  
SELECT SUBSTR( email, INSTR( email, '@' ) + 1 )
+
== Tunneling over SSH with PuTTY ==
  
== Check if MySQL connection is encrypted with TLS/SSL ==
+
See [http://www.anchor.com.au/hosting/support/MySQL/Connecting_to_mysql_remotely Connecting to the MySQL database remotely (via an SSH Tunnel)]
  
Check the SSL version in use:
+
* run putty.exe
 +
* Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels
 +
** Port forwarding: source port to 3306
 +
** destination: 127.0.0.1:3306
 +
** check Local
 +
** click Add
  
show status like 'Ssl_version';
+
== Enabling verbose SSH logging ==
  
Or check the cipher in use:
+
To see what's going on with your ssh connections,
  
  show status like 'Ssl_cipher';
+
  $ ssh -v user@host
  
= Apache =
+
Or
  
== Maintaining .htaccess passwords ==
+
$ ssh -vv user@host
  
To add or modify the password for a user:
+
== Unlocking SSH key for session ==
  
  $ htpasswd /etc/apache2/passwd username
+
  jj5@orac:~/.config/autostart$ cat ssh-add.desktop
 
+
[Desktop Entry]
== Configuring PHP session timeout in .htaccess ==
+
Type=Application
 +
Name=ssh-add
 +
Comment=Adds my private key to my session.
 +
Exec=/usr/bin/konsole -e 'ssh-add /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa'
  
For a session timeout of 9 hours:
+
== Links ==
  
php_value session.cookie_lifetime 32400
+
* [http://blogs.perl.org/users/smylers/2011/08/ssh-productivity-tips.html SSH Can Do That? Productivity Tips for Working with Remote Servers]
php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 32400
+
* [http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html PuTTY Download Page]
  
== Disabling PHP magic quotes in .htaccess ==
+
= Standard IO =
  
php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off
+
== cat EOF ==
  
== Requiring HTTP Auth in .htaccess ==
+
$ cat > output <<EOF
 +
> text
 +
> EOF
  
  AuthType Basic
+
  $ cat output
  AuthName "Speak Friend And Enter"
+
  text
AuthUserFile /home/jj5/.htpasswd
 
Require valid-user
 
  
== Restarting Apache ==
+
= Script =
  
The hard way
+
== Creating a session log with script ==
  
  $ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
+
  $ script -t 2> timing
  
The graceful way (avoids dropping active connections)
+
The session log is in the file 'typescript' and the timing data is in 'timing'.
  
$ sudo apache2ctl graceful
+
== Replaying a scripted session ==
  
== Allowing directory browsing ==
+
$ scriptreplay timing
  
To show directory index pages, in the apache config file:
+
Uses the default file 'typescript' and the 'timing' file as specified.
  
<Directory /var/www/data>
+
= Screen =
  Options Indexes
 
</Directory>
 
  
= C =
+
== Creating a new screen or reconnecting to a detached screen ==
  
== Locating memset function ==
+
$ screen -R
  
The memset function is in &lt;string.h> as described in this article [http://www.java-samples.com/showtutorial.php?tutorialid=591 Using memset(), memcpy(), and memmove() in C]
+
== Detaching a screen ==
  
== Links ==
+
$ screen -D
  
* [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-memory/ Inside memory management]
+
== Reconnecting to screen ==
  
= PHP =
+
$ screen -D
 +
$ screen -R
  
== Including a file relative to the including file ==
+
I have a script in ~/bin/reconnect like so,
  
  require_once( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/relative/path/to.php' );
+
  #!/bin/bash
 +
screen -D
 +
screen -R
  
== Enabling error reporting ==
+
This will detach your last screen, and reconnect it on the current terminal.
  
error_reporting( E_ALL | E_STRICT );
+
== Scrolling in screen ==
ini_set( 'display_errors', 'On' );
 
  
== Setting an error handler ==
+
See [https://www.saltycrane.com/blog/2008/01/how-to-scroll-in-gnu-screen/ How to scroll in GNU Screen]. Basically press Ctrl+A ESC then use Page Up and Page Down. Press ESC again to exit copy mode. As usual you can use Ctrl+[ in place of ESC.
  
set_error_handler( "error_handler", E_ALL | E_STRICT );
+
= tmux =
  
function error_handler( $error_code, $error_message, $error_file, $error_line, $error_context ) {
+
== Live collaboration with tmux ==
  // ...
 
}
 
  
== Disable HTML content in var_dump ==
+
User A:
  
  ini_set( 'html_errors', 'off' );
+
  tmux -S /tmp/collab
 +
chmod 777 /tmp/collab
  
= BASH scripting =
+
User B:
  
For a primer on bash scripting see [http://www.progsoc.org/tfm/tfm03/node37.html TFM: Erotic Fantasy: /bin/sh Programming].
+
tmux -S /tmp/collab attach
  
== Telling a script to run in bash ==
+
= Vim =
  
The first line of the file should be:
+
== First, why Vim? ==
  
#!/bin/bash
+
Read [http://www.viemu.com/a-why-vi-vim.html Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?]
  
== Checking if a command-line argument was passed in ==
+
== Visual modes ==
  
if [ -n "$1" ]; then
+
Use 'v' for visual mode, 'V' for visual line mode and Ctrl+V for visual block mode.
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
 
  exit 1;
 
fi
 
  
== Checking if a command-line argument was not passed in ==
+
== Configuring spaces instead of tabs ==
 +
 
 +
I use two spaces instead of tabs. To configure, edit your .vimrc file:
  
  if [ "$1" = "" ]; then
+
  $ vim ~/.vimrc
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
 
  exit 1;
 
fi
 
  
Or:
+
and include the following lines:
  
  if [ -z "$1" ]; then
+
  set tabstop=2
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
+
set shiftwidth=2
  exit 1;
+
  set expandtab
  fi
 
  
== Checking command exit status ==
+
== Configuring syntax highlighting ==
  
cd /my/path
+
See [http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/turn-on-or-off-color-syntax-highlighting-in-vi-or-vim/ here].
if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
 
  echo "Cannot change dir.";
 
  exit 1;
 
fi
 
  
== Checking if a file does/doesn't exist ==
+
Use:
  
Check if file exists:
+
:syntax on
  
if [ -f "/my/file" ]; then
+
to turn on syntax highlighting.
  cat /my/file
 
fi
 
  
Check if file doesn't exist:
+
Use:
  
  if [ ! -f "/my/file" ]; then
+
  :syntax off
  touch /my/file
 
fi
 
  
== Checking if a directory does/doesn't exist ==
+
to turn off syntax highlighting.
  
Check if directory exists:
+
To always use syntax highlighting:
  
  if [ -d "/my/dir" ]; then
+
  $ vim ~/.vimrc
  rmdir /my/dir
 
fi
 
  
Check if directory doesn't exist:
+
and add:
  
  if [ ! -d "/my/dir" ]; then
+
  syntax on
  mkdir /my/dir
 
fi
 
  
== Deleting old backups ==
+
To get a list of supported colour schemes open vim and type:
  
To keep only the latest five backups:
+
:colorscheme[space][Ctrl+D]
  
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' | sort -r -z -n | awk 'BEGIN { RS="\0"; ORS="\0"; FS="" } NR > 5 { sub("^[0-9]*(.[0-9]*)? ", ""); print }' | xargs -0 rm -f
+
To always use a particular colorscheme edit ~/.vimrc and add (for example):
  
This script stolen from [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25785/delete-all-but-the-most-recent-x-files-in-bash stackoverflow].
+
colorscheme desert
  
Requires GNU find for -printf, GNU sort for -z, GNU awk for "\0" and GNU xargs for -0, but handles files with embedded newlines or spaces.
+
== Inserting a TAB character when expandtab is on ==
  
== Changing into the script's directory ==
+
The problem here is that you have configured vim to insert spaces, but for a particular file (e.g. a Makefile) you need to insert a character.
  
cd "`dirname $0`"
+
Press Ctrl+V TAB to insert a literal tab character.
  
== Getting the absolute path of a relative path ==
+
Or you can disable tab expansion altogether with:
  
  readlink -f ./some/path
+
  :set expandtab!
  
== Creating a temp directory ==
+
== Changing 2 space indent to 4 space indent (e.g. for python files) ==
  
  dir=`mktemp -d` && cd $dir
+
  :%s/^\s*/&&/g
  
== Reading secret input from stdin ==
+
For more information [https://www.progclub.org/blog/2013/08/10/vim-reformat-a-python-file-to-have-4-space-indentations/ see here].
  
You can read a secret, such as a password, like this:
+
== Recording and replaying a macro ==
  
echo -n "Enter passphrase: "
+
To record a macro press 'q' and then a number between 1 and 9. E.g. press "q1". The macro is now recording. When you've finished issuing your commands press 'q' again to finish recording. To replay a macro press '@' followed by the number of the macro. That is, if you pressed "q1" to record the macro, press "@1" to replay the macro. To replay the last macro again press "@@".
stty -echo
 
read passphrase;
 
stty echo
 
echo ""
 
  
After running the above the secret will be in the $passphrase environment variable.
+
== Deleting to end of line ==
  
== String replacements in bash ==
+
d$
  
See the [http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/string-manipulation.html string manipulation] doco. Basically, to replace first occurrence:
+
== Deleting to beginning of line ==
 +
 
 +
d^
 +
 
 +
== Finding text ==
  
result=${var/find/replace}
+
To search forward for "text":
  
To replace all occurrences:
+
/text
  
result=${var//find/replace}
+
To search backward for "text":
  
A practical example, get an ISO date and turn it into a path:
+
?text
  
date="$(date +%Y-%m-%d)"
+
To repeat the last search in a forward direction press 'n', or to search again backwards press 'N'.
work_dir=${date//-//}
 
  
== Sending a HEREDOC to a file ==
+
== Finding and replacing text ==
  
cat << EOF > /tmp/yourfilehere
+
To replace the first instance of "search" on the current line with "destroy":
These contents will be written to the file.
 
        This line is indented.
 
EOF
 
  
== Bash case/switch statement ==
+
:s/search/destroy/
  
See [http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/sect_07_03.html using case statements], e.g.:
+
To replace all instances of "search" on the current line with "destroy":
  
  case $space in
+
  :s/search/destroy/g
[1-6]*)
 
  Message="All is quiet."
 
  ;;
 
[7-8]*)
 
  Message="Start thinking about cleaning out some stuff.  There's a partition that is $space % full."
 
  ;;
 
9[1-8])
 
  Message="Better hurry with that new disk...  One partition is $space % full."
 
  ;;
 
99)
 
  Message="I'm drowning here!  There's a partition at $space %!"
 
  ;;
 
*)
 
  Message="I seem to be running with an nonexistent amount of disk space..."
 
  ;;
 
esac
 
  
== Using dotglob shopt to match dot-files ==
+
To replace all instances of "search" on lines 13 to 37 with "destroy":
  
To enable dot-file matching in globs, set the dotglob shell option:
+
:13,37 s/search/destroy/g
  
$ shopt -s dotglob
+
To replace all instances of "search" in the entire file with "destroy":
  
== Stopping a script from running if it previously exited due to error ==
+
:%s/search/destroy/g
  
persistentDataDir=/var/lib/something
+
== Changing DOS/Windows line-endings (CRLF) to Unix line-endings ==
alarm() {
 
  touch $persistentDataDir/alarm
 
}
 
trap alarm ERR
 
[ -f $persistentDataDir/alarm ] && exit 1
 
  
== Make sure only one instance of a script is running at a time ==
+
To set the line-ending to Unix line endings run the command:
  
  ephemeralDataDir=/var/run/something
+
  :setlocal ff=unix
unlock() {
 
  rmdir $ephemeralDataDir/lock
 
}
 
trap unlock EXIT
 
mkdir $ephemeralDataDir/lock || exit 1;
 
  
= Sed =
+
More information on managing file formats [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/File_format available here].
  
== Find and replace with sed ==
+
== Disabling auto-indent etc. to paste from clipboard ==
  
To update the current file use '-i'. E.g.:
+
To disable smart indenting when you're going to paste in text:
  
  sed -i 's/search-text/replace-text/' file
+
  :set paste
  
= Awk =
+
To turn it off again:
  
== Listing IP addresses in an Apache web log ==
+
:set nopaste
  
awk '/GET \/path\/for\/url/ { print $1 }' /var/log/apache2/access.log | sort | uniq
+
There's more info in this article: [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Toggle_auto-indenting_for_code_paste Toggle auto-indenting for code paste]
  
== Printing space-separated field ==
+
== Positioning windows ==
  
echo 'no no yes no' | awk '{print $3}'
+
Use -o for horizontal split, e.g.:
  
== Printing delimited field ==
+
vim -o a.txt b.txt
  
echo 'no:no:yes:no' | awk -F ':' '{print $3}'
+
Use -O for vertical split, e.g.:
  
= Subversion =
+
vim -o a.txt b.txt
  
== Setting svn:externals from the command-line ==
+
Use ^W to navigate windows then use directional keys h, j, k, l, etc.
  
See [http://beerpla.net/2009/06/20/how-to-properly-set-svn-svnexternals-property-in-svn-command-line/ here].
+
Use ^W and &lt; or &gt; to resize windows.
  
To set an svn:externals from the command-line:
+
== To indent a block of text in Vim ==
  
svn propset svn:externals 'rdfind-php https://www.progclub.org/svn/pcrepo/rdfind.php/branches/0.1' .
+
Use the > command. E.g. to indent five lines:
svn ci -m 'Adding svn:externals for rdfind-php...'
 
svn up
 
  
Or to use a file:
+
5 > >
  
svn propset svn:externals -F svn.externals .
+
Press . (dot) to keep indenting.
  
== Setting svn:ignore from the command line ==
+
Or inside a block (e.g. curly brace, HTML/XML element, etc.) you can put your cursor in the element on on the curly brace and then:
  
See [http://tedone.typepad.com/blog/2010/03/setting-svnignore-from-the-command-line.html here].
+
> %
  
$ svn propset svn:ignore [file|folder] [path]
+
See [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/235839/indent-multiple-lines-quickly-in-vi#235841 here] for more.
  
Or use a file and apply recursively:
+
== Open a file in a new window/tab ==
  
$ svn propset svn:ignore -RF ./svn-ignore-list.txt .
+
To open a file on the left hand side:
  
= Git =
+
:vert new filename.ext
  
== Showing status of working copy ==
+
Note: ':vnew filename.ext' and ':vsp filename.ext' also work.
  
git status
+
To open a file at the top:
  
== Showing repo history ==
+
:new filename.ext
  
git log
+
See [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10760310/how-to-open-a-new-file-in-vim-in-a-new-window#10762678 here] for more.
  
== Showing remote repositories (including 'origin') ==
+
== Explore files in Vim ==
  
git remote -v
+
Enter:
  
== Handy git aliases ==
+
:Explore
  
Save these to your ~/.gitconfig file.
+
== Switch between Vim tabs ==
  
For a nicer view of history than standard 'git log' -- colourful, one-line-per commit, etc:
+
Use gt and gT.
  
  graph = !git log --all --graph --color --abbrev-commit --pretty=oneline
+
== Switch between Vim windows ==
  
To show only the files that have changed, rather than the full line-by-line content:
+
To toggle between open windows use:
  
  dif  = !git diff --name-status
+
Ctrl+W W
  
= IRC =
+
To move in a direction use:
  
== Instructing ChanServ to op an admin ==
+
Ctrl+W h/j/k/l
  
/msg ChanServ op #channel user
+
See [http://superuser.com/questions/280500/how-does-one-switch-between-windows-on-vim#280501 here] for more.
  
E.g.
+
== Insert block comment in Vim ==
  
/msg ChanServ op #gnurc jj5
+
See [https://stackoverflow.com/a/253391/868138 here] for line-commenting.
  
Sub 'op' for 'deop' to remove op privilege.
+
So it's:
  
= C++ =
+
# Ctrl+V (Note: not Shift+V!)
 +
# Up/Down to select rows
 +
# Shift+I
 +
# Enter your text, e.g. '#' or '//'
 +
# Ctrl+[ (or 'Esc')
  
== C++ books ==
+
== Navigate to matching tag ==
  
=== Books I want ===
+
To navigate to the matching beginning or end tag use '%'.
  
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1785283073 Boost.Asio C++ Network Programming 2ed]
+
You can also use e.g. '[{' to match the previous '{', or e.g. '])' to match the next ')'.
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1783986549 Boost.Asio C++ Network Programming Cookbook]
 
  
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/020170353X Accelerated C++] by Andrew Koening
+
== Auto-format HTML tags ==
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321334876 Effective C++] by Scott Meyers
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1491903996 Effective Modern C++] by Scott Meyers
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/020163371X More Effective C++] by Scott Meyers
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201749629 Effective STL] by Scott Meyers
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201615622 Exceptional C++] by Herb Sutter
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/020170434X More Exceptional C++] by Herb Sutter
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201760428 Exceptional C++ Style] by Herb Sutter
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321227255 C++ Template Metaprogramming] by David Abrahams
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/059652269X 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know] by Richard Monson-Haefel
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/9491028022 Introduction to the Boost C++ Libraries; Volume II - Advanced Libraries] by Robert Demming
 
  
=== Books I own ===
+
Stolen from [https://www.quora.com/How-do-you-auto-format-HTML-in-Vim here].
  
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321563840 The C++ Programming Language 4ed] by Bjarne Stroustrup
+
# first join all the lines - ggVGgJ
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/9491028022 Introduction to the Boost C++ Libraries; Volume II - Advanced Libraries]
+
# Now break tags to new lines - :%s/>\s*</>\r</g
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1849514887 Boost C++ Application Development Cookbook]
+
# Now set filetype - :set ft=html (you can do this before too)
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1782163263 Boost.Asio C++ Network Programming]
+
# Now Indent - ggVG=
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321113586 C++ Coding Standards] by Herb Sutter &#x2713;
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201704315 Modern C++ Design] by Andrei Alexandrescu &#x2713;
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596809484 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know] by Kevlin Henney &#x2713;
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321133544 Beyond the C++ Standard Library] by Björn Karlsson &#x2713;
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/9491028014 Introduction to the Boost C++ Libraries; Volume I - Foundations] by Robert Demming &#x2713;
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0123850037 API Design for C++] by Martin Reddy &#x2713;
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CB23URA Advanced C++ Metaprogramming] by Davide Di Gennaro &#x2713;
 
** Note: the next version of this book is: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1484210115 Advanced Metaprogramming in Classic C++]
 
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1933988770 C++ Concurrency in Action: Practical Multithreading] by Anthony Williams &#x2713;
 
  
=== Books I'm not reading ===
+
== Links ==
  
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321563840 The C++ Programming Language 3ed] by Bjarne Stroustrup &#x2713;
+
* [http://www.vim.org/ Vim: the editor]
** Note: 3ed is obsolete. Buy 4ed (above).
+
* [http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/Learn-Vim-Progressively/ Learn Vim Progressively]
 
+
* [http://michael.peopleofhonoronly.com/vim/ Vim cheat sheet for programmers]
=== Books I've read ===
+
* [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4781070/how-to-insert-tab-character-when-expandtab-option-is-on-in-vim How to insert Tab character when expandtab option is ON in VIM]
 +
* [https://www.linux.com/learn/tutorials/8255-vim-tips-the-basics-of-search-and-replace Vim tips: the basics of search and replace]
 +
* [http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/File_format File format]
 +
* [http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html Graphical vi-vim Cheat Sheet and Tutorial]
 +
* [http://www.angelwatt.com/coding/notes/vim-commands.html Vim Commands Cheat Sheet]
  
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596004966 C++ Pocket Reference] by Kyle Loudon &#x2713;
+
== Create PDF from text using Vim ==
  
== C++ blogs/articles ==
+
Generate PDF from input.txt with:
  
* [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hsutter/ Herb Sutter's MSDN blog]
+
$ vim input.txt -c "hardcopy > doc.ps | q" && ps2pdf doc.ps
* [http://herbsutter.com/ Herb Sutter's personal blog]
 
* [http://herbsutter.com/gotw/ Herb Sutter's Guru of the Week (GotW)] updated from [http://gotw.ca/gotw/ gotw.ca]
 
  
== C++ performance tips ==
+
Examine output with:
  
* ++c can be faster than c++.
+
$ okular doc.pdf
* use const for everything that you possibly can.
 
* use 'inline' when you need to define a function in a header. Typically only do that if it's small and the increase in code size from inlining is worth the cost to avoid the cost of a function call. For anything except trivially small functions you'll probably need to profile to know if it's worth it.
 
* don't use registers.
 
* const [http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/081.htm rarely affects performance].
 
* debunking a number of [http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/TR18015.pdf C++ myths that won't die].
 
* std::sort<> is typically faster than qsort() because it can avoid indirection at runtime.
 
* if you've got parallelisation going on, you may be able to just replace a std::for_each with a parallel equivalent.
 
* read about [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/579887/how-expensive-is-rtti performance cost of RTTI] (Run Time Type Information) and [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4486609/when-can-compiling-c-without-rtti-cause-problems how to disable it]
 
* don't use dynamic_cast because it is slow (typeid is faster but still relies on RTTI)
 
* prefer unique_ptr to shared_ptr when possible. unique_ptr has less overhead.
 
* [http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-02-1996/swol-02-perf.html Which is better, static or dynamic linking?]
 
* [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2550281/floating-point-vs-integer-calculations-on-modern-hardware Integer vs Floating-Point performance]
 
  
= systemd =
+
= Write =
  
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd systemd] is an init system used in most Linux distributions to bootstrap the user space and manage all processes subsequently.
+
== Talking to other users on the system ==
  
== Following a service log ==
+
'''write''' is a unix command for talking to other users on the system. To use '''write''':
  
e.g. for bind9:
+
1. SSH to <username>@<hostname> and login with your username and password.
  
  # journalctl -f -u bind9
+
2. Issue the following command to find out who is logged onto the system:
 +
 
 +
  $ who
 +
 
 +
3. Issue the following command to talk to a specific user:
 +
 
 +
$ write <username>
 +
 
 +
4. Enter the message you'd like to send the user, followed by Ctrl+C to send. Press Ctrl+D to cancel.
 +
 
 +
= Date =
 +
 
 +
== Reporting the time on the server ==
  
or for everything:
+
$ date
  
# journalctl -f
+
== Reporting UTC time ==
  
== System status ==
+
$ date --utc
  
To see spawned services hierarchy:
+
== Getting the date in yyyy-MM-dd-hhmmss format ==
  
  # systemctl status
+
  $ date="`date +%F-%H%M%S`"
  
Or for a specific service e.g.:
+
== Getting the year in four digits ==
  
  # systemctl status networking
+
  $ year="`date +%Y`"
  
= SaltStack =
+
== Getting the month in two digits ==
 +
 
 +
$ month="`date +%m`"
 +
 
 +
== Getting the day of the month in two digits ==
 +
 
 +
$ day="`date +%d`"
 +
 
 +
== Getting yesterday's date ==
 +
 
 +
$ date --date='1 day ago' +%Y-%m-%d
 +
 
 +
== Converting Unix time (seconds since epoch) ==
 +
 
 +
For timestamp '1501370200':
 +
 
 +
$ date -d @1501370200 +%F-%H%M%S
 +
 
 +
== Running timedatectl from systemd ==
 +
 
 +
There's a new command bundled with systmed:
 +
 
 +
# timedatectl
 +
 
 +
It reports on (and controls) how the system time is configured.
 +
 
 +
= MySQL (and MariaDB) =
 +
 
 +
== Run mysql without authentication/authorisation ==
 +
 
 +
# service mysql stop
 +
# mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
 +
 
 +
Then you can connect without a password, e.g.:
 +
 
 +
# mysql -u root mysql
 +
 
 +
To stop the unauthenticated service:
 +
 
 +
# mysqladmin shutdown
 +
 
 +
Then restart a normal service:
 +
 
 +
# service mysql start
 +
 
 +
== Logging all database queries ==
 +
 
 +
# vim /etc/mysql/my.cnf
 +
 
 +
In the [mysqld] section add:
 +
 
 +
log=/tmp/mysql.log
 +
 
 +
Then:
 +
 
 +
# service mysql restart
 +
 
 +
Watch the log with:
 +
 
 +
# tail -f /tmp/mysql.log
 +
 
 +
Or:
 +
 
 +
SET GLOBAL log_output = 'FILE';
 +
SET GLOBAL general_log_file = 'my_logs.txt';
 +
SET GLOBAL general_log = 'ON';
 +
 
 +
my_logs.txt will be in /var/lib/mysql
 +
 
 +
== Dumping a MySQL database ==
 +
 
 +
You can dump the database into a file using:
 +
 +
$ mysqldump -h hostname -u user --password=password databasename > filename
 +
 
 +
== Loading a MySQL database from a dump file ==
 +
 
 +
You can create a database using:
 +
 
 +
$ echo create database databasename | mysql -h hostname -u user -p
 +
 
 +
You can restore a database using:
 +
 +
$ mysql -h hostname -u user --password=password databasename < filename
 +
 
 +
== Creating a MySQL user ==
 +
 
 +
# mysql -h localhost -u root --password=<password>
 +
mysql> create user 'username'@'localhost' identified by '<password>';
 +
 
 +
== Granting all MySQL user permissions ==
 +
 
 +
# mysql -h localhost -u root --password=<password>
 +
mysql> grant all privileges on dbname.* to user@host;
 +
 
 +
== Select domain name from email address ==
 +
 
 +
SELECT SUBSTR( email, INSTR( email, '@' ) + 1 )
 +
 
 +
== Check if MySQL connection is encrypted with TLS/SSL ==
 +
 
 +
Check the SSL version in use:
 +
 
 +
show status like 'Ssl_version';
 +
 
 +
Or check the cipher in use:
 +
 
 +
show status like 'Ssl_cipher';
 +
 
 +
== Report on server config ==
 +
 
 +
See [https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/show.html SHOW Statements] for the full list, but check out:
 +
 
 +
SHOW VARIABLES
 +
 
 +
and
 +
 
 +
SHOW STATUS
 +
 
 +
and
 +
 
 +
SHOW PROCESSLIST
 +
 
 +
== Monitor MySQL activity ==
 +
 
 +
$ watch "mysql -t -e 'show processlist'"
 +
 
 +
= Apache =
 +
 
 +
== Reporting loaded Apache modules ==
 +
 
 +
# apache2ctl -M
 +
 
 +
== Maintaining .htaccess passwords ==
 +
 
 +
To add or modify the password for a user:
 +
 
 +
$ htpasswd /etc/apache2/passwd username
 +
 
 +
== Configuring PHP session timeout in .htaccess ==
 +
 
 +
For a session timeout of 9 hours:
 +
 
 +
php_value session.cookie_lifetime 32400
 +
php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 32400
 +
 
 +
== Disabling PHP magic quotes in .htaccess ==
 +
 
 +
php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off
 +
 
 +
== Requiring HTTP Auth in .htaccess ==
 +
 
 +
AuthType Basic
 +
AuthName "Speak Friend And Enter"
 +
AuthUserFile /home/jj5/.htpasswd
 +
Require valid-user
 +
 
 +
== Restarting Apache ==
 +
 
 +
The hard way
 +
 
 +
$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
 +
 
 +
The graceful way (avoids dropping active connections)
 +
 
 +
$ sudo apache2ctl graceful
 +
 
 +
== Allowing directory browsing ==
 +
 
 +
To show directory index pages, in the apache config file:
 +
 
 +
<Directory /var/www/data>
 +
  Options Indexes
 +
</Directory>
 +
 
 +
= C =
 +
 
 +
== Locating memset function ==
 +
 
 +
The memset function is in &lt;string.h> as described in this article [http://www.java-samples.com/showtutorial.php?tutorialid=591 Using memset(), memcpy(), and memmove() in C]
 +
 
 +
== Links ==
 +
 
 +
* [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-memory/ Inside memory management]
 +
 
 +
= PHP =
 +
 
 +
== Including a file relative to the including file ==
 +
 
 +
require_once( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/relative/path/to.php' );
 +
 
 +
== Enabling error reporting ==
 +
 
 +
error_reporting( E_ALL | E_STRICT );
 +
ini_set( 'display_errors', 'On' );
 +
 
 +
== Setting an error handler ==
 +
 
 +
set_error_handler( "error_handler", E_ALL | E_STRICT );
 +
 
 +
function error_handler( $error_code, $error_message, $error_file, $error_line, $error_context ) {
 +
  // ...
 +
}
 +
 
 +
== Disable HTML content in var_dump ==
 +
 
 +
ini_set( 'html_errors', 'off' );
 +
 
 +
== Report PHP modules ==
 +
 
 +
$ php -m
 +
 
 +
== PHP Security Best Practices For Sys Admins ==
 +
 
 +
See [https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/php-security-best-practices-tutorial.html Linux 25 PHP Security Best Practices For Sys Admins].
 +
 
 +
= BASH scripting =
 +
 
 +
For a primer on bash scripting see [http://www.progsoc.org/tfm/tfm03/node37.html TFM: Erotic Fantasy: /bin/sh Programming].
 +
 
 +
== Telling a script to run in bash ==
 +
 
 +
The first line of the file should be:
 +
 
 +
#!/bin/bash
 +
 
 +
== Checking if a command-line argument was passed in ==
 +
 
 +
if [ -n "$1" ]; then
 +
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
 +
  exit 1;
 +
fi
 +
 
 +
== Checking if a command-line argument was not passed in ==
 +
 
 +
if [ "$1" = "" ]; then
 +
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
 +
  exit 1;
 +
fi
 +
 
 +
Or:
 +
 
 +
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
 +
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
 +
  exit 1;
 +
fi
 +
 
 +
== Checking command exit status ==
 +
 
 +
cd /my/path
 +
if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
 +
  echo "Cannot change dir.";
 +
  exit 1;
 +
fi
 +
 
 +
== Checking if a file does/doesn't exist ==
 +
 
 +
Check if file exists:
 +
 
 +
if [ -f "/my/file" ]; then
 +
  cat /my/file
 +
fi
 +
 
 +
Check if file doesn't exist:
 +
 
 +
if [ ! -f "/my/file" ]; then
 +
  touch /my/file
 +
fi
 +
 
 +
== Checking if a directory does/doesn't exist ==
 +
 
 +
Check if directory exists:
 +
 
 +
if [ -d "/my/dir" ]; then
 +
  rmdir /my/dir
 +
fi
 +
 
 +
Check if directory doesn't exist:
 +
 
 +
if [ ! -d "/my/dir" ]; then
 +
  mkdir /my/dir
 +
fi
 +
 
 +
== Deleting old backups ==
 +
 
 +
To keep only the latest five backups:
 +
 
 +
find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' | sort -r -z -n | awk 'BEGIN { RS="\0"; ORS="\0"; FS="" } NR > 5 { sub("^[0-9]*(.[0-9]*)? ", ""); print }' | xargs -0 rm -f
 +
 
 +
This script stolen from [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/25785/delete-all-but-the-most-recent-x-files-in-bash stackoverflow].
 +
 
 +
Requires GNU find for -printf, GNU sort for -z, GNU awk for "\0" and GNU xargs for -0, but handles files with embedded newlines or spaces.
 +
 
 +
== Changing into the script's directory ==
 +
 
 +
cd "`dirname $0`"
 +
 
 +
== Getting the absolute path of a relative path ==
 +
 
 +
readlink -f ./some/path
 +
 
 +
== Creating a temp directory ==
 +
 
 +
dir=`mktemp -d` && cd $dir
 +
 
 +
== Reading secret input from stdin ==
 +
 
 +
You can read a secret, such as a password, like this:
 +
 
 +
echo -n "Enter passphrase: "
 +
stty -echo
 +
read passphrase;
 +
stty echo
 +
echo ""
 +
 
 +
After running the above the secret will be in the $passphrase environment variable.
 +
 
 +
== String replacements in bash ==
 +
 
 +
See the [http://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/string-manipulation.html string manipulation] doco. Basically, to replace first occurrence:
 +
 
 +
result=${var/find/replace}
 +
 
 +
To replace all occurrences:
 +
 
 +
result=${var//find/replace}
 +
 
 +
A practical example, get an ISO date and turn it into a path:
 +
 
 +
date="$(date +%Y-%m-%d)"
 +
work_dir=${date//-//}
 +
 
 +
== Sending a HEREDOC to a file ==
 +
 
 +
cat << EOF > /tmp/yourfilehere
 +
These contents will be written to the file.
 +
        This line is indented.
 +
EOF
 +
 
 +
== Bash case/switch statement ==
 +
 
 +
See [http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/sect_07_03.html using case statements], e.g.:
 +
 
 +
case $space in
 +
[1-6]*)
 +
  Message="All is quiet."
 +
  ;;
 +
[7-8]*)
 +
  Message="Start thinking about cleaning out some stuff.  There's a partition that is $space % full."
 +
  ;;
 +
9[1-8])
 +
  Message="Better hurry with that new disk...  One partition is $space % full."
 +
  ;;
 +
99)
 +
  Message="I'm drowning here!  There's a partition at $space %!"
 +
  ;;
 +
*)
 +
  Message="I seem to be running with an nonexistent amount of disk space..."
 +
  ;;
 +
esac
 +
 
 +
== Using dotglob shopt to match dot-files ==
 +
 
 +
To enable dot-file matching in globs, set the dotglob shell option:
 +
 
 +
$ shopt -s dotglob
 +
 
 +
== Stopping a script from running if it previously exited due to error ==
 +
 
 +
persistentDataDir=/var/lib/something
 +
alarm() {
 +
  touch $persistentDataDir/alarm
 +
}
 +
trap alarm ERR
 +
[ -f $persistentDataDir/alarm ] && exit 1
 +
 
 +
== Make sure only one instance of a script is running at a time ==
 +
 
 +
ephemeralDataDir=/var/run/something
 +
unlock() {
 +
  rmdir $ephemeralDataDir/lock
 +
}
 +
mkdir $ephemeralDataDir/lock || exit 1;
 +
trap unlock EXIT
 +
 
 +
== BASH programming advice ==
 +
 
 +
See [https://blog.yossarian.net/2020/01/23/Anybody-can-write-good-bash-with-a-little-effort Anybody can write good bash (with a little effort)].
 +
 
 +
== Run a command using arguments that come from an array ==
 +
 
 +
See [https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/412647/356289 here]:
 +
 
 +
#!/bin/bash
 +
tabs=("first tab" "second tab")
 +
args=()
 +
for t in "${tabs[@]}" ; do
 +
  args+=(-t "$t")
 +
done
 +
app "${args[@]}"
 +
 
 +
== Display a CSV in columnar or tabular format ==
 +
 
 +
$ column -t -s , data.csv
 +
 
 +
== Maximum command line length ==
 +
 
 +
Technically this is an operating system limit, not a BASH limit.
 +
 
 +
$ getconf ARG_MAX    # Get argument limit in bytes/chars
 +
 
 +
= Sed =
 +
 
 +
== Find and replace with sed ==
 +
 
 +
To update the current file use '-i'. E.g.:
 +
 
 +
sed -i 's/search-text/replace-text/' file
 +
 
 +
= Awk =
 +
 
 +
== Listing IP addresses in an Apache web log ==
 +
 
 +
awk '/GET \/path\/for\/url/ { print $1 }' /var/log/apache2/access.log | sort | uniq
 +
 
 +
== Printing space-separated field ==
 +
 
 +
echo 'no no yes no' | awk '{print $3}'
 +
 
 +
== Printing delimited field ==
 +
 
 +
echo 'no:no:yes:no' | awk -F ':' '{print $3}'
 +
 
 +
= Subversion =
 +
 
 +
== Setting svn:externals from the command-line ==
 +
 
 +
See [http://beerpla.net/2009/06/20/how-to-properly-set-svn-svnexternals-property-in-svn-command-line/ here].
 +
 
 +
To set an svn:externals from the command-line:
 +
 
 +
svn propset svn:externals 'rdfind-php https://www.progclub.org/svn/pcrepo/rdfind.php/branches/0.1' .
 +
svn ci -m 'Adding svn:externals for rdfind-php...'
 +
svn up
 +
 
 +
Or to use a file:
 +
 
 +
svn propset svn:externals -F svn.externals .
 +
 
 +
== Setting svn:ignore from the command line ==
 +
 
 +
See [http://tedone.typepad.com/blog/2010/03/setting-svnignore-from-the-command-line.html here].
 +
 
 +
$ svn propset svn:ignore [file|folder] [path]
 +
 
 +
Or use a file and apply recursively:
 +
 
 +
$ svn propset svn:ignore -RF ./svn-ignore-list.txt .
 +
 
 +
= Git =
 +
 
 +
== Showing status of working copy ==
 +
 
 +
git status
 +
 
 +
== Showing repo history ==
 +
 
 +
git log
 +
 
 +
== Showing remote repositories (including 'origin') ==
 +
 
 +
git remote -v
 +
 
 +
== Handy git aliases ==
 +
 
 +
Save these to your ~/.gitconfig file.
 +
 
 +
For a nicer view of history than standard 'git log' -- colourful, one-line-per commit, etc:
 +
 
 +
  graph = !git log --all --graph --color --abbrev-commit --pretty=oneline
 +
 
 +
To show only the files that have changed, rather than the full line-by-line content:
 +
 
 +
  dif  = !git diff --name-status
 +
 
 +
== Show git remote URL ==
 +
 
 +
git config --get remote.origin.url
 +
 
 +
= IRC =
 +
 
 +
== Instructing ChanServ to op an admin ==
 +
 
 +
/msg ChanServ op #channel user
 +
 
 +
E.g.
 +
 
 +
/msg ChanServ op #gnurc jj5
 +
 
 +
Sub 'op' for 'deop' to remove op privilege.
 +
 
 +
= C++ =
 +
 
 +
== C++ books ==
 +
 
 +
=== Books I want ===
 +
 
 +
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1785283073 Boost.Asio C++ Network Programming 2ed]
 +
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1783986549 Boost.Asio C++ Network Programming Cookbook]
 +
 
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/020170353X Accelerated C++] by Andrew Koening
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321334876 Effective C++] by Scott Meyers
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1491903996 Effective Modern C++] by Scott Meyers
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/020163371X More Effective C++] by Scott Meyers
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201749629 Effective STL] by Scott Meyers
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201615622 Exceptional C++] by Herb Sutter
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/020170434X More Exceptional C++] by Herb Sutter
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201760428 Exceptional C++ Style] by Herb Sutter
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321227255 C++ Template Metaprogramming] by David Abrahams
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/059652269X 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know] by Richard Monson-Haefel
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/9491028022 Introduction to the Boost C++ Libraries; Volume II - Advanced Libraries] by Robert Demming
 +
 
 +
=== Books I own ===
 +
 
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321563840 The C++ Programming Language 4ed] by Bjarne Stroustrup
 +
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/9491028022 Introduction to the Boost C++ Libraries; Volume II - Advanced Libraries]
 +
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1849514887 Boost C++ Application Development Cookbook]
 +
* [http://smile.amazon.com/dp/1782163263 Boost.Asio C++ Network Programming]
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321113586 C++ Coding Standards] by Herb Sutter &#x2713;
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0201704315 Modern C++ Design] by Andrei Alexandrescu &#x2713;
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596809484 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know] by Kevlin Henney &#x2713;
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321133544 Beyond the C++ Standard Library] by Björn Karlsson &#x2713;
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/9491028014 Introduction to the Boost C++ Libraries; Volume I - Foundations] by Robert Demming &#x2713;
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0123850037 API Design for C++] by Martin Reddy &#x2713;
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CB23URA Advanced C++ Metaprogramming] by Davide Di Gennaro &#x2713;
 +
** Note: the next version of this book is: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1484210115 Advanced Metaprogramming in Classic C++]
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/1933988770 C++ Concurrency in Action: Practical Multithreading] by Anthony Williams &#x2713;
 +
 
 +
=== Books I'm not reading ===
 +
 
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0321563840 The C++ Programming Language 3ed] by Bjarne Stroustrup &#x2713;
 +
** Note: 3ed is obsolete. Buy 4ed (above).
 +
 
 +
=== Books I've read ===
 +
 
 +
* [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596004966 C++ Pocket Reference] by Kyle Loudon &#x2713;
 +
 
 +
== C++ blogs/articles ==
 +
 
 +
* [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/hsutter/ Herb Sutter's MSDN blog]
 +
* [http://herbsutter.com/ Herb Sutter's personal blog]
 +
* [http://herbsutter.com/gotw/ Herb Sutter's Guru of the Week (GotW)] updated from [http://gotw.ca/gotw/ gotw.ca]
 +
 
 +
== C++ performance tips ==
 +
 
 +
* ++c can be faster than c++.
 +
* use const for everything that you possibly can.
 +
* use 'inline' when you need to define a function in a header. Typically only do that if it's small and the increase in code size from inlining is worth the cost to avoid the cost of a function call. For anything except trivially small functions you'll probably need to profile to know if it's worth it.
 +
* don't use registers.
 +
* const [http://www.gotw.ca/gotw/081.htm rarely affects performance].
 +
* debunking a number of [http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/TR18015.pdf C++ myths that won't die].
 +
* std::sort<> is typically faster than qsort() because it can avoid indirection at runtime.
 +
* if you've got parallelisation going on, you may be able to just replace a std::for_each with a parallel equivalent.
 +
* read about [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/579887/how-expensive-is-rtti performance cost of RTTI] (Run Time Type Information) and [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4486609/when-can-compiling-c-without-rtti-cause-problems how to disable it]
 +
* don't use dynamic_cast because it is slow (typeid is faster but still relies on RTTI)
 +
* prefer unique_ptr to shared_ptr when possible. unique_ptr has less overhead.
 +
* [http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-02-1996/swol-02-perf.html Which is better, static or dynamic linking?]
 +
* [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2550281/floating-point-vs-integer-calculations-on-modern-hardware Integer vs Floating-Point performance]
 +
 
 +
= systemd =
 +
 
 +
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd systemd] is an init system used in most Linux distributions to bootstrap the user space and manage all processes subsequently.
 +
 
 +
== Following a service log ==
 +
 
 +
e.g. for bind9:
 +
 
 +
# journalctl -f -u bind9
 +
 
 +
or for everything:
 +
 
 +
# journalctl -f
 +
 
 +
== System status ==
 +
 
 +
To see spawned services hierarchy:
 +
 
 +
# systemctl status
 +
 
 +
Or for a specific service e.g.:
 +
 
 +
# systemctl status networking
 +
 
 +
= SaltStack =
  
 
== Running a command on specified minions ==
 
== Running a command on specified minions ==
  
  salt 'host' cmd.run 'update-locale'
+
From the salt master:
 
+
 
== Running a command on all minions ==
+
  salt 'host' cmd.run 'update-locale'
 
+
 
  salt '*' cmd.run 'update-locale'
+
From the salt minion:
 
+
 
== Listing active jobs ==
+
salt-call cmd.run 'update-locale'
 
+
 
  salt-run jobs.active
+
== Running a command on all minions ==
 
+
 
== Listing available grains ==
+
  salt '*' cmd.run 'update-locale'
 
+
 
  salt 'example' grains.items
+
== Running a specific state file ==
 
+
 
== Listing available pillar ==
+
From the salt master:
 
+
 
  salt 'example' pillar.items
+
salt $MINION_ID state.sls $STATE_FILE
 
+
 
== Reporting a grain value ==
+
From the salt minion:
 +
 
 +
salt-call state.sls $STATE_FILE
 +
 
 +
== Listing active jobs ==
 +
 
 +
  salt-run jobs.active
 +
 
 +
== Listing available grains ==
 +
 
 +
  salt 'example' grains.items
 +
 
 +
== Listing available pillar ==
 +
 
 +
  salt 'example' pillar.items
 +
 
 +
== Reporting a grain value ==
 +
 
 +
e.g. for the 'mem_total' grain:
 +
 
 +
salt '*' grains.item mem_total
 +
 
 +
== Passing a variable into a Jinja template from a salt state (SLS) ==
 +
 
 +
e.g.: to pass 'zabbix_deb_{pkg,url}' variables into the source.txt template:
 +
 
 +
<nowiki>/srv/zabbix/release/{{ zabbix_deb_pkg }}.txt:</nowiki>
 +
  file.managed:
 +
    - template: jinja
 +
    - user: root
 +
    - group: root
 +
    - mode: 644
 +
    - source: salt://file/srv/zabbix/release/source.txt
 +
    - require:
 +
      - file: /srv/zabbix/release
 +
    - default:
 +
      <nowiki>zabbix_deb_pkg: {{ zabbix_deb_pkg }}</nowiki>
 +
      <nowiki>zabbix_deb_url: {{ zabbix_deb_url }}</nowiki>
 +
 
 +
= KDE =
 +
 
 +
== Running user login script (X11/XOrg/XWindows) ==
 +
 
 +
A way to run user login scripts which works for KDE Plasma (and apparently other [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.Org_Server X.Org Server X Window System] environments) is to create a *.desktop file in ~/.config/autostart/. For example I have a ~/.config/autostart/ssh-add.desktop file with the following contents to register my SSH key in the SSH Agent:
 +
 
 +
[Desktop Entry]
 +
Type=Application
 +
Name=ssh-add
 +
Comment=Adds my private key to my session.
 +
Exec=/usr/bin/konsole -e 'ssh-add /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa'
 +
 
 +
== Standard KDE shortcut key bindings ==
 +
 
 +
{|class="wikitable"
 +
! Name          !! Shortcut !! Command
 +
|-
 +
| Send Ctrl+D    || Pause    || xdotool key "ctrl+d"
 +
|-
 +
| Insert comment || F1      || xdotool type "$(date +%Y-%m-%d ) $USER - "
 +
|-
 +
| Insert sydtime || F4      || xdotool type "$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S)"
 +
|-
 +
| Konsole        || Meta+T  || konsole
 +
|-
 +
| Dolphin        || Meta+E  || dolphin
 +
|-
 +
| Firefox        || ScrollLock || firefox
 +
|-
 +
| Kate          || Ctrl+Shift+F12 || kate
 +
|-
 +
| KCalc          || Ctrl+Shift+F11 || kcalc
 +
|}
 +
 
 +
== Shutting down KDE/Plasma ==
 +
 
 +
# /etc/init.d/sddm stop
 +
 
 +
= VirtualBox =
 +
 
 +
== Mounting a VirtualBox VDI file ==
 +
 
 +
Note: instead of doing this consider booting with a live CD.
 +
 
 +
See [https://askubuntu.com/questions/19430/mount-a-virtualbox-drive-image-vdi/50290#50290 here]:
 +
 
 +
Install qemu if necessary:
 +
 
 +
# apt install qemu
 +
 
 +
Then you'll need to load the network block device module:
 +
 
 +
# rmmod nbd
 +
# modprobe nbd max_part=16
 +
 
 +
Attach the .vdi image to one of the nbd you just created:
 +
 
 +
# qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 drive.vdi
 +
 
 +
Now you will get a /dev/nbd0 block device, along with several /dev/nbd0p* partition device nodes.
 +
 
 +
# mount /dev/nbd0p1 /mnt
 +
 
 +
Once you are done, unmount everything and disconnect the device:
 +
 
 +
# qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbd0
 +
 
 +
= Elasticsearch =
 +
 
 +
== Report on health of your Elasticsearch cluster ==
 +
 
 +
$ curl http://localhost:9200/_cluster/health?pretty
 +
 
 +
= Zabbix =
 +
 
 +
== Zabbix Agent on Mac OS X ==
 +
 
 +
Download and install agent.
 +
 
 +
Config file is here: /usr/local/etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf
 +
 
 +
Unload agent with:
 +
 
 +
# launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zabbix.zabbix_agentd.plist
 +
 
 +
Load agent with:
 +
 
 +
# launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zabbix.zabbix_agentd.plist
 +
 
 +
To add a 'pki' group:
 +
 
 +
# dseditgroup -o create pki
 +
 
 +
To monitor syslog on Mac OS X:
 +
 
 +
# tail -f /var/log/system.log
 +
 
 +
== Installing Zabbix Agent from source on Mac OS X ==
 +
 
 +
Download sources from https://www.zabbix.com/download_sources
 +
 
 +
$ brew update
 +
$ brew install openssl
 +
$ brew install pcre
 +
jj5@condor:~/Desktop/zabbix-4.4.7$ ./configure --enable-agent --with-openssl=/usr/local/opt/openssl/
 +
jj5@condor:~/Desktop/zabbix-4.4.7$ sudo make install
 +
 
 +
= NetBeans =
 +
 
 +
== NetBeans shortcut keys ==
 +
 
 +
{|class="wikitable sortable"
 +
! Keys        !! Action
 +
|-
 +
| Ctrl+W      || Close active window
 +
|-
 +
| Alt+Shift+K  || Open in Terminal
 +
|-
 +
| Ctrl+U U    || Convert selected text to uppercase
 +
|-
 +
| Ctrl+U L    || Convert selected text to lowercase
 +
|}
 +
 
 +
= XML =
  
e.g. for the 'mem_total' grain:
+
== How to pretty-print an XML file ==
  
  salt '*' grains.item mem_total
+
  $ xmllint --format input.xml > output.xml
  
= KDE =
+
= ApacheBench =
  
== Running user login script (X11/XOrg/XWindows) ==
+
== Run a benchmark with ApacheBench ==
  
A way to run user login scripts which works for KDE Plasma (and apparently other [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.Org_Server X.Org Server X Window System] environments) is to create a *.desktop file in ~/.config/autostart/. For example I have a ~/.config/autostart/ssh-add.desktop file with the following contents to register my SSH key in the SSH Agent:
+
$ ab -n 1000 -c 100 https://www.example.com/
 
 
[Desktop Entry]
 
Type=Application
 
Name=ssh-add
 
Comment=Adds my private key to my session.
 
Exec=/usr/bin/konsole -e 'ssh-add /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa'
 

Latest revision as of 04:24, 28 February 2024

Hi there, I'm John. I just wanted a page where I could document various Linux things that I bump into. This is that page. Thank you ProgClub. :)

Note: I have some other disorganised notes on UNIX, which include a few tips for MacOS. I also have some tips for OS X.

Note: the info on this page is probably Ubuntu (and Debian as an outside chance) specific, because I use Ubuntu pretty much everywhere these days.

You might also be interested in John's hacks.

Quick jump to: NetBeans.

References

Command-line

See Shell Commands I Wish I Knew Earlier for some interesting options.

System

Reporting system specifications from the command-line

Try any of these:

# neofetch
# inxi
# hwinfo --short

You may need to install the relevant package.

Determining which Debian/Ubuntu release your are running

$ lsb_release -r

Or for more information:

$ lsb_release

Determining which Linux/Unix you are running

$ uname

Or,

$ uname -mrs

Or,

$ uname -a

Determining which Linux kernel you are running

$ uname -r

Configuring system swappiness

Swappiness is a number between 0 and 100 that regulates how much the system uses the swap file. I like setting this value to 0 to keep my apps as responsive as possible. Create a file /etc/sysctl.d/local.conf and add this line:

vm.swappiness = 0

If you want to set the value for the current session only:

echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

Hardware information

For information about the hardware attached to your system, check out:

# lshw

And for PCI devices:

# lspci

And for DMI info:

# dmidecode

Note that the dmidecode command (above) will give you information about your system's motherboard. For motherboard info look for 'System Information' and/or 'Base Board Information'.

Or the grand daddy of them all:

# hwinfo

There's also inxi, e.g.:

$ inxi -b

System:    Host: tact Kernel: 4.9.0-4-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.8.6
           Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
Machine:   Device: desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: STRIX Z270F GAMING v: Rev 1.xx
           UEFI [Legacy]: American Megatrends v: 0906 date: 03/22/2017
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-7700K (-HT-MCP-) speed/max: 799/4600 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Device 5912
           Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 drivers: modesetting (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz, 1920x1080@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Kabylake GT2 GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6
Network:   Card: Intel Ethernet Connection (2) I219-V driver: e1000e
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 13026.6GB (42.0% used)
RAID:      Devices: 1: /dev/md1 2: /dev/md0
Info:      Processes: 355 Uptime: 11 days Memory: 21198.3/32043.3MB Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.3.5

Motherboard info

# dmidecode -t 2

CPU info

# lscpu

or:

# cat /proc/cpuinfo

RAM info

# dmidecode --type memory

PCI info

# lspci -v

Drive info

# cat /proc/partitions

and:

# hdparm -I /dev/sda

and:

# smartctl --info /dev/sda

You can check if a drive is SSD or not with:

# cat /sys/block/sde/queue/rotational
0=SSD
1=HDD

Viewing syslog and other logs with KSystemLog

Run the 'KSystemLog' program under KDE for a handy log viewer GUI.

CPU

Monitoring CPU clock speed

Try something like this:

$ watch 'grep MHz /proc/cpuinfo | awk "{ print \$4 }" | sort -n'

Power

Reporting on PowerShield DEFENDER UPS status

Before running `upsc` ensure service is running:

# upsdrvctl start

To see the status of the PowerShield DEFENDER systems on John's LAN:

$ upsc defender

E.g.:

jj5@orac:~$ upsc defender
Init SSL without certificate database
battery.charge: 100
battery.voltage: 27.40
battery.voltage.high: 26.00
battery.voltage.low: 20.80
battery.voltage.nominal: 24.0
device.type: ups
driver.name: blazer_usb
driver.parameter.pollinterval: 2
driver.parameter.port: auto
driver.parameter.synchronous: no
driver.version: 2.7.4
driver.version.internal: 0.12
input.current.nominal: 5.0
input.frequency: 50.1
input.frequency.nominal: 50
input.voltage: 242.6
input.voltage.fault: 242.6
input.voltage.nominal: 240
output.voltage: 242.6
ups.beeper.status: disabled
ups.delay.shutdown: 30
ups.delay.start: 180
ups.load: 14
ups.productid: 5161
ups.status: OL
ups.type: offline / line interactive
ups.vendorid: 0665

Run commands on PowerShield DEFENDER UPS batteries

You can run "instant commands" using the upscmd command.

We use the 'beeper.toggle' instant command in our Salt Stack config to disable the beeper, see e.g.:

diligence:/srv/salt/conf/app/defender-1200.sls

To see "instant commands" supported by the PowerShield DEFENDER:

$ upscmd -l defender

E.g.:

jj5@orac:~$ upscmd -l defender
Instant commands supported on UPS [defender]:

beeper.toggle - Toggle the UPS beeper
load.off - Turn off the load immediately
load.on - Turn on the load immediately
shutdown.return - Turn off the load and return when power is back
shutdown.stayoff - Turn off the load and remain off
shutdown.stop - Stop a shutdown in progress
test.battery.start - Start a battery test
test.battery.start.deep - Start a deep battery test
test.battery.start.quick - Start a quick battery test
test.battery.stop - Stop the battery test

Service management

Report running services

# service --status-all

Environment

Configuring vim as your editor

Sometimes all you need is:

$ export EDITOR=/usr/bin/vim

Which works for svn, for example. Add it to your ~/.profile file to have it set for all login sessions.

Other times you need to run

# update-alternatives --config editor

And then select vim from the list. This is what you do to configure your visudo editor.

Configuring your locale

$ sudo /usr/sbin/locale-gen en_AU.UTF-8
$ sudo /usr/sbin/update-locale LANG=en_AU.UTF-8

User and group management

Adding a user

To add a new user on a linux system:

# useradd username
# passwd username

To have the home directory created from '/etc/skel' use the 'adduser' script instead:

# adduser username

Adding a user to a group

To add an existing user to an existing group:

# gpasswd -a username group

e.g. to add user 'jj5' to the 'sudo' group:

# gpasswd -a jj5 sudo

Alternatively you can use adduser, passing the username and group:

# adduser username group

e.g. to add user 'sclaughl' to the 'staff' group:

# adduser sclaughl staff

Disabling a user account

You can disable a user account with:

# passwd -l user

Note: that's a lower-case L, not a one.

Enabling a disabled user account

To can re-enable a locked user account with:

# passwd -u user

Finding which user you are logged in as

To determine which user you are running as enter the command:

$ whoami

Finding which groups you are a member of

To find which groups you are a member of:

$ groups

or

$ groups username

Where 'username' is the username of the user you are querying, e.g.:

$ groups jj5

Finding who else is logged in to the system

To see who else is logged in,

$ who

Running a command as a particular user

To run "svn update" as the user www-data:

$ sudo su -c "svn update" www-data

Reporting user and group info for the current user

$ id

Memory management

Checking available memory

To report memory statistics in megabytes:

$ free -m

Check for swap thrashing

Check your virtual memory status with vmstat:

$ vmstat

Report memory type

Report on RAM DIMMs:

# dmidecode --type 17

Report on RAM and CPU cache (including L1, L2, and L3):

# lshw -short -C memory

Or for more detail:

# lshw -C memory

Video/display management

Viewing EDID data for attached monitor

To view EDID data for an attached monitor (requires the edid-decode package):

$ cd /sys/class/drm
$ ls
$ cd card0-HDMI-A-1
$ edid-decode edid

Process management

Using 'top' for dynamic resource usage reporting

To run top:

$ top

See 15 Practical Linux Top Command Examples for some hints on usage.

To see usage for a specific user run e.g.:

$ top -u jj5

To see full command-line press 'c'.

When you're in 'top' you can:

  • press '1' (one) to toggle CPU aggregation
  • press < and > to change the sort column

Changing memory reporting in 'top'

To run top:

$ top

Press 'E' to switch between top memory units (KiB, MiB, GiB, etc.)

Press 'e' to switch between bottom memory units (KiB, MiB, GiB, etc.)

Press 'M' to sort by memory utilisation.

Press 'm' to switch between various display modes.

Showing full command-line in 'top'

To see the full command-line for processes run with -c:

$ top -c

Listing all processes currently running which were started in your current shell session

$ ps -fl

Killing specific processes

# ps aux | grep -e "this\|that" | grep -v grep | tr -s " " | cut -d " " -f 2 | xargs kill -9

Run a command for a specified time using timeout

$ timeout 3 ping jj5.net

Disk management

Power-off a hard drive

For instance if it's a USB drive or in a mobile rack and you want to remove it.

# udisksctl power-off -b /dev/sdi

Reporting ext4 file-systems mounted without noatime

$ cat /proc/mounts | grep ext | grep -v noatime | sort

Creating a partition table

# parted /dev/xvdf
mktable msdos

Creating a partition

# parted /dev/xvdf
u MiB
mkpart primary 1 100%

Creating an ext4 file-system

# mkfs.ext4 /dev/xvdf1

Listing disk drives

# fdisk -l

(That's an L for "list")

Checking available disk space

$ df -h

Getting disk information

# lsblk

And

# cat /proc/partitions

Or the Grand Daddy of them all:

# lshw -class disk

(Requires the lshw package.)

Getting partition UUID and file-system type

# blkid

Checking for SSD vs magnetic disk

# cat /sys/block/sda/queue/rotational

Will be 0 for SSD and 1 for magnetic.

Monitoring a ZFS server

So some commands I run to keep an eye on my new ZFS servers:

# top
# iotop
# nethogs
# watch free -h
# watch slabtop -o
# slabtop
# watch cat /proc/meminfo
# perf top
# watch "df -h | grep -v -e tmpfs -e udev -e by-uuid"
# watch zpool iostat -v
# zpool iostat -v 2
# watch 'zpool list; echo; zfs list'
# watch zfs get compressratio -o all
# watch cat /proc/spl/kstat/zfs/arcstats

If you have a scrub or resilvering in progress you can report on progress with:

# watch zpool status -v

You can poke about in internals, e.g.:

# cat /proc/spl/kstat/zfs/arcstats
root@orac:/sys/module/zfs/parameters# tail *

You can report on property values with e.g.:

# zfs get all data

If you want to get funky:

# cd /tmp
# perf record -ag #(Ctrl+C after ~15 seconds)
# perf report --stdio

You can search for ZFS files like e.g. this:

root@orac:/# find / -name '*zfs*' -or -name '*zpool*'

You can report history of a zpool:

# zpool history $poolname

You can get a report on the dedup tables:

# zpool status -D $poolname

Or more detailed dedup table info:

# zdb -DDD $poolname

Note in the output see here for details, basically:

Abbr Description
LSIZE logical size (in memory)
PSIZE physical size
DSIZE size on disk
refcnt reference count

How to tell if zfs scrub is running

You can get the status from the "scan:" line from:

$ zpool status

Measure data throughput

Use the 'pv' command from the 'pv' package, e.g.:

# cat /dev/sda | pv | cat > /dev/null

Or for ZFS:

# zfs send data/example | pv | cat > /dev/null

Using Smartctl, Smartd and Hddtemp on Debian

For notes on using smartctl see Using Smartctl, Smartd and Hddtemp on Debian.

Report hard disk usage

So you might want to know how much data a process reads or writes to a hard disk. You can monitor process total disk utilisation with the 'iotop' command. Run 'iotop' and then press 'a' for --accumulated.

Report hard disk temperatures

E.g.

# hddtemp /dev/sd[a-e]

Burning an ISO image to USB on Mac

First insert your USB key and find the appropriate disk with:

# diskutil list

Then unmount it with:

# diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk4

Then copy ISO image with 'dd':

# dd if=ubuntu-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/disk4

You can get dd to report progress by sending it the SIGINFO signal:

# kill -s info 12345

Listing all ext4 file systems

To see a list only of the mounted ext4 file systems:

# df -t ext4

Report hierarchical file system mount points and mount options

$ findmnt

Report the mount point for the current working directory

$ findmnt "$PWD"

Monitoring disk I/O

There's an app for that! iotop.

Using iotop, top for disks

# iotop -oPa

Monitor disk I/O for performance issues

# watch iostat

Or e.g.

# watch iostat -xd /dev/sd[abc]

Or use groupings like this command for 'tact':

$ iostat -g system nvme0n1 -g fast sda sdb -g data sdc sdd -d 2

Monitoring a system

Simple ZFS monitoring

# watch iostat
# iotop
# zpool iostat -v 5
# watch 'hddtemp /dev/sd[a-e]; echo; zpool list; echo; zfs list'
# nethogs
# top

Monitoring temperature

See temperature without third-party apps for:

$ cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp

and:

$ paste <(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/type) <(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/temp) | column -s $'\t' -t | sed 's/\(.\)..$/.\1°C/'

Monitoring CPU temperature

$ watch sensors

Monitoring HDD temperature

For e.g. SATA drives sda to sdd:

# watch hddtemp /dev/sd[a-d]

ZFS

How can I determine the current size of the ARC in ZFS, and how does the ARC relate to free or cache memory?

See How can I determine the current size of the ARC in ZFS, and how does the ARC relate to free or cache memory?

$ cat /proc/spl/kstat/zfs/arcstats

Then:

c is the target size of the ARC in bytes
c_max is the maximum size of the ARC in bytes
size is the current size of the ARC in bytes

Stopping a ZFS scrub in progress

# zpool scrub -s $pool

e.g. for the 'data' pool:

# zpool scrub -s data

File management

Listing files by size

Use capital S for Size:

$ ls -S

Listing only directories

$ ls -l | egrep '^d'

Listing only files

$ ls -l | egrep -v '^d'

Listing hidden files

$ ls -al .[!.]*

Creating a symbolic link

$ ln -s /path/to/target link-name

Creating a hard-link

$ ln /path/to/target file-name

Changing the owner of a file

$ chown user:group <files>

E.g.

$ chown jj5:staff README
$ chown root:root *

To apply recursively into sub-directories use -R,

$ chown -R root:root /etc/*

Changing file permissions

Object codes
User Group Other
u g o
Permission codes
Read Write Exectue
r w x
4 2 1
Numeric codes
0 None
1 Execute
2 Write
3 Write, Execute
4 Read
5 Read, Execute
6 Read, Write
7 Read, Write, Execute

See Numeric Mode in Action.

$ chmod <user numeric code><group numeric code><other numeric code> <files>
$ chmod <object codes>+|-<permission codes> <files>

E.g.

$ chmod 600 my-private-file
$ chmod go-rwx my-private-file
$ chmod u+rw my-private-file
$ chmod +x my-script

Updating config files

If you get given a new config file called new.conf and you want to integrate it with your old config file old.conf then:

$ cp old.conf updated.conf
$ merge -A updated.conf new.conf old.conf

Then go through and edit updated.conf resolving all the merge errors, picking and choosing what to update and what to keep. When you're done copy updated.conf to old.conf so it becomes the new config file.

The merge program is a part of the RCS package. If you don't have it:

$ sudo apt-get install rcs

Listing open files

Use lsof to list open files. E.g.:

# lsof

See man lsof for options.

List permissions on a whole directory path

E.g.:

$ namei -om /home/jj5/workspace

Outputs:

f: /home/jj5/workspace/
 drwxr-xr-x root root /
 drwxr-xr-x root root home
 drwxr-xr-x jj5  jj5  jj5
 drwxr-xr-x jj5  jj5  workspace

Counting non-blank lines in a file

E.g.:

$ cat foo.c | sed '/^\s*$/d' | wc -l

Cloning one directory to another with rsync

E.g.:

rsync --acls --xattrs --stats --human-readable --recursive --del --force --times --links --hard-links --executability --numeric-ids --owner --group --perms --sparse --compress-level=0 /data/source/ hostname:/data/target/

Counting number of files in current directory and all subdirectories

$ ls -AlhR . | egrep '^-' | wc -l

Counting number of directories in current directory and all subdirectories

$ ls -AlhR . | egrep '^d' | wc -l

Getting the status of a 'dd' process

First figure out the 'dd' process number, with e.g. 'top' or 'ps aux | grep dd'

Then send the dd process the SIGINFO signal, which for dd process 40947 would be:

# kill -s info 40947

The dd process will report its status in the terminal its running in.

Transferring a large file via FAT32 file system

So the maximum file size supported by a FAT32 file system (commonly used on USB keys) is 4 GB per file. If you have a file larger than 4 GB you can split it into parts and then reassemble the parts once transferred:

$ split -b 4000m input.tgz input.tgz-parts-

Then copy the small files and reassemble:

$ cat input.tgz-parts-* > output.tgz

Find the difference between two directories

$ diif -qr $DIR_A $DIR_B

Merging two directories

$ cp -RT source/ destination/

Files from source will be merged into destination.

Generating a replacement file

So you generate the file into a temp file, then hard link the temp file to where you want the replacement to go, then you delete the temp file:

$ generate-file.sh > file.txt.tmp
$ ln -f file.txt.tmp file.txt
$ rm file.txt.tmp

NFS

List NFS shares

To e.g. show NFS shares on 'love':

$ showmount -e love

Compression

How to use pigz with tar

See here:

$ tar cf - paths-to-archive | pigz --best -p 8 > archive.tgz

Note: don't use --best unless you're being stingy, running without it will be much faster.

Also from here:

Fast pack:

tar -I 'pigz --fast' -cf my.tar.gz whatver

Best pack:

tar -I 'pigz --best' -cf my.tar.gz whatver

Fast unpack:

tar -I pigz -xf my.tar.gz

Best compression with tar

From here:

export GZIP=-9
tar cvzf file.tar.gz /path/to/directory

or

env GZIP=-9 tar cvzf file.tar.gz /path/to/directory

Best parallel compression with pigz

$ pigz --best

Best parallel compression with xz

$ xz -9e -T 0

Reporting compression ratios with xz

e.g.

root@love:/data/image/archive# xz -l *
Strms  Blocks   Compressed Uncompressed  Ratio  Check   Filename
    1       3    372.2 MiB    442.3 MiB  0.841  CRC64   1999.txz
    1      29  5,281.3 MiB  5,542.5 MiB  0.953  CRC64   2001.txz
    1      11  1,364.3 MiB  2,084.3 MiB  0.655  CRC64   2002.txz
    1       9    568.5 MiB  1,660.2 MiB  0.342  CRC64   2003.txz
    1     639     66.8 GiB    119.6 GiB  0.558  CRC64   2004.txz
    1     313     12.7 GiB     58.6 GiB  0.217  CRC64   2005.txz
    1     414     35.0 GiB     77.4 GiB  0.452  CRC64   2006.txz
    1     485     44.5 GiB     90.9 GiB  0.490  CRC64   2007.txz
    1   1,690    150.0 GiB    316.8 GiB  0.473  CRC64   2008.txz
    1       3    457.9 MiB    526.0 MiB  0.871  CRC64   2009.txz
    1     168     27.3 GiB     31.4 GiB  0.868  CRC64   2010.txz
    1       4    477.1 MiB    702.8 MiB  0.679  CRC64   2011.txz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   12   3,768    344.6 GiB    705.5 GiB  0.488  CRC64   12 files

Symbolic-link management

== Data used by sym-linked files:

This will de-reference the sym-links in the current directory and tell you how much data the files pointed to by the sym-links are using:

jj5@tact:/data/backup/unity/latest$ du -hD * | sort -h

File searching

Finding a file with a particular name

$ find -iname "*some-part-of-the-file-name*"

Will start searching from the current directory, so maybe

$ cd /

first. For a case-sensitive search:

$ find -name "*eXaCT CaSE*"

Finding a file with particular content

To search in /etc/ for a file with particular content:

$ grep -R "search-string" /etc/*

To search the current directory for *.cs files containing the word "Up":

$ find . -name '*.cs' -exec grep --color=auto -H Up {} \;

Finding a list of files with particular content

E.g. to find all the files with the word 'creativity':

$ grep -R creativity . | sed 's/:/ /' | awk '{ print $1 }' | sort | uniq

Using the locate command to find files

$ locate part-of-filename

E.g.

$ locate texvc

Updating locate command's database

# updatedb

Select a random line from a text file

$ shuf -n 1 input.txt

Extra context for grep

If you need to show extra lines before or after your grep results use -B NUM to set how many lines before the match and -A NUM for the number of lines after the match:

$ grep -B 3 -A 1 ...

Job control

Stopping a running process

Press Ctrl+Z to stop a running process.

Listing current jobs and their status

$ jobs

Resuming a stopped job in the backgroud

To resume a stopped process in the background

$ bg %1

where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').

Resuming a stopped job in the foreground

To resume a stopped process in the foreground

$ fg %1

where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').

Killing a stopped job

To kill a job

$ kill %1

where '1' is the job number reported by bash when you pressed Ctrl+Z (or ran 'jobs').

Periodically run a program and watch its output

$ watch /your/command

Debian/Ubuntu package management

Also see Where "is" it? on the Debian Wiki.

configuring debconf

# dpkg-reconfigure debconf 

Set priority to low to get asked detailed questions.

Showing list of installed packages

# dpkg --get-selections

Searching for installed package

# dpkg --get-selections | grep package-name

or

# aptitude search package-name

Showing which files are installed as part of a package

# dpkg -L package-name

Installing a package

# apt-get install package-name

Uninstalling a package

# apt-get remove package-name

Showing system architecture

$ dpkg --print-architecture

Showing which package a file belongs to

$ which echo
/bin/echo
$ dpkg -S /bin/echo
coreutils: /bin/echo
$ dpkg -l | grep coreutils
ii  coreutils                         6.10-6                   The GNU core utilities

Showing package information

$ apt-cache showpkg coreutils

Or for even more information:

$ apt-cache show coreutils

List all installed packages with package version info

dpkg-query -l

Reporting which version of a package is installed

$ dpkg -l | grep package-name

E.g.:

root@hope:~/letsencrypt# dpkg -l | grep augeas
ii  augeas-lenses                   0.7.0-1ubuntu1                 Set of lenses needed by libaugeas0 to parse 
ii  libaugeas0                      0.7.0-1ubuntu1                 The augeas configuration editing library and

Comprehensive upgrade

Try the following:

# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade
# apt-get autoremove
# apt-get remove $(deborphan)
# update-flashplugin-nonfree --install

Searching all available packages

$ apt-cache search . | sort -d | less

Reporting unattended upgrades status

See here for more info.

# tail -f /var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades.log

Searching for Debian packages and versions

Networking

Determining throughput between two hosts

# apt install iperf3

On the server:

# iperf3 -s

On the client:

# iperf3 -c $SERVER_IP

For more info see: How to test the network speed/throughput between two Linux servers.

net-tools vs iproute2

The older 'net-tools' package has been replaced with 'iproute2' e.g. in stretch.

legacy net-tools commands iproute2 replacement commands
arp ip n (ip neighbor)
ifconfig ip a (ip addr), ip link, ip -s (ip -stats)
iptunnel ip tunnel
iwconfig iw
nameif ip link, ifrename
netstat ss, ip route (for netstat-r), ip -s link (for netstat -i), ip maddr (for netstat-g)
route ip r (ip route)

Restart networking

For servers:

# service networking restart

For desktops:

# service network-manager restart

Pinging with particular packet size

$ ping -M do -s <packet size in bytes> <host>

E.g.

$ ping -M do -s 1400 charity.progclub.org

Setting MSS for a particular IP address on a particular interface

# ip route add <host> dev <interface> advmss <packet size>

E.g.

# ip route add 10.0.0.1 dev eth0 advmss 1400

Dropping configured MMS for a particular IP address

# ip route flush <host>

E.g.

# ip route flush 10.0.0.1

Listing open ports and socket information

Including which process is listening on which port.

# netstat -tulpn

Or use the 'ss' command:

# ss -s
# ss -l
# ss -pl
# ss -o state established '( dport = :smtp or sport = :smtp )'

Listing open IPv4 connections

# lsof -Pnl +M -i4

You might need to install the lsof package:

# apt-get install lsof

Query for DNS MX record

$ nslookup
> server 127.0.0.1
> set q=mx
> mail.blackbrick.com

Query for DNS SOA record

$ dig @ns2.staticmagic.net -t SOA staticmagic.net

Using nmap to list open ports on remote host

To check the 1,000 most common ports:

# nmap server.example.com

Or for a specific port range (e.g. 101 to 102):

# nmap -p 101-102 server.example.com

Or for all ports (1 to 65,535):

# nmap -p- server.example.com

Network monitoring

See here for details. Basically:

  1. Overall bandwidth: nload, bmon, slurm, bwm-ng, cbm, speedometer, netload
  2. Overall bandwidth (batch style output): vnstat, ifstat, dstat, collectl
  3. Bandwidth per socket connection: iftop, iptraf, tcptrack, pktstat, netwatch, trafshow
  4. Bandwidth per process: nethogs

nload

You can watch network traffic in real-time with nload:

# nload -u M

Reporting network (NIC) speed

From here:

# dmesg | grep eth0
# mii-tool -v eth0
# ethtool eth0

Note: use ifconfig to get device name.

Path MTU discovery

To do a Path MTU Discovery, from the iputils-tracepath package:

# tracepath host.example.com

Listing available Ethernet devices

To see a list of NICs available on the host:

$ cat /proc/net/dev

Also

$ ip link

59 Linux Networking commands and scripts

See 59 Linux Networking commands and scripts.

Links

IPTables

Applying firewall rules

For configuration info see this article.

$ sudo vim /etc/iptables.test.rules
$ sudo /sbin/iptables -F
$ sudo /sbin/iptables-restore < /etc/iptables.test.rules
$ sudo iptables -L
$ sudo -s
# iptables-save > /etc/iptables.up.rules
# exit

Blocking an IP address with iptables

To drop IP address 1.2.3.4:

# iptables -A INPUT -s 1.2.3.4 -j DROP

ufw

Denying hosts with ufw

See denying hosts with ufw.

Bind9

Viewing Bind9 querylog

$ sudo rndc querylog
$ tail -f /var/log/syslog

IPSec

Disabling IPSec

# setkey -FP

OpenSSL

Debugging IMAPS with OpenSSL

# openssl s_client -connect localhost:993
> a1 LOGIN username@host password
> a2 LOGOUT

Debugging HTTPS with OpenSSL

$ openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443
GET /example.html HTTP/1.1
host: www.example.com

Links

Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)

Links

SSH

Configuring SSH key login

On the client machine generate a key-pair (if necessary, check for existing ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub):

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa

Copy the public key from the client to the server:

$ scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub user@example.org:

Configure the authorized keys on the server:

$ ssh user@example.org
$ mkdir ~/.ssh
$ chmod go-w .ssh
$ cat ~/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
$ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
$ rm ~/id_rsa.pub

Tunneling over SSH

For example, connecting a remote MySQL server to the localhost:

$ ssh -L 3306:localhost:3306 jselliot@ssh.progsoc.org

If the machine you want to connect to is not the localhost of the machine you're ssh'ing to,

 $ ssh -L 3306:muspell.progsoc.uts.edu.au:3306 ssh.progsoc.uts.edu.au

The -L stanza is localport:remotehost:remoteport where localport is a port on your machine, forwarded to remoteport on remotehost.

Tunneling over SSH with PuTTY

See Connecting to the MySQL database remotely (via an SSH Tunnel)

  • run putty.exe
  • Connection -> SSH -> Tunnels
    • Port forwarding: source port to 3306
    • destination: 127.0.0.1:3306
    • check Local
    • click Add

Enabling verbose SSH logging

To see what's going on with your ssh connections,

$ ssh -v user@host

Or

$ ssh -vv user@host

Unlocking SSH key for session

jj5@orac:~/.config/autostart$ cat ssh-add.desktop 
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=ssh-add
Comment=Adds my private key to my session.
Exec=/usr/bin/konsole -e 'ssh-add /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa'

Links

Standard IO

cat EOF

$ cat > output <<EOF
> text
> EOF
$ cat output
text

Script

Creating a session log with script

$ script -t 2> timing

The session log is in the file 'typescript' and the timing data is in 'timing'.

Replaying a scripted session

$ scriptreplay timing

Uses the default file 'typescript' and the 'timing' file as specified.

Screen

Creating a new screen or reconnecting to a detached screen

$ screen -R

Detaching a screen

$ screen -D

Reconnecting to screen

$ screen -D
$ screen -R

I have a script in ~/bin/reconnect like so,

#!/bin/bash
screen -D
screen -R

This will detach your last screen, and reconnect it on the current terminal.

Scrolling in screen

See How to scroll in GNU Screen. Basically press Ctrl+A ESC then use Page Up and Page Down. Press ESC again to exit copy mode. As usual you can use Ctrl+[ in place of ESC.

tmux

Live collaboration with tmux

User A:

tmux -S /tmp/collab
chmod 777 /tmp/collab

User B:

tmux -S /tmp/collab attach

Vim

First, why Vim?

Read Why, oh WHY, do those #?@! nutheads use vi?

Visual modes

Use 'v' for visual mode, 'V' for visual line mode and Ctrl+V for visual block mode.

Configuring spaces instead of tabs

I use two spaces instead of tabs. To configure, edit your .vimrc file:

$ vim ~/.vimrc

and include the following lines:

set tabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
set expandtab

Configuring syntax highlighting

See here.

Use:

:syntax on

to turn on syntax highlighting.

Use:

:syntax off

to turn off syntax highlighting.

To always use syntax highlighting:

$ vim ~/.vimrc

and add:

syntax on

To get a list of supported colour schemes open vim and type:

:colorscheme[space][Ctrl+D]

To always use a particular colorscheme edit ~/.vimrc and add (for example):

colorscheme desert

Inserting a TAB character when expandtab is on

The problem here is that you have configured vim to insert spaces, but for a particular file (e.g. a Makefile) you need to insert a character.

Press Ctrl+V TAB to insert a literal tab character.

Or you can disable tab expansion altogether with:

:set expandtab!

Changing 2 space indent to 4 space indent (e.g. for python files)

:%s/^\s*/&&/g

For more information see here.

Recording and replaying a macro

To record a macro press 'q' and then a number between 1 and 9. E.g. press "q1". The macro is now recording. When you've finished issuing your commands press 'q' again to finish recording. To replay a macro press '@' followed by the number of the macro. That is, if you pressed "q1" to record the macro, press "@1" to replay the macro. To replay the last macro again press "@@".

Deleting to end of line

d$

Deleting to beginning of line

d^

Finding text

To search forward for "text":

/text

To search backward for "text":

?text

To repeat the last search in a forward direction press 'n', or to search again backwards press 'N'.

Finding and replacing text

To replace the first instance of "search" on the current line with "destroy":

:s/search/destroy/

To replace all instances of "search" on the current line with "destroy":

:s/search/destroy/g

To replace all instances of "search" on lines 13 to 37 with "destroy":

:13,37 s/search/destroy/g

To replace all instances of "search" in the entire file with "destroy":

:%s/search/destroy/g

Changing DOS/Windows line-endings (CRLF) to Unix line-endings

To set the line-ending to Unix line endings run the command:

:setlocal ff=unix

More information on managing file formats available here.

Disabling auto-indent etc. to paste from clipboard

To disable smart indenting when you're going to paste in text:

:set paste

To turn it off again:

:set nopaste

There's more info in this article: Toggle auto-indenting for code paste

Positioning windows

Use -o for horizontal split, e.g.:

vim -o a.txt b.txt

Use -O for vertical split, e.g.:

vim -o a.txt b.txt

Use ^W to navigate windows then use directional keys h, j, k, l, etc.

Use ^W and < or > to resize windows.

To indent a block of text in Vim

Use the > command. E.g. to indent five lines:

5 > >

Press . (dot) to keep indenting.

Or inside a block (e.g. curly brace, HTML/XML element, etc.) you can put your cursor in the element on on the curly brace and then:

> %

See here for more.

Open a file in a new window/tab

To open a file on the left hand side:

:vert new filename.ext

Note: ':vnew filename.ext' and ':vsp filename.ext' also work.

To open a file at the top:

:new filename.ext

See here for more.

Explore files in Vim

Enter:

:Explore

Switch between Vim tabs

Use gt and gT.

Switch between Vim windows

To toggle between open windows use:

Ctrl+W W

To move in a direction use:

Ctrl+W h/j/k/l

See here for more.

Insert block comment in Vim

See here for line-commenting.

So it's:

  1. Ctrl+V (Note: not Shift+V!)
  2. Up/Down to select rows
  3. Shift+I
  4. Enter your text, e.g. '#' or '//'
  5. Ctrl+[ (or 'Esc')

Navigate to matching tag

To navigate to the matching beginning or end tag use '%'.

You can also use e.g. '[{' to match the previous '{', or e.g. '])' to match the next ')'.

Auto-format HTML tags

Stolen from here.

  1. first join all the lines - ggVGgJ
  2. Now break tags to new lines - :%s/>\s*</>\r</g
  3. Now set filetype - :set ft=html (you can do this before too)
  4. Now Indent - ggVG=

Links

Create PDF from text using Vim

Generate PDF from input.txt with:

$ vim input.txt -c "hardcopy > doc.ps | q" && ps2pdf doc.ps

Examine output with:

$ okular doc.pdf

Write

Talking to other users on the system

write is a unix command for talking to other users on the system. To use write:

1. SSH to <username>@<hostname> and login with your username and password.

2. Issue the following command to find out who is logged onto the system:

$ who

3. Issue the following command to talk to a specific user:

$ write <username>

4. Enter the message you'd like to send the user, followed by Ctrl+C to send. Press Ctrl+D to cancel.

Date

Reporting the time on the server

$ date

Reporting UTC time

$ date --utc

Getting the date in yyyy-MM-dd-hhmmss format

$ date="`date +%F-%H%M%S`"

Getting the year in four digits

$ year="`date +%Y`"

Getting the month in two digits

$ month="`date +%m`"

Getting the day of the month in two digits

$ day="`date +%d`"

Getting yesterday's date

$ date --date='1 day ago' +%Y-%m-%d

Converting Unix time (seconds since epoch)

For timestamp '1501370200':

$ date -d @1501370200 +%F-%H%M%S

Running timedatectl from systemd

There's a new command bundled with systmed:

# timedatectl

It reports on (and controls) how the system time is configured.

MySQL (and MariaDB)

Run mysql without authentication/authorisation

# service mysql stop
# mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &

Then you can connect without a password, e.g.:

# mysql -u root mysql

To stop the unauthenticated service:

# mysqladmin shutdown

Then restart a normal service:

# service mysql start

Logging all database queries

# vim /etc/mysql/my.cnf

In the [mysqld] section add:

log=/tmp/mysql.log

Then:

# service mysql restart

Watch the log with:

# tail -f /tmp/mysql.log

Or:

SET GLOBAL log_output = 'FILE';
SET GLOBAL general_log_file = 'my_logs.txt';
SET GLOBAL general_log = 'ON';

my_logs.txt will be in /var/lib/mysql

Dumping a MySQL database

You can dump the database into a file using:

$ mysqldump -h hostname -u user --password=password databasename > filename

Loading a MySQL database from a dump file

You can create a database using:

$ echo create database databasename | mysql -h hostname -u user -p

You can restore a database using:

$ mysql -h hostname -u user --password=password databasename < filename

Creating a MySQL user

# mysql -h localhost -u root --password=<password>
mysql> create user 'username'@'localhost' identified by '<password>';

Granting all MySQL user permissions

# mysql -h localhost -u root --password=<password>
mysql> grant all privileges on dbname.* to user@host;

Select domain name from email address

SELECT SUBSTR( email, INSTR( email, '@' ) + 1 )

Check if MySQL connection is encrypted with TLS/SSL

Check the SSL version in use:

show status like 'Ssl_version';

Or check the cipher in use:

show status like 'Ssl_cipher';

Report on server config

See SHOW Statements for the full list, but check out:

SHOW VARIABLES

and

SHOW STATUS

and

SHOW PROCESSLIST

Monitor MySQL activity

$ watch "mysql -t -e 'show processlist'"

Apache

Reporting loaded Apache modules

# apache2ctl -M

Maintaining .htaccess passwords

To add or modify the password for a user:

$ htpasswd /etc/apache2/passwd username

Configuring PHP session timeout in .htaccess

For a session timeout of 9 hours:

php_value session.cookie_lifetime 32400
php_value session.gc_maxlifetime 32400

Disabling PHP magic quotes in .htaccess

php_flag magic_quotes_gpc Off

Requiring HTTP Auth in .htaccess

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Speak Friend And Enter"
AuthUserFile /home/jj5/.htpasswd
Require valid-user

Restarting Apache

The hard way

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

The graceful way (avoids dropping active connections)

$ sudo apache2ctl graceful

Allowing directory browsing

To show directory index pages, in the apache config file:

<Directory /var/www/data>
  Options Indexes
</Directory>

C

Locating memset function

The memset function is in <string.h> as described in this article Using memset(), memcpy(), and memmove() in C

Links

PHP

Including a file relative to the including file

require_once( dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/relative/path/to.php' );

Enabling error reporting

error_reporting( E_ALL | E_STRICT );
ini_set( 'display_errors', 'On' );

Setting an error handler

set_error_handler( "error_handler", E_ALL | E_STRICT );
function error_handler( $error_code, $error_message, $error_file, $error_line, $error_context ) {
  // ...
}

Disable HTML content in var_dump

ini_set( 'html_errors', 'off' );

Report PHP modules

$ php -m

PHP Security Best Practices For Sys Admins

See Linux 25 PHP Security Best Practices For Sys Admins.

BASH scripting

For a primer on bash scripting see TFM: Erotic Fantasy: /bin/sh Programming.

Telling a script to run in bash

The first line of the file should be:

#!/bin/bash

Checking if a command-line argument was passed in

if [ -n "$1" ]; then
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
  exit 1;
fi

Checking if a command-line argument was not passed in

if [ "$1" = "" ]; then
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
  exit 1;
fi

Or:

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  echo "Missing parameter 1.";
  exit 1;
fi

Checking command exit status

cd /my/path
if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
  echo "Cannot change dir.";
  exit 1;
fi

Checking if a file does/doesn't exist

Check if file exists:

if [ -f "/my/file" ]; then
  cat /my/file
fi

Check if file doesn't exist:

if [ ! -f "/my/file" ]; then
  touch /my/file
fi

Checking if a directory does/doesn't exist

Check if directory exists:

if [ -d "/my/dir" ]; then
  rmdir /my/dir
fi

Check if directory doesn't exist:

if [ ! -d "/my/dir" ]; then
  mkdir /my/dir
fi

Deleting old backups

To keep only the latest five backups:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' | sort -r -z -n | awk 'BEGIN { RS="\0"; ORS="\0"; FS="" } NR > 5 { sub("^[0-9]*(.[0-9]*)? ", ""); print }' | xargs -0 rm -f

This script stolen from stackoverflow.

Requires GNU find for -printf, GNU sort for -z, GNU awk for "\0" and GNU xargs for -0, but handles files with embedded newlines or spaces.

Changing into the script's directory

cd "`dirname $0`"

Getting the absolute path of a relative path

readlink -f ./some/path

Creating a temp directory

dir=`mktemp -d` && cd $dir

Reading secret input from stdin

You can read a secret, such as a password, like this:

echo -n "Enter passphrase: "
stty -echo
read passphrase;
stty echo
echo ""

After running the above the secret will be in the $passphrase environment variable.

String replacements in bash

See the string manipulation doco. Basically, to replace first occurrence:

result=${var/find/replace}

To replace all occurrences:

result=${var//find/replace}

A practical example, get an ISO date and turn it into a path:

date="$(date +%Y-%m-%d)"
work_dir=${date//-//}

Sending a HEREDOC to a file

cat << EOF > /tmp/yourfilehere
These contents will be written to the file.
        This line is indented.
EOF

Bash case/switch statement

See using case statements, e.g.:

case $space in
[1-6]*)
  Message="All is quiet."
  ;;
[7-8]*)
  Message="Start thinking about cleaning out some stuff.  There's a partition that is $space % full."
  ;;
9[1-8])
  Message="Better hurry with that new disk...  One partition is $space % full."
  ;;
99)
  Message="I'm drowning here!  There's a partition at $space %!"
  ;;
*)
  Message="I seem to be running with an nonexistent amount of disk space..."
  ;;
esac

Using dotglob shopt to match dot-files

To enable dot-file matching in globs, set the dotglob shell option:

$ shopt -s dotglob

Stopping a script from running if it previously exited due to error

persistentDataDir=/var/lib/something
alarm() {
  touch $persistentDataDir/alarm
}
trap alarm ERR
[ -f $persistentDataDir/alarm ] && exit 1

Make sure only one instance of a script is running at a time

ephemeralDataDir=/var/run/something
unlock() {
  rmdir $ephemeralDataDir/lock
}
mkdir $ephemeralDataDir/lock || exit 1;
trap unlock EXIT

BASH programming advice

See Anybody can write good bash (with a little effort).

Run a command using arguments that come from an array

See here:

#!/bin/bash
tabs=("first tab" "second tab")
args=()
for t in "${tabs[@]}" ; do 
  args+=(-t "$t")
done
app "${args[@]}"

Display a CSV in columnar or tabular format

$ column -t -s , data.csv

Maximum command line length

Technically this is an operating system limit, not a BASH limit.

$ getconf ARG_MAX    # Get argument limit in bytes/chars

Sed

Find and replace with sed

To update the current file use '-i'. E.g.:

sed -i 's/search-text/replace-text/' file

Awk

Listing IP addresses in an Apache web log

awk '/GET \/path\/for\/url/ { print $1 }' /var/log/apache2/access.log | sort | uniq

Printing space-separated field

echo 'no no yes no' | awk '{print $3}'

Printing delimited field

echo 'no:no:yes:no' | awk -F ':' '{print $3}'

Subversion

Setting svn:externals from the command-line

See here.

To set an svn:externals from the command-line:

svn propset svn:externals 'rdfind-php https://www.progclub.org/svn/pcrepo/rdfind.php/branches/0.1' .
svn ci -m 'Adding svn:externals for rdfind-php...'
svn up

Or to use a file:

svn propset svn:externals -F svn.externals .

Setting svn:ignore from the command line

See here.

$ svn propset svn:ignore [file|folder] [path]

Or use a file and apply recursively:

$ svn propset svn:ignore -RF ./svn-ignore-list.txt .

Git

Showing status of working copy

git status

Showing repo history

git log

Showing remote repositories (including 'origin')

git remote -v

Handy git aliases

Save these to your ~/.gitconfig file.

For a nicer view of history than standard 'git log' -- colourful, one-line-per commit, etc:

 graph = !git log --all --graph --color --abbrev-commit --pretty=oneline

To show only the files that have changed, rather than the full line-by-line content:

 dif   = !git diff --name-status

Show git remote URL

git config --get remote.origin.url

IRC

Instructing ChanServ to op an admin

/msg ChanServ op #channel user

E.g.

/msg ChanServ op #gnurc jj5

Sub 'op' for 'deop' to remove op privilege.

C++

C++ books

Books I want

Books I own

Books I'm not reading

Books I've read

C++ blogs/articles

C++ performance tips

  • ++c can be faster than c++.
  • use const for everything that you possibly can.
  • use 'inline' when you need to define a function in a header. Typically only do that if it's small and the increase in code size from inlining is worth the cost to avoid the cost of a function call. For anything except trivially small functions you'll probably need to profile to know if it's worth it.
  • don't use registers.
  • const rarely affects performance.
  • debunking a number of C++ myths that won't die.
  • std::sort<> is typically faster than qsort() because it can avoid indirection at runtime.
  • if you've got parallelisation going on, you may be able to just replace a std::for_each with a parallel equivalent.
  • read about performance cost of RTTI (Run Time Type Information) and how to disable it
  • don't use dynamic_cast because it is slow (typeid is faster but still relies on RTTI)
  • prefer unique_ptr to shared_ptr when possible. unique_ptr has less overhead.
  • Which is better, static or dynamic linking?
  • Integer vs Floating-Point performance

systemd

systemd is an init system used in most Linux distributions to bootstrap the user space and manage all processes subsequently.

Following a service log

e.g. for bind9:

# journalctl -f -u bind9

or for everything:

# journalctl -f

System status

To see spawned services hierarchy:

# systemctl status

Or for a specific service e.g.:

# systemctl status networking

SaltStack

Running a command on specified minions

From the salt master:

salt 'host' cmd.run 'update-locale'

From the salt minion:

salt-call cmd.run 'update-locale'

Running a command on all minions

salt '*' cmd.run 'update-locale'

Running a specific state file

From the salt master:

salt $MINION_ID state.sls $STATE_FILE

From the salt minion:

salt-call state.sls $STATE_FILE

Listing active jobs

salt-run jobs.active

Listing available grains

salt 'example' grains.items

Listing available pillar

salt 'example' pillar.items

Reporting a grain value

e.g. for the 'mem_total' grain:

salt '*' grains.item mem_total

Passing a variable into a Jinja template from a salt state (SLS)

e.g.: to pass 'zabbix_deb_{pkg,url}' variables into the source.txt template:

/srv/zabbix/release/{{ zabbix_deb_pkg }}.txt:
  file.managed:
    - template: jinja
    - user: root
    - group: root
    - mode: 644
    - source: salt://file/srv/zabbix/release/source.txt
    - require:
      - file: /srv/zabbix/release
    - default:
      zabbix_deb_pkg: {{ zabbix_deb_pkg }}
      zabbix_deb_url: {{ zabbix_deb_url }}

KDE

Running user login script (X11/XOrg/XWindows)

A way to run user login scripts which works for KDE Plasma (and apparently other X.Org Server X Window System environments) is to create a *.desktop file in ~/.config/autostart/. For example I have a ~/.config/autostart/ssh-add.desktop file with the following contents to register my SSH key in the SSH Agent:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=ssh-add
Comment=Adds my private key to my session.
Exec=/usr/bin/konsole -e 'ssh-add /home/$USER/.ssh/id_rsa'

Standard KDE shortcut key bindings

Name Shortcut Command
Send Ctrl+D Pause xdotool key "ctrl+d"
Insert comment F1 xdotool type "$(date +%Y-%m-%d ) $USER - "
Insert sydtime F4 xdotool type "$(date +%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S)"
Konsole Meta+T konsole
Dolphin Meta+E dolphin
Firefox ScrollLock firefox
Kate Ctrl+Shift+F12 kate
KCalc Ctrl+Shift+F11 kcalc

Shutting down KDE/Plasma

# /etc/init.d/sddm stop

VirtualBox

Mounting a VirtualBox VDI file

Note: instead of doing this consider booting with a live CD.

See here:

Install qemu if necessary:

# apt install qemu

Then you'll need to load the network block device module:

# rmmod nbd
# modprobe nbd max_part=16

Attach the .vdi image to one of the nbd you just created:

# qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 drive.vdi

Now you will get a /dev/nbd0 block device, along with several /dev/nbd0p* partition device nodes.

# mount /dev/nbd0p1 /mnt

Once you are done, unmount everything and disconnect the device:

# qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbd0

Elasticsearch

Report on health of your Elasticsearch cluster

$ curl http://localhost:9200/_cluster/health?pretty

Zabbix

Zabbix Agent on Mac OS X

Download and install agent.

Config file is here: /usr/local/etc/zabbix/zabbix_agentd.conf

Unload agent with:

# launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zabbix.zabbix_agentd.plist

Load agent with:

# launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.zabbix.zabbix_agentd.plist

To add a 'pki' group:

# dseditgroup -o create pki

To monitor syslog on Mac OS X:

# tail -f /var/log/system.log

Installing Zabbix Agent from source on Mac OS X

Download sources from https://www.zabbix.com/download_sources

$ brew update
$ brew install openssl
$ brew install pcre
jj5@condor:~/Desktop/zabbix-4.4.7$ ./configure --enable-agent --with-openssl=/usr/local/opt/openssl/
jj5@condor:~/Desktop/zabbix-4.4.7$ sudo make install

NetBeans

NetBeans shortcut keys

Keys Action
Ctrl+W Close active window
Alt+Shift+K Open in Terminal
Ctrl+U U Convert selected text to uppercase
Ctrl+U L Convert selected text to lowercase

XML

How to pretty-print an XML file

$ xmllint --format input.xml > output.xml

ApacheBench

Run a benchmark with ApacheBench

$ ab -n 1000 -c 100 https://www.example.com/