In Ubuntu, the Archive Manager (or file-roller) has make it easy for anyone to compress and zip up a file or folder, but if you have a large file, say 20Gb, and you want to back it up to the CD/DVD, you will find that no amount of compression can you reduce the file size [...]
In my first introductory rsync post, How To Synchronize Directories with Rsync, I’ve shown you the most basic approach to syncing two directories up. Today, I’d like to show you another useful thing you can do with rsync.
Just to remind you all, rsync is a remote synchronization tool. This means that its primary use lies [...]
Maintaining filesystems can be a real administration burden. Over time you might start getting multiple copies of the same file, soft links that point to files that no longer exist, temporary files that have been hanging around longer than they should, and binaries that have been installed and not had their debugging information stripped out. [...]
When I was writing a post about using date command to confirm date and time in your Unix scripts, I made a note in my future posts list to cover the date calculations - finding out the date of yesterday or tomorrow, and so on. Today I’ll show you the simplest way to calculate this.
GNU [...]
whowatch is a console application that lets you monitor what different users are doing on the Linux operating system in a given moment, it works in real time.
First install it
sudo aptitude install whowatch
Now to run it just enter whowath in the command line, some screen like this will appear.
Read more at http://www.go2linux.org
You may find that you want to modify the prompt. This can help you create visibility for special features or just modify it to something more useful. You can view the default settings for the prompt by using this command:
echo $PS1
As stated above it will show user, hostname, location and definition whether it [...]
Although comments can be a blessing in the configuration file of an unfamiliar system, they eventually become annoying if one is already very familiar with the file. In some extreme cases, they can actually be an obstruction to clarity.
Read more at Debian Administration
In my job as a systems engineer, I have handled various storage implementations for our enterprise clients. These may be in the form of direct-attached storage (DAS), network-attached storage (NAS), storage area network (SAN), or Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) systems. In these implementations, clients generally use proprietary storage products from vendors such as [...]
There used to be a script to do it automatically via init.d files, but now the suggested method is to use ifup.d networking scripts, which are executed on state changes of the network interfaces. So I submit here my simple script, which does the trick for me nicely.
Read more at Debian Administration
The latency of the execution of a particular task can be affected by what tasks a system is running, the condition of the network the machine is connected to, and how well the various server machines on the network are performing. LatencyTOP is a command-line tool and kernel patch that lets you see what is [...]
Today I’d like to show you the basic usage of rsync – a wonderful, old and reliable tool for incremental data transfers and synchronization of local directories or even data between different Unix systems.
rsync is quite a complicated command, so don’t expect this first post to explain everything and cover every possibility. Like I said, [...]
Sometimes when I’ve downloaded something, it is compressed into several small rar files, divided into lots of subfolders. This can be handy to keep track of files, but at the same time a pain in the ass when uncompressing them. You simply have to go into each subfolder and either run:
$ [...]
apropos is a standard unix command which is very frequently forgotten. That is a shame as this tool it is to man pages, what google is to the world wide web!
Basically apropos searches your MAN path for man pages relating to the search string. It searches both the page name and the description!
Read more at [...]
Timestamps are important in terms of diagnostics because they provide you with information about when an event occurred. For example, when a file was last changed. This information alone is invaluable for troubleshooting. The timestamp represents the last time the file was modified. As you look at these examples, [...]
UNetbootin allows you to easily adapt a Linux CD image to boot off of a USB flash drive or memory card. Have a system without a CD drive? Create a bootable USB drive to run your Linux installer.
I used this method to create an Ubuntu 8.04.1 live SD card. The process required just over 700 [...]