linuxcommand-discuss

[Linuxcommand-discuss] What's up?

[Thomas B. <th...@ba...>]

Hey!

Am I the only one who has still subscribed to this letter??
What about discussions??

Pauli

[Linuxcommand-discuss] LinuxCommand.org - Monthly Admin Posting

[Bill S. <bs...@us...>]

This is the monthly administrative posting for the linuxcommand-discuss
mailing list.

The purpose of this list is to promote discussion between users of the
LinuxCommand.org web site.  Discussions should focus on use of the command
line interface in Linux and writing bash shell programs.

Only subscribers to the list can post messages.  If you have multiple
email addresses, you should subscribe each one if you wish to post from
them.

The mailing list is configured so that replies will be sent to the
original sender, not the list.  If you wish to reply to the list, you must
explicitly do so.

When posting messages, please include a descriptive subject line.  This
will help users of the mailing list archive identify relevant postings.

General information about the mailing list is at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/linuxcommand-discuss

If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to or
from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription
page at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/options/linuxcommand-discuss/you@addr

Where "you@addr" is your mailing address.

You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to:

Lin...@li...

with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the quotes),
and you will get back a message with instructions.


Thanks and happy postings!

[Linuxcommand-discuss] LinuxCommand.org - Monthly Admin Posting

[Bill S. <bs...@us...>]

This is the monthly administrative posting for the linuxcommand-discuss
mailing list.

The purpose of this list is to promote discussion between users of the
LinuxCommand.org web site.  Discussions should focus on use of the command
line interface in Linux and writing bash shell programs.

Only subscribers to the list can post messages.  If you have multiple
email addresses, you should subscribe each one if you wish to post from
them.

The mailing list is configured so that replies will be sent to the
original sender, not the list.  If you wish to reply to the list, you must
explicitly do so.

When posting messages, please include a descriptive subject line.  This
will help users of the mailing list archive identify relevant postings.

General information about the mailing list is at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/linuxcommand-discuss

If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to or
from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription
page at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/options/linuxcommand-discuss/you@addr

Where "you@addr" is your mailing address.

You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to:

Lin...@li...

with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the quotes),
and you will get back a message with instructions.


Thanks and happy postings!

[Linuxcommand-discuss] LinuxCommand.org - Monthly Admin Posting

[Bill S. <bs...@us...>]

This is the monthly administrative posting for the linuxcommand-discuss
mailing list.

The purpose of this list is to promote discussion between users of the
LinuxCommand.org web site.  Discussions should focus on use of the command
line interface in Linux and writing bash shell programs.

Only subscribers to the list can post messages.  If you have multiple
email addresses, you should subscribe each one if you wish to post from
them.

The mailing list is configured so that replies will be sent to the
original sender, not the list.  If you wish to reply to the list, you must
explicitly do so.

When posting messages, please include a descriptive subject line.  This
will help users of the mailing list archive identify relevant postings.

General information about the mailing list is at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/linuxcommand-discuss

If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to or
from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription
page at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/options/linuxcommand-discuss/you@addr

Where "you@addr" is your mailing address.

You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to:

Lin...@li...

with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the quotes),
and you will get back a message with instructions.


Thanks and happy postings!

[Linuxcommand-discuss] LinuxCommand.org - Monthly Admin Posting

[Bill S. <bs...@us...>]

This is the monthly administrative posting for the linuxcommand-discuss
mailing list.

The purpose of this list is to promote discussion between users of the
LinuxCommand.org web site.  Discussions should focus on use of the command
line interface in Linux and writing bash shell programs.

Only subscribers to the list can post messages.  If you have multiple
email addresses, you should subscribe each one if you wish to post from
them.

The mailing list is configured so that replies will be sent to the
original sender, not the list.  If you wish to reply to the list, you must
explicitly do so.

When posting messages, please include a descriptive subject line.  This
will help users of the mailing list archive identify relevant postings.

General information about the mailing list is at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/linuxcommand-discuss

If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to or
from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription
page at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/options/linuxcommand-discuss/you@addr

Where "you@addr" is your mailing address.

You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to:

Lin...@li...

with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the quotes),
and you will get back a message with instructions.


Thanks and happy postings!

[Linuxcommand-discuss] new_script 1.0.3 and other stuff

[William S. <bs...@tw...>]

For those of you on the announce list, you can see new_script 1.0.3
has been released.  This version incorporates changes suggested by
Tomi and Jura.  I plan to do Karl's, but that will take longer. 
Thanks guys! (hint: check out the README)

This weekend I hope to get a couple more lessons done.  Tonight I am
testing a new version of rh-errata that supports kernel architecture
(like i686) and noarch.  Just in time for those pesky RH kernel
updates.  Stay tuned.

Oh, yeah.  Today, LinuxCommand.org achieved its 1600th file download
and almost 10,500 page hits this month from 1150 sites.

-- 
|||||  William Shotts, Jr. (bs...@cl...)
|||||  http://www.clark.net/pub/bshotts/ (Updated 04/13/2000)
|||||  Be a Linux Commander!  Follow me to http://linuxcommand.org

Re: [Linuxcommand-discuss] Fw: pipes and stuff

[William S. <bs...@cl...>]

On Mon, 26 Jun 2000, Thomas Bauer wrote:

> Hi!
> 
> I'm new to the group, and I don't know what you discussed in the past, but
> I would love to have an explaination about those different kid of pipes
> and so on ( > < | >> 2| )
> Also please help me with thos ` ´ and so on ..
> thank you!
> 
> Pauli
> 

Glad to have you Pauli!

You have asked about an excellent topic.  Since I have been working on
tutorials for LinuxCommand.org, I guess it is my duty to answer first.
Here goes:

The topic you have chosen is called "I/O redirection".  I/O stands for
input/output.

On the Linux command line (like Unix), many commands are designed to
input and output streams of data.  For example, when you type "ls", the ls
program figures out the contents of the current working directory and
outputs it to the screen.  But actually it produces a stream of data and
sends it to a facility called "standard output".  Standard output (stdout)
will end up on the display by default unless you tell it something else.

I/O redirection allows us to take these streams of data and redirect them.

For example, using ls once again, we can say:

ls > file.txt

This will redirect the standard output of the ls program and store it in a
file called "file.txt".

Each time you run the above command, the contents of file.txt is
overwritten with the output from ls.  If, however, you wanted to append
the output to an existing copy of file.txt you would say:

ls >> file.txt

Besides standard output, many programs feature standard input which
can also be redirected.  For example, let's say that you have captured the
output of ls into the file file.txt, you could format that file with the
"pr" program like so:

pr < file.txt

This command will cause the pr program to execute and take its input from
file.txt rather than from the keyboard which is the default source of
standard input.

Knowing that programs can take take input from standard input and can
output to standard output, it is possible to connect programs together
using a technique called piping.  To simplfy the above example you could
say:

ls | pr

The "|" character is called the piping symbol.  This means take the output
of the first program and feed it into the input of the second.  One of my
favorite uses of this technique is with the "less" program.  Say you want
to look at a long directory listing (like /etc).  You could do this for
easy viewing:

ls -l /etc | less

|||||  William Shotts, Jr. (bs...@cl...)
|||||  http://www.clark.net/pub/bshotts/ (Updated 04/13/2000)
|||||  Be a Linux Commander!  Follow me to http://linuxcommand.org

[Linuxcommand-discuss] Fw: pipes and stuff

[Thomas B. <cap...@st...>]

----- Original Message -----=20
From: Thomas Bauer=20
To: lin...@li...=20
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2000 10:45 AM
Subject: pipes and stuff


Hi!

I'm new to the group, and I don't know what you discussed in the past, =
but I would love to have an explaination about those different kid of =
pipes and so on ( > < | >> 2| )
Also please help me with thos ` =B4 and so on ..
thank you!

Pauli

[Linuxcommand-discuss] Incantations

[Bill S. <bs...@us...>]

in·can·ta·tion
n. 

	1. Ritual recitation of verbal charms or spells to produce
	   a magic effect. 

	2. A formula used in ritual recitation; a verbal charm or spell. 


You often hear Unix experts referred to as "priests" or "gurus".  They
have magical power over the computer.  In films, we see them portrayed
sitting at the keyboard, typing a few words and the computer quickly bends
to their wills.  In films at least, they never use a mouse. A mouse is for
sissies.

The secret of the guru's power is simple.  They know what to type.  They
can compose and recite magic incantations that the computer will instantly
obey.  Here is an example:

	du -s /home/* | sort -nr | less

Which will present a summarized accounting of your user's disk space usage
in descending order.

One of the features I want to add to LinuxComamnd.org is a collection of
these incantations to demonstrate the power and flexibility of Linux.  How
many of you have (or can think of) powerful/useful one-line commands?

Please share them with the list.

[Linuxcommand-discuss] LinuxCommand.org - Monthly Admin Posting

[Bill S. <bs...@us...>]

This is the monthly administrative posting for the linuxcommand-discuss
mailing list.

The purpose of this list is to promote discussion between users of the
LinuxCommand.org web site.  Discussions should focus on use of the command
line interface in Linux and writing bash shell programs.

Only subscribers to the list can post messages.  If you have multiple
email addresses, you should subscribe each one if you wish to post from
them.

The mailing list is configured so that replies will be sent to the
original sender, not the list.  If you wish to reply to the list, you must
explicitly do so.

When posting messages, please include a descriptive subject line.  This
will help users of the mailing list archive identify relevant postings.

General information about the mailing listis at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/linuxcommand-discuss

If you ever want to unsubscribe or change your options (eg, switch to or
from digest mode, change your password, etc.), visit your subscription
page at:

http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/options/linuxcommand-discuss/you@addr

Where "you@addr" is your mailing address.

You can also make such adjustments via email by sending a message to:

Lin...@li...

with the word `help' in the subject or body (don't include the quotes),
and you will get back a message with instructions.


Thanks and happy postings!

Re: [Linuxcommand-discuss] more change

[root <ro...@te...>]

even better :)

ø(ju...@ge...)--------ooOo---oOoo-----------------------------ø
| Systems Administrator . technolust.cx           irc.spamnet.org 6667 |
| http://www.technolust.cx/~jura                http://www.spamnet.org |
|                                                                      |
| Geek Pit Labs http://www.geekpitlabs.com            AIM: geekpitlabs |
| Geek Admins dot org http://www.geekadmins.org                        |
°----------------------------------------------------------------------°

For-pay Internet distributed processing. 
http://www.ProcessTree.com/?sponsor=31381

On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, Tomi Ollila wrote:

> Sunday Jun 18 14:08:41 -0400 2000 root <ro...@te...> wrote:
> > 
> > blah... slow day at work today... sorry for all the spam :)
> > 
> > a fix for the security issue brought up with 'new_script' in regards to
> > the tmp file race conditions that exist...
> > 
> > if a temp file is needed...
> > 
> > function temp_dir
> > {
> > 	#####
> > 	#	create a secure temp file thus avoiding
> > 	#	race conditions that may exist on a multi-
> > 	#	user system
> > 	#####
> > 
> > 	TEMP=`ls | grep tteemmpp | awk {'print $1'}`
> > 		if [ "$TEMP" != "" ]; then
> > 			mkdir ~/tteemmpp/
> > 		fi
> > }
> > 
> > then, for the TEMP_FILE variable, set it as such:
> > ~/tteemmpp/$PROGNAME
> 
> How about:
> 
> TEMPDIR=~/tteemmpp/; [ ! -d $TEMPDIR ] && mkdir $TEMPDIR
> 
> ... and maybe utilizing $$ (the pid) in tmp file names.
> 
> > | Systems Administrator . technolust.cx           irc.spamnet.org 6667 |
> 
> 
> Tomi
> 

Re: [Linuxcommand-discuss] more change

[Tomi O. <Tom...@so...>]

Sunday Jun 18 14:08:41 -0400 2000 root <ro...@te...> wrote:
> 
> blah... slow day at work today... sorry for all the spam :)
> 
> a fix for the security issue brought up with 'new_script' in regards to
> the tmp file race conditions that exist...
> 
> if a temp file is needed...
> 
> function temp_dir
> {
> 	#####
> 	#	create a secure temp file thus avoiding
> 	#	race conditions that may exist on a multi-
> 	#	user system
> 	#####
> 
> 	TEMP=`ls | grep tteemmpp | awk {'print $1'}`
> 		if [ "$TEMP" != "" ]; then
> 			mkdir ~/tteemmpp/
> 		fi
> }
> 
> then, for the TEMP_FILE variable, set it as such:
> ~/tteemmpp/$PROGNAME

How about:

TEMPDIR=~/tteemmpp/; [ ! -d $TEMPDIR ] && mkdir $TEMPDIR

... and maybe utilizing $$ (the pid) in tmp file names.

> | Systems Administrator . technolust.cx           irc.spamnet.org 6667 |


Tomi

Re: [Linuxcommand-discuss] security_check

[Tomi O. <Tom...@so...>]

Sunday Jun 18 13:23:08 -0400 2000 root <ro...@te...> wrote:
> 
> Here's a small function that may want to be included into the the
> new_script program:
> 
> --CUT--
> 
> function security_check
> {
>         #####
>         #       check to make sure the person running this is root or
> 	#	equivalent
>         #####
> 
>         if [ `id -u` != 0 ]; then
>                 echo "ERROR: Only Superuser may use this program."
>                 exit 1
>         fi
> }

What I have used instead of this:

if [ x`id | sed 's/uid=\([0-9]*\).*/\1/'` != x0 ]
then
    echo "$0 needs root access."
    echo -n "Please enter your root account name (Default: root) "
    read account

    exec /bin/su ${account:-root} -c $0 $*
fi

The reason for using id like this that it is more portable across UNIX
platforms. 


> | Systems Administrator . technolust.cx           irc.spamnet.org 6667 |


Tomi

[Linuxcommand-discuss] more change

[root <ro...@te...>]

blah... slow day at work today... sorry for all the spam :)

a fix for the security issue brought up with 'new_script' in regards to
the tmp file race conditions that exist...

if a temp file is needed...

function temp_dir
{
	#####
	#	create a secure temp file thus avoiding
	#	race conditions that may exist on a multi-
	#	user system
	#####

	TEMP=`ls | grep tteemmpp | awk {'print $1'}`
		if [ "$TEMP" != "" ]; then
			mkdir ~/tteemmpp/
		fi
}

then, for the TEMP_FILE variable, set it as such:
~/tteemmpp/$PROGNAME

or somehting along the lines of that... tteemmpp can be anything, as long
as it's not in a world writiable directory such as /tmp

i'm sure you get the idea :)

ø(ju...@ge...)--------ooOo---oOoo-----------------------------ø
| Systems Administrator . technolust.cx           irc.spamnet.org 6667 |
| http://www.technolust.cx/~jura                http://www.spamnet.org |
|                                                                      |
| Geek Pit Labs http://www.geekpitlabs.com            AIM: geekpitlabs |
| Geek Admins dot org http://www.geekadmins.org                        |
°----------------------------------------------------------------------°

For-pay Internet distributed processing. 
http://www.ProcessTree.com/?sponsor=31381

[Linuxcommand-discuss] a few ideas...

[root <ro...@te...>]

welp.. to make the error exits and such cleaner, i added "-e "\n" to them:

function error_exit 
{
        #####
        #       Function for exit due to fatal program error
        #       Accepts 1 argument
        #               string containing descriptive error message
        #####


        echo -e "\n${PROGNAME}: ${1:-"Unknown Error"}" >&2
        exit 1
}


function term_exit
{
        #####
        #       Function to perform exit if termination signal is trapped
        #       No arguments
        #####

        echo -e "\n${PROGNAME}: Terminated"
        exit
}


function int_exit
{
        #####
        #       Function to perform exit if interrupt signal is trapped
        #       No arguments
        #####

        echo -e "\n${PROGNAME}: Aborted by user"
        exit
}

and... for the program guts... after the if..--help statement...

if [ "$1" = "" ]; then
        helptext
        graceful_exit
fi

... just because the * in the getopts while statement was giving me
problems...

just another $0.02 from me :)

ø(ju...@ge...)--------ooOo---oOoo-----------------------------ø
| Systems Administrator . technolust.cx           irc.spamnet.org 6667 |
| http://www.technolust.cx/~jura                http://www.spamnet.org |
|                                                                      |
| Geek Pit Labs http://www.geekpitlabs.com            AIM: geekpitlabs |
| Geek Admins dot org http://www.geekadmins.org                        |
°----------------------------------------------------------------------°

For-pay Internet distributed processing. 
http://www.ProcessTree.com/?sponsor=31381

[Linuxcommand-discuss] security_check

[root <ro...@te...>]

Here's a small function that may want to be included into the the
new_script program:

--CUT--

function security_check
{
        #####
        #       check to make sure the person running this is root or
	#	equivalent
        #####

        if [ `id -u` != 0 ]; then
                echo "ERROR: Only Superuser may use this program."
                exit 1
        fi
}

--CUT--

possibly add this in when the questioin is asked about security
information? Soo... just in case the 'installee' chmod's the program 755
or something and others have access to it, just a quick little way to add
some backup protection :)

ø(ju...@ge...)--------ooOo---oOoo-----------------------------ø
| Systems Administrator . technolust.cx           irc.spamnet.org 6667 |
| http://www.technolust.cx/~jura                http://www.spamnet.org |
|                                                                      |
| Geek Pit Labs http://www.geekpitlabs.com            AIM: geekpitlabs |
| Geek Admins dot org http://www.geekadmins.org                        |
°----------------------------------------------------------------------°

For-pay Internet distributed processing. 
http://www.ProcessTree.com/?sponsor=31381

[Linuxcommand-discuss] The SuperMan pages have been deployed

[William S. <bs...@tw...>]

The first version of the SuperMan pages has been deployed.  Please
give it a looking over and let me know what you think.

-- 
|||||  William Shotts, Jr. (bs...@cl...)
|||||  http://www.clark.net/pub/bshotts/ (Updated 04/13/2000)
|||||  Be a Linux Commander!  Follow me to http://linuxcommand.org

[Linuxcommand-discuss] Looking for something to do?

[William S. <bs...@tw...>]

I am getting ready to deploy the SuperMan pages portion of the site
(maybe this weekend) and I need somebody to write a lesson called
"How to read a man page".  Any takers?  Email me if you are willing
to write it.

-- 
|||||  William Shotts, Jr. (bs...@cl...)
|||||  http://www.clark.net/pub/bshotts/ (Updated 04/13/2000)
|||||  Be a Linux Commander!  Follow me to http://linuxcommand.org

[Linuxcommand-discuss] Let's get started

[William S. <bs...@tw...>]

In the interests of testing out the discussion list, I am posting
this message in hopes of starting a discussion.  Does anybody have
anything to discuss?

-- 
|||||  William Shotts, Jr. (bs...@cl...)
|||||  http://www.clark.net/pub/bshotts/ (Updated 04/13/2000)
|||||  Be a Linux Commander!  Follow me to http://linuxcommand.org