= *Nix related tidbits... = This is a page on various tools and techniques related to *nix administration, programming, disaster recovery - basically, odds and ends that come in handy once every so often. Anything based on a link is reiterated just for completeness, and just in case a link dies. While probably generally applicable to other distros, the contents on this page mostly reference lessons learned whilst using Ubuntu^1^ (and stated clearly when that's not the case). [#shell Shell-based] Command-line tools. So far, this section includes: * extundelete - for file system recovery * cdrecord - for burning ISO's * process I/O redirection (gdb) * fixing garbled text (gcc) [#print Printing] quick CUPS setup [[BR]] [#fortune one-liners] miscellaneous single-sentence tips. [[BR]] ---- = Shell-based tools and techniques = #shell == File recovery with Extundelete == Extundelete lets you recover files (directories) that you've accidentally deleted on an ext file system. The best way to use the tool is to have a live CD with the tool on it, although it does not seem to come packaged with Linux by default. 1. Boot the machine off of live CD. [[BR]] 2. Install `extundelete`. On Ubuntu, you need to edit sources.list, since it is not part of the standard repositories. [[BR]] 3. Restore the files on the partition: {{{ # sudo extundelete --restore-all /dev/sda1 }}} This restores everything that has been deleted in /dev/sda1, given the tool finds them. All recovered files are placed in a recovery directory that you can package and back up before rebooting the machine. == Command-line CD burner == source : http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialCDBurn.html Many CD burners are fairly dependency-heavy, mostly thanks to their GUI. `cdrecord` is a command-line based CD/DVD burner with just two dependencies at ~2.3kB: {{{ $ sudo apt-get install cdrecord ... The following NEW packages will be installed: genisoimage wodim ... After this operation, 2,306 kB of additional disk space will be used. }}} Now, to use: 1. Check for supported devices. You'll need to specify what to use when burning the image. `cdrecord` seems to just be a wrapper plus then some for `woodim`, and the two can be used interchangeably for this step. {{{ $ wodim --devices wodim: Overview of accessible drives (2 found) : ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0 dev='/dev/scd0' rwrw-- : 'SONY' 'DVD-ROM DDU1615' 1 dev='/dev/scd1' rwrw-- : 'TSSTcorp' 'CDDVDW SE-208AB' ------------------------------------------------------------------------- }}} 2. Burn. The meaning of the options can be listed with 'cdrecord --help'. {{{ $ sudo cdrecord -v -eject speed=16 dev='/dev/scd1' Downloads/ubuntu-12.04-server-amd64.iso }}} This will spew a bunch of output, but complete with something like below: {{{ Starting new track at sector: 0 Track 01: 684 of 684 MB written (fifo 100%) [buf 99%] 16.8x. Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 717533184/717533184 (350358 sectors). Writing time: 327.327s Average write speed 14.6x. Min drive buffer fill was 99% Fixating... Fixating time: 24.715s BURN-Free was never needed. wodim: fifo had 11302 puts and 11302 gets. wodim: fifo was 0 times empty and 11100 times full, min fill was 97%. }}} And eject the CD. == Redirecting the output of a live process. == source: http://etbe.coker.com.au/2008/02/27/redirecting-output-from-a-running-process/ Say that you have a running process whose outputs are either being piped to /dev/null or a terminal that you can't get a hold of, but you'd like to be able to see its output. Conversely, you may want to redirect something's output to /dev/null. You can force the process to change its output using `gdb`, the GNU debugger. This is a powerful tool that allows you to attach to a live process and inspect and manipulate the contents of its address space. Here I have a script that I had backgrounded but is still outputting to my terminal (annoying). I will redirect the program's output to a file. 1. Find the PID of your process. Mine is called arrival_collector.rb, so I look for it using `ps`. {{{ # ps -ef | grep collector root 17793 11276 0 18:39 pts/1 00:00:00 ruby arrival_collector.rb -r a,h,ee,f,wknd1,wknd2 -s scott,busch_a,pubsafs,foodsci,scott,scott -v }}} /proc/ shows that its STDOUT is my terminal, /dev/pts/1: {{{ # ls -l /proc/17793/fd total 0 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2012-02-19 18:45 0 -> /dev/pts/1 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2012-02-19 18:45 1 -> /dev/pts/1 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2012-02-19 18:40 2 -> /dev/pts/1 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2012-02-19 18:45 3 -> socket:[1566783742] }}} 2. Attach to the process with GDB. {{{ # gdb -p [PID] [path/to/executable] }}} It wil spew a bunch of output but eventually give you a prompt: {{{ # gdb -p 17793 /opt/grailrtls/grail3_ruby/grail3protocols/arrival_collector.rb GNU gdb (GDB) 7.2-ubuntu Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc. ... Loaded symbols for /lib/libnss_files.so.2 0xb78c7424 in __kernel_vsyscall () (gdb) }}} 3. Close STDOUT: {{{ (gdb) p close(1) $1 = 0 }}} 4. Point STDOUT to a file. Like in the link, I will use creat() to point STDOUT to a log file in /tmp/. creat() takes the path to the file and its permissions as the two arguments. {{{ (gdb) p creat("/tmp/output.log", 0600) $2 = 1 }}} 5. Exit gdb. Choose yes when asked if you want to quit. {{{ (gdb) quit A debugging session is active. Inferior 1 [process 17793] will be detached. Quit anyway? (y or n) y Detaching from program: /usr/bin/ruby1.8, process 17793 }}} Now when you check /proc/ you should see that your STDOUT is directed att the file you created: {{{ # ls -l /proc/17793/fd total 0 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2012-02-19 18:45 0 -> /dev/pts/1 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2012-02-19 18:45 1 -> /tmp/output.log lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2012-02-19 18:40 2 -> /dev/pts/1 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 2012-02-19 18:45 3 -> socket:[1566783742] }}} you can confirm this with `tail -f` (or the fact that your program has stopped outputting to terminal). == Fixing garbled gcc and man page output. == On some machines, `gcc` and man pages might produce garbled text. This is usually caused by xterm not supporting UTF-8, or from mismatch in locale information if the garbling is happening when you are working on a remote machine. In either case (for people working with US English), setting LANG to `en_US` or `C` fixes things: {{{ $ export LANG=en_US }}} Set it the same for both local and remote machines if it's happening over SSH. ---- == Printing setup with CUPS. == #print * ref: http://linuxcourse.rutgers.edu/howto/cups_printing.html CUPS stands for Common UNIX Printing System, and is fairly standard as a means to print from UNIX and UNIX-like things. We'll describe the steps needed for quick CUPS printing setup (bare-bones) in Ubuntu 11.04 [[BR]] 1. install packages. {{{ cups cupsys-driver-gutenprint libcupsys2 libcupsimage2 }}} 2. The default port that CUPS serves its admin GUI on is tcp:631. You can see listening if you do `netstat -na -4 | grep 631`: {{{ $ netstat -na -4 | grep 631 tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:631 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN }}} If you see it, point your browser to localhost:631. You should get a shiny-white welcome page. Yes, it was made by Apple. 3. Add your printer from the Administration tab -> Add Printer. It will ask for the root user and password (OK if you are on sudoers). You will be asked to provide info on the printer, and choose the drivers. [[BR]] If all goes well, you will be able to see the printer's status with `lpstat`. {{{ $ lpstat -p -d printer Phaser_5500DT is idle. enabled since Sat 28 Apr 2012 01:14:59 AM EDT no system default destination }}} If you want to print, you can do so by invoking `lp`: {{{ $ lp -o sides=two-sided-long-edge -d Phaser_5500DT [filename] }}} ---- == one-liners. == #fortune * in bash, if `seq` doesn't exist, try `gseq`. * options for mounting a *BSD filesystem in Linux: `-t ufs -o ufstype=ufs2` (not '44bsd' like the man pages say) ---- ^1. Me being the person that I am will have likely tried these on FreeBSD and maybe lubuntu to see that they work there as well.^