script | Linuxaria

Linux: Timeouting commands in shell scripts

Oct 122014

Article by Mikko Ohtamaa first posted on his blog

Often you want to automatize something using shell scripting. In a perfect world your script robot works for you without getting tired, without hick-ups, and you can just sit at the front of your desk and sip coffee.

Then we enter the real world: Your network is disconnected. DNS goes downs. Your HTTP hooks and downloads stall. Interprocess communication hangs. Effectively this means that even if your script is running correctly from the point of operating system it won’t finish its work before you finish your cup of coffee.

How to change an user password in Linux

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Aug 292014

If you manage a server with many different users or just your family computer you will probably have many different accounts to manage, and one important aspect of any account it’s its password.

In this small article I’ll show you how to use the basic passwd command but also how to do some small bash script or use a web application, if you have a more complex environment, such as a central ldap server that keep all your accounts information.
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How to sync your Fitbit under Linux

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Mar 162014

I’ve recently received a fitbit flex as gift, and I love it, this personal device tracks steps, distance, and calories burned. At night, it tracks your sleep quality and wakes you silently in the morning. Just check out the lights to see how you stack up against your personal goal. Flex allows you to set a goal and uses LED lights to show how you’re stacking up. Each light represents 20% of your goal. You choose which one — steps, calories, or distance. It lights up like a scoreboard, challenging you to be more active day after day.

Flex automatically syncs your data to PCs and Macs with Fitbit’s wireless sync dongle (included), many iOS devices and select Android phones without plugging in or pushing buttons. Now all this sound fantastic and really funny if you like to take your stats and see nice graphs, but there is a small (big) problem about fitbit, it doesn’t support officially Linux.

Sure, you can use a compatible smartphone, but in general I like to use the idea of using my Linux computers for anything and with some research and some tests I’ve been able to sync successfully my flex with my Linux Mint 16.
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How to clone the partition table on Linux with sfdisk

01/14/2014
How to clone the partition table on Linux with sfdisk
Posted by linuxari at 22:23
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Tagged with: clone, disco, disk, file, linux, partition, partitions, raid1, script, sfdisk

Sometimes you need to clone partitions on your hard drive for various reasons, hd damaged, creating a RAID 1 or something similar, then it is often tedious and impractical to perform the operation using the normal tools like fdisk, in this case you can use sfdisk. As reported in the manual: sfdisk is a non-interactive […]