Anything and Nothing : Shell Tips & Tricks

Shell Tips & Tricks

Disabling the system console beep.
Enabling the num lock key at start up.
Changing the default editor system wide.
Mounting devices as a regular user.
Usefull BASH shortcuts.
Smart MOTDs at boot up.
NIS basic setup.
Changing your password/shell in a NIS environment.
Default NIS domain name.
Get a specific interface’s IP.
Syncing the hardware clock.
Forcing a FSCK on next reboot.
Normal user using shutdown.
Untarring multiple files.
Entering CPAN from the command line.
Changing lilo’s bootscreen color.
Where did mail/mailx go?.
Dual-booting Slackware with Windows.
Quick SpamAssassin setup.
Using KMail with SpamAssassin.
Converting RPMs to .TGZs.
Having root privilages on a nfs partition.
Bash shell spelling correction.
Quick and dirty way of doing backups.
Check who is using a certain file system.
Truncating a file really fast.
Suspending your root shell.
Joining a windows DOMAIN.
Getting human readable information from "df".
Using "du" to check file sizes in a directory.

In order to disable the system console’s beep on errors and such all you have to do is open up /etc/rc.d/rc.local with your favorite editor and put this line in there: setterm -bfreq 0 . Then save and exit logout and log back in and there shouldn’t be any more annoying noises.

To enable the numlock key edit /etc/rc.d/rc.local and put this in there: for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6; do /usr/bin/setleds +num < /dev/tty${i} > /dev/null done That’s it save and reboot the machine now. One thing though this enables the numlock in the first six consoles if you have more than six (aka you have used the trick here which enables 9 consoles) you are going to have to add 7,8, and 9 to the list. (NOTE: This was taken from userlocal.com).

Changing the default system editor is not really hard, IF you are using some vi clone. I have concluded that from personal experience and if someone can provide info on how to make other editors work I would appreciate it. All you have to do is type this in a shell prompt: export VISUAL=/usr/bin/vim . Now that is going to be good for only this session if you want to make a permanent change go to /etc/ and edit profile and add the above line in there then log out and log back in and it should be working perfectly. Go to top

Ok go to /etc and open fstab in your favorite editor. Now you will see somewhere in there a line like this: defaults or something like noauto,ro. Well all you have to do is add user somewhere on that same line so it would look like this when you are done: noauto,user,ro and defaults,user. Go to top

In order to get random quotes at login all you need to do is install fortune.tgz from the Slackware Installation CD, then log off and log back on and it should be working :). Go to top

Don’t forget to edit /etc/rc.d/rc.yp and un comment the right commands. Otherwise YP would not be started and you will be stuck wondering what is going on :).Go to top

If you are part of a NIS environment and want to change your password you need to follow these steps in order for it to work: mv /usr/bin/passwd /usr/bin/passwd.orig; ln -sf /usr/bin/yppasswd /usr/bin/passwd;mv /usr/bin/chsh /usr/bin/chsh.orig; ln -sf /usr/bin/ypchsh /usr/bin/chsh Go to top

When you are setting up NIS make sure to create the file /etc/defaultdomain and add your domain name in there otherwise NIS will complain that it doesn’t have a default domain.Go to top

Replace eth0 with the interface youa re interested in: /sbin/ifconfig eth0 | awk ‘/inet/ { print $2 }’ | awk -F ":" ‘{ print $2 }’Go to top

To sync your hardware clock to a time server run this(Note that I am using AOLs time server for the example): /usr/sbin/ntpdate 205.188.185.33 && /sbin/hwclock –systohcGo to top

To force error checking on all drives on next reboot do: touch /etc/forcefsckGo to top

To allow users to use the "shutdown" comand do: 4. Allow normal users to use shutdown: (making it suid) chmod a+s /sbin/shutdownGo to top

To untar multiple tar.gz files in one sweep use: for i in *.tar.gz; do tar xzf $i; doneGo to top

If you want to access CPAN from your computer without the need of a browser do: perl -MCPAN -e shellGo to top

If you would like to change the lilo menu color then add the following to the top of your lilo.conf file(the following makes it blue): Changing the lilo menu color add the below to your lilo.conf: menu-scheme = wb:bw:wb:WbGo to top

Ever since slackware 9 they have changed to "nail". So go read up on nail to figure out how to use it :). The basic ommand structure is still the same so you should be able to just replace mailx/mail with "nail" and your scripts should work.Go to top

In order to dual boot append these lines (one after another) to your lilo.conf file: other = /dev/hda1 # the partition you wish to boot, table = /dev/hda # the current partition table, label = WinXP # name to boot Go to top

This the quick and dirty way of installing SpamAssassin: Install HTML::Parser from CPAN, Download SpamAssassin, unpack it and enter the Mail-SpamAssassin directory and issue: "perl Makefile.PL PREFIX=/usr SYSCONFDIR=/etc; make; make install". Finally you can go to the Software section and download my rc.spammassassin file, put in /etc/rc.d and call it from rc.local.Go to top

If you already have spamassassin installed and running you probably want to use it :). Here is how to do it with KMail: If you haven’t configured your MTA to filter incoming e-mail with SpamAssassin the first step is to configure KMail to do this. Filters can be created in KMail with the "Settings->Configure Filters" menu option. Create a new filter with the following options: select "Match any of the following". Select "any header" "contains" "." (a single dot) as the first criterium. Select "pipe through" as the filter action and fill in "spamc" in the input field. Make sure the " If this filter matches, stop processing here" option is disabled. The filter that is configured above pipes each incoming e-mail through spamc. Now we can let KMail move spam mails to a seperate box automatically. Close the filter window and create a new folder named "Spam" in the local folders map. Reopen the filters window and add another filter. Select "Match any of the following". Select "any header" "contains" "X-Spam-Flag: YES". Make sure you use the same case, otherwise the rule will not match. Select "move to folder" "Spam" as the filter action. Finally click "OK" to accept the settings. With these settings KMail marks spam using the spamc command and moves mails that contain the "X-Spam-Flag: YES" flag to a seperate spam folder. One last thing make sure that the two filter from above are the first two filters in your list(aka they have to be at the top), otherwise they will not work as expected.Go to top

Ever wanted to convert an RPM to a Slackware recognized package for easier managment? Well you can do it by using "rpm2tgz".Go to top

If you are using NFS to share files and if you have the need for remote roots(the root of machines that mount that NFS share) then add the "no_root_squash" option like this: /home/username 192.168.0.1(rw,sync,no_root_squash)Go to top

ctrl-l — clear screen ctrl-r — does a search in the previously given commands so that you don’t have to repeat long command. ctrl-u — clears the typing before the hotkey. ctrl-a — takes you to the begining of the command you are currently typing. ctrl-e — takes you to the end of the command you are currently typing in. esc-b — takes you back by one word while typing a command. ctrl-c — kills the current command or process. ctrl-d — kills the shell. ctrl-h — deletes one letter at a time from the command you are typing in. ctrl-z — puts the currently running process in background, the process can be brought back to run state by using fg command. esc-p — like ctrl-r lets you search through the previously given commands. esc-. — gives the last command you typed.Go to top

Put this command at the end of /etc/profile and next time you do cd /ect it would take you to /etc(this command checks your spelling and corrects it, thus taking you to the right place even with wrong spelling): shopt -s cdspellGo to top

Create a file named backuplist, put the locations and names of the files you want backed up(example: /etc/profile) and then run: "tar cvfzT /tmp/backup.tar.gz backuplist"Go to top

If you ever want to check and see who is accessing your filesystem then run(you can replace / with whichever filesystem you need): "fuser -vu" / Go to top

If you ever need to zero out a file really fast then run(replace /var/log/messages with the file you actually want truncated): "> /var/log/messages" Go to top

If you are tired of having to run "su root" all the time try using "suspend". It works like this: you run "su root" do whatever you need to do, then type "suspend" and you are dropped back to your normal user shell when you need to use the root shell again just run "fg" and you will be back to the root shell.Go to top

Ok this depends on your samba version for samba3: "net join -w DOMAIN -U username", for samba2 its: "smbpasswd -j DOMAIN -U username".Go to top

If you just run "df" without any switches you get all the information in KBs which is annoying if you want to quickly check how much space is available on a drive. To fix this just run "df -h" and I promise you will be a happier person :). It will give you the information in a human readable format.Go to top

Ever wanted to see what the file sizes are in a directory in a nice human readable format? Then try out this: du -h | moreGo to top

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