Command-line utilities: Tips and tricks - Eli Billauer

Abstract

Command-line utilities is the real power of a Linux computer, and yet there's always a few useful utilities that even an experienced Linux user doesn't know about. This meeting is dedicated to going through several random utilities, some of which are less known, others are known but have surprising possibilities.

The range goes from things as simple as using "touch" to fake a modification date to using ssh for surfing the web (with your browser) as if your computer was in another country.

No previous knowledge is required. Even though newbies will gain the most of this meeting, there is also room for those more familiar with the shell prompt. Those who want to take the stand for a few minutes to talk about a utility are welcome, of course.

There will be no slides during this meetings, just a shell window for demonstrations.

This is a list of topics that may or may not be covered, depending on interest and what time allows. Some will be mentioned in a few words, and we may spend some time with others.

find that file with complex criteria and output formatting: find
Run a quick script: perl -e and perl -pi -e
Resize (or create) a file: truncate
Fake a file's modification time: touch
Quick binary dump: hexdump -C
What's in that executable? ldd / objdump (disassembly)
Create a custom timestamp: date (with formatting)
Fetch that file from www: wget
Internet plumbing: nc / redirecting to /dev/tcp
Using ssh for port forwaring (fake your world position)
Check that you're not running out of inodes: du -i
Check up your processes: ps aux / pstree
Who's opening which files? lsof / strace
What ports are open? netstat -a -n
Munching a lot of text: cat / tac/ head / tail -f / sort / sort -n (together with du -s)
What's that file? file / identify / stat + perl's stat
Mounting an file image: fdisk -fu / mount -o loop
Convert PS to PDF: ps2pdf
pulseaudio utils: pulseaudio -k / -D + pacmd
Zenity: Plain GUI from the command line
Restore screen settings (set by mplayer): xvattr
Open a GUI explorer on the current directory: nautilus
View images on the current directory: gthumb

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