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Linux: Add fun to your terminal login screen with boxes, Draw ASCII Art Shapes with date and user info etc. on login

Friday, July 16th, 2021

boxes-ascii-art-generate-cpu-memory-and-disk-system-info-beauty
Some of you might remember my love for Linux ASCII art stuff and fact that I'm daily forced to work on many consoles, which makes life a bit boring at point and you want to have some diversity as this black and white or black and green screen becomes quite of annoyance at times, hence adding some ASCII art kindness really makes sense. In that relation some time ago I've have written the howto add colorful random ASCII art picture and a bible verse on each SSH server login, joyout sysadmins life with cowsay, fortune, caca-utils and others.
Just recently a colleague of mine Georgi Stoyanov to whom I've shown cowsay, while playing around with cowsay, researching on related cool ASCII art entertainment one could add to his boring daily sysadm life stumbled on another nice piece of 1337 h4x0r software called boxes, that is nowadays available amongs most mainstream RPM and Debian distributions out of the box in default package repositories (it is installable on Ubuntu / Debian / CentOS with apt or yum).

root@pcfreak:~# apt-cache show boxes|grep -i desc -A 5 -B5
Version: 1.3-1
Installed-Size: 253
Maintainer: Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14)
Description-en: textmode box- and comment drawing filter
Boxes is extremely configurable filter for adding and removing ASCII art
(comments, for example) around chunks of text. Most modern text editors
support filtering text through external filters. Boxes is such a filter.
Description-md5: 71d39f5c7193aab87deb83d15f0b2e82
Homepage: https://boxes.thomasjensen.com/
Tag: implemented-in::c++, interface::commandline, role::program,
scope::utility, works-with::mail
Section: text
Priority: optional

To start using the preset of nice boxes and shapes depending on the distro type:
On Deb based Linuz OS

debian:~# apt install –yes boxes
…

On RPM based Linuxes:

[root@centos ~ ]# yum install -y boxes

…

Once installed to give it a try, do list all the available basic boxen ASCII Art ( template ) shapes beauties – the art pictures is quite high, below is a short 50 line raw example cut:

root@pcfreak:~# boxes -l |tail -n 50

unicornthink
unknown artist, coded by Mike Meyer <boxes@meyer.fm>:

_________________________________
/ \
| E L E C T R O L Y T E S |
\______________________________ '\
() \\
O \\ .
o |\\/|
/ " '\
. . .
/ ) |
' _.' |
'-'/ \

vim-cmt
Bram Moolenaar, coded by Thomas Jensen <boxes(at)thomasjensen(dot)com>:

"
" comments used in the vim editor's config file (.vimrc)
"

whirly
unknown artist, coded by Thomas Jensen <boxes(at)thomasjensen(dot)com>:

.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.
( )
) (
( )
"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"+.+"

xes
Joan G. Stark <spunk1111@juno.com>, coded by Thomas Jensen <boxes(at)thomasjensen(dot)com>:

<\/><\/><\/>
<\/></\></\></\><\/>
</\> </\>
<\/> <\/>
</\> </\>
<\/> <\/>
</\> </\>
<\/> <\/>
</\> </\>
<\/> <\/>
</\><\/><\/><\/></\>
jgs </\></\></\>

If you want to check out the full list of ascii art templates provided by boxes check out a complete dump out of boxes -l shapes here.

Next lets play a bit to give you an idea on some use of boxes you can add to your login /etc/profile or ~/bashrc or even randomize it with some little bash script to print out some cool stuff on each and every Linux SSH or tty physical console login to prit login date your user name, logged in users or whatever you would like shaped in ascii art picture. For example you can great yourself on system login with whoami command printed in one of the offered boxes ASCII art picture templates, etc.

Below is few sample ideas for use:

# boxes -a c -d mouse <<< "today is $(date)"

# boxes -a c -d mouse <<< "Hello $USER,today is $(date)"

# boxes -a c -d mouse <<< "Hello $(whoami),today is $(date)"

# boxes -a c -d mouse <<< "Hello $(whoami),today is $(date)" | lolcat

mouse-login-greeting

# boxes -a c -d unicornthink <<< "Hello $(whoami),today is $(date)" | lolcat

# boxes -a c -d cat <<< "Hello $(whoami),today is $(date); $(echo "Apache processes"; ps -ef|grep -i apache)|grep -v grep" | lolcat

If you have a multiple systems to monitor, it is useful to quickly have an overview of each system and add some artistic qualities for example use some tiny shell script like system_info_on_login.sh and make it look aritistic:

# cat /bashscripts/system_info_on_login.sh
free -m | awk 'NR==2{printf "Memory Usage: %s/%sMB (%.2f%%)\n", $3,$2,$3*100/$2 }'
df -h | awk '$NF=="/"{printf "Disk Usage: %d/%dGB (%s)\n", $3,$2,$5}'
top -bn1 | grep load | awk '{printf "CPU Load: %.2f\n", $(NF-2)}'

Funny cool stuff ain't it is up to your imagination to add whatever beauty you like. If you want to make a little prank you can misteriously place boxes to auto launch on some of the DMZ secured servers and print any strange form to a colleague next time he logs in by adding boxes to launch in his ~/.bashrc with some weird message such as "your account has been pwn3d by a 1337 h4x0r" and watch for his reaction 🙂
Enjoy !

Tags: amd64, ascii art, boxes, info, Linux Add, login, mail, terminal, today, type

Tags: amd64, ascii art, boxes, info, Linux Add, login, mail, terminal, today, type
Posted in Educational, Entertainment, FreeBSD, Games Linux, Linux, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop | No Comments »

Why don’t you use Window Maker GNU Step to improve your computer interaction performance

Monday, October 30th, 2017

Why-dont-you-use-Window-Maker-graphical-environment-for-your-GNU_Linux-FreeBSD-desktop

If you're pissed off too already of GNOME 3 Unity / GNOME 3 Flashback and KDE Plasma as I am you perhaps are looking for something more light weigth but you're not okay with default Debian Cinnanom GUI environment or you don't feel confortable for system administration jobs and programming with XFCE then perhaps you would like to give a try to something more old school but build with good design in Mind.

Those who are fans of the evil genius Steve Jobs (as Richard Stallman use to call him), definitely Remember NeXT company and the revolutionary Graphic Environment they tried to develop NeXT Step then you'll be happy to hear about GNUStep which historically was called AfterStep and is a Free Software remake of NextStep graphical environment for Free and Open Source operating systems (FOSS) such as GNU / Linux and FreeBSD / OpenBSD / NetBSD etc.

Amanda the Panda is the mascot of Window Maker. She was designed by Agnieszka Czajkowska.

The good thing about Window Maker and the complete bunch of desktop environment GNUStep is it much lighter and less complex than the more and more becoming bloated modern Free Software graphical environments, it definitely easifies the way the user interacts with basic browsing with Firefox / Opera, terminal code writting or command system administration and basic chat functionalities such as with Gajim or Pidgin and basic email writting operatins be it with some text email client such as Mutt or with Thunderbird. Its great also to reduce the overall load the Operating System puts on your brain so you can have more time to invest in more useful stuff like programming.

windows-maker-increase-performance-of-work-with-your-computer-howto-wmaker-screenshot

After all simplicity in Operating System is a key for an increased productivity with your computer.
Besides that stability of Window Maker is much better when compared to GNOME and GNOME 2 fork MATE graphical environment which nowadays in my opinion is becoming even more buggy than it used to be some years ago.

Below is how Window Makers site describes Window Maker:

"Window Maker is an X11 window manager originally designed to provide integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment. In every way possible, it reproduces the elegant look and feel of the NEXTSTEP user interface. It is fast, feature rich, easy to configure, and easy to use. It is also free software, with contributions being made by programmers from around the world.

Window Maker has a stable user interface since many years and comes with a powerful GUI configuration editor called WPrefs, which removes the need to edit text-based config files by hand. It supports running dockapps which make everyday tasks such as monitoring system performance and battery usage, mounting devices or connecting to the internet very easy. Please see the features section for more specifics on what Window Maker can do, and how it compares with other popular window managers."

Window Maker is bundled with a number of useful applications which gives ability to put Dock applets easily for easily intearcive desktop update of current Weather Report, Monitoring Network Traffic, TV Player (video4linux), laptop battery info dock, CD player and Volume control management app, text editor, pdf viewer, integrated Mail application, Calculator, RSS Reader, GNUStep games and much useful things to customize from the desktop resembling many of the basic features any other graphical environment such as GNOME / KDE Provides.

The User Interface (UI) of Window Maker is highly configurable with an integrated WMaker tool called

WPrefs

All generated settings from WPrefs (Window Maker Prefernces) GUI tool are to be stored in a plaintext file:

~/GNUstep/Defaults/WMRootMenu

All Wmaker configurations are stored inside ~/GNUstep/ (Your user home GNUStep), so if you're to become its user sooner or later you will have to get acquired to it.

Wmaker is very minimalist and the performance is killing so Window Maker is perhaps the number one choice Graphical Environment to use on Old Computers with Linux and BSD.

Below is a full list of all packages installed on my Debian GNU / Linux that provides WMaker / GNUStep great functionalities:

root@jericho:/home/hipo# dpkg -l |grep -i wmaker; dpkg -l |grep -i gnustep
ii wmaker                                        0.95.8-2                             amd64        NeXTSTEP-like window manager for X
ii wmaker-common                                 0.95.8-2                             all          Window Maker – Architecture independent files
ii wmbattery                                     2.50-1+b1                            amd64        display laptop battery info, dockable in WindowMaker
ii wmcdplay                                      1.1-2+b1                             amd64        CD player based on ascd designed for WindowMaker
ii wmifs                                         1.8-1                                amd64        WindowMaker dock app for monitoring network traffic
ii wmnut                                         0.66-1                               amd64        WindowMaker dock app that displays UPS statistics from NUT's upsd
ii wmpuzzle                                      0.5.2-2+b1                           amd64        WindowMaker dock app 4×4 puzzle
ii wmrack                                        1.4-5+b1                             amd64        Combined CD Player + Mixer designed for WindowMaker
ii wmtv                                          0.6.6-1                              amd64        Dockable video4linux TV player for WindowMaker
ii wmweather                                     2.4.6-2+b1                           amd64        WindowMaker dockapp that shows your current weather
ii wmweather+                                    2.15-1.1+b2                          amd64        WindowMaker dock app that shows your current weather
ii addressmanager.app                            0.4.8-2+b2                           amd64        Personal Address Manager for GNUstep
ii agenda.app                                    0.42.2-1+b7                          amd64        Calendar manager for GNUstep
ii charmap.app                                   0.3~rc1-3                            amd64        Character map for GNUstep
ii charmap.app-common                            0.3~rc1-3                            all          Character map for GNUstep (arch-independent files)
ii cynthiune.app                                 1.0.0-1+b4                           amd64        Music player for GNUstep
ii dictionaryreader.app                          0+20080616+dfsg-2+b6                 amd64        Dict client for GNUstep
ii edenmath.app                                  1.1.1a-7.1+b1                        amd64        Scientific calculator for GNUstep
ii gnumail.app                                   1.2.2-1.1                            amd64        Mail client for GNUstep
ii gnumail.app-common                            1.2.2-1.1                            all          Mail client for GNUstep (common files)
ii gnustep                                       7.8                                  all          User applications for the GNUstep Environment
ii gnustep-back-common                           0.25.0-2                             amd64        GNUstep GUI Backend – common files
ii gnustep-back0.25                              0.25.0-2                             all          GNUstep GUI Backend
ii gnustep-back0.25-cairo                        0.25.0-2                             amd64        GNUstep GUI Backend (cairo)
ii gnustep-base-common                           1.24.9-3.1                           all          GNUstep Base library – common files
ii gnustep-base-doc                              1.24.9-3.1                           all          Documentation for the GNUstep Base Library
ii gnustep-base-runtime                          1.24.9-3.1                           amd64        GNUstep Base library – daemons and tools
ii gnustep-common                                2.7.0-1                              amd64        Common files for the core GNUstep environment
ii gnustep-core-devel                            7.8                                  all          GNUstep Development Environment — core libraries
ii gnustep-core-doc                              7.8                                  all          GNUstep Development Environment — core documentation
ii gnustep-devel                                 7.8                                  all          GNUstep Development Environment — development tools
ii gnustep-games                                 7.8                                  all          GNUstep games
ii gnustep-gui-common                            0.25.0-4                             all          GNUstep GUI Library – common files
ii gnustep-gui-doc                               0.25.0-4                             all          Documentation for the GNUstep GUI Library
ii gnustep-gui-runtime                           0.25.0-4+b1                          amd64        GNUstep GUI Library – runtime files
ii gnustep-icons                                 1.0-5                                all          Several free icons for use with GNUstep and others
ii gnustep-make                                  2.7.0-1                              all          GNUstep build system
ii gnustep-make-doc                              2.7.0-1                              all          Documentation for GNUstep Make
ii gomoku.app                                    1.2.9-2+b2                           amd64        Extended TicTacToe game for GNUstep
ii gorm.app                                      1.2.23-1                             amd64        Visual Interface Builder for GNUstep
ii gridlock.app                                  1.10-4+b2                            amd64        Collection of grid-based board games for GNUstep
ii grr.app                                       1.0-1+b2                             amd64        RSS reader for GNUstep
ii gworkspace-common                             0.9.3-1                              all          GNUstep Workspace Manager – common files
ii gworkspace.app                                0.9.3-1+b2                           amd64        GNUstep Workspace Manager
ii helpviewer.app                                0.3-8+b3                             amd64        Online help viewer for GNUstep programs
ii libaddresses0                                 0.4.8-2+b2                           amd64        Database API backend framework for GNUstep (library files)
ii libaddressview0                               0.4.8-2+b2                           amd64        Address display/edit framework for GNUstep (library files)
ii libgnustep-base-dev                           1.24.9-3.1                           amd64        GNUstep Base header files and development libraries
ii libgnustep-base1.24                           1.24.9-3.1                           amd64        GNUstep Base library
ii libgnustep-gui-dev                            0.25.0-4+b1                          amd64        GNUstep GUI header files and static libraries
ii libgnustep-gui0.25                            0.25.0-4+b1                          amd64        GNUstep GUI Library
ii libpantomime1.2                               1.2.2+dfsg1-1                        amd64        GNUstep framework for mail handling (runtime library)
ii libpopplerkit0                                0.0.20051227svn-7.1+b9               amd64        GNUstep framework for rendering PDF content (library files)
ii libpreferencepanes1                           1.2.0-2+b2                           amd64        GNUstep preferences library – runtime library
ii librenaissance0                               0.9.0-4+b6                           amd64        GNUstep GUI Framework – library files
ii librenaissance0-dev                           0.9.0-4+b6                           amd64        GNUstep GUI Framework – development files
ii librsskit0d                                   0.4-1                                amd64        GNUstep RSS framework (runtime library)
ii mknfonts.tool                                 0.5-11+b5                            amd64        Create nfont packages for GNUstep
ii price.app                                     1.3.0-1                              amd64        Image filtering and manipulation using GNUstep
ii projectcenter.app                             0.6.2-1                              amd64        IDE for GNUstep Development
ii renaissance-doc                               0.9.0-4                              all          GNUstep GUI Framework – documentation
ii systempreferences.app                         1.2.0-2+b2                           amd64        GNUstep preferences application
ii terminal.app                                  0.9.8.1-1                            amd64        Terminal Emulator for GNUstep
ii textedit.app                                  4.0+20061029-3.5+b1                  amd64        Text editor for GNUstep
ii viewpdf.app                                   1:0.2dfsg1-5+b2                      amd64        Portable Document Format (PDF) viewer for GNUstep
ii zipper.app                                    1.5-1+b2                             amd64        Archive manager for GNUstep

Well yes it is true Window Maker is not a spoon for every mouth, those who want to have more confortable desktop environment better look out at other options as Window Maker is Unix / Linux graphical environment that fits better hackers, computer developers and system administrators.

Anyhow if you have some old family member that has to use an old computer architecture and the person is only to use mainly just browser to check email, youtube and basic surfing then Wmaker will be a great choice as it will consume little CPU and Memory much less than the heavy and computer resources sucking GNOME and KDE.

I've historically used Wmaker also with its teminal emulator rxvt (VT102 terminal emulator for the X Windows System) which is a kinda of improved version of xterm (the default terminal program bundled with Xorg server), but for those who are already used to Gnome Terminal nice tabs perhaps that would be not the terminal of choice.

rxvt was build to match well the look and feel of AfterStep and consequently Wmaker, its scrollbar was aiming to very much resemble NeXTStep style scrollbar

windowmaker-bind-run-application-to-make-alt-f2-work-like-in-gnome

Most "custom" shortcuts are used to launch specific applications. To add your own keyboard shortcut for an application, go to the "Applications Menu Definition" panel in the Preferences app. Select the application item in the menu for which you want to create a shortcut, then use the "capture" button to capture the keystrokes you want to assign to that item. In the screenshot, I've assigned Mod1 + W to open Firefox.

Above screenshot shows how to map the Run Application keyboard bind to behave like GNOME Run application ALT + F2

window-maker-run-command-like-gnome-run-screenshot-gnu-linux-unix-freebsd

Customizing background of Window Maker

Because WMaker is so simple made and targetting more of a developer audience for use it doesn't have a special graphical interaface to set a Background if you like so, but instead you need to use a wmsetbg command to do so:

wmsetbg -s -u filename.jpg

WMSetBG command stands for WindowMaker Set Background

If you're too lazy to install and start configuring wmaker, there is a Window Maker LiveCD, you can run Window Maker through LiveCD in Virtual Machine such as VirtualBox to get feeling what you're about to get if you install and start using Wmaker on your Computer.

Well at first with Window Maker you might feel confused and quickly irritating missing the already established way to work with your computer, but that's just for a starter sooner you will realize, that for using a limited number of applications for work wmaker, makes you much more efficient. Moreover using your computer with Wmaker can rewire your brain circuits to think a little bit different.

Once you switched to Window Maker you will likely want to have a graphical option to connect to Wireless Networks especially if you're using Wmaker on a notebook it is convenient to not always manually do scan for networks with

Iwlscan

commad and use wpasupplicant command to connect instead you can just install wicd and stop default Gnome Network Manager (called Network Manager), you can do so by running as root:

service network-manager stop
apt-get install wicd wicd-gtk
service wicd start
wicd-gtk &

Tags: basic, battery, email, free software, graphical environment, home, info, interaction, laptop, libraries, Personal Address Manager, root, terminal emulator, Weather Report, Window Makers

Tags: basic, battery, email, free software, graphical environment, home, info, interaction, laptop, libraries, Personal Address Manager, root, terminal emulator, Weather Report, Window Makers
Posted in Curious Facts, Free Software Graphical Environments | 1 Comment »

How to check Linux OS install date / How long ago was Linux installed

Sunday, October 22nd, 2017

If you're sysadmin who inherited a few hundreds of Linux machines from a previous admin and you're in process of investigating how things were configured by the previous administrator one of the crucial things to find out might be

How Long ago was Linux installed?

Here is how to check the Linux OS install date.

The universal way nomatter the Linux distribution is to use fullowing command:

root@pcfreak:~# tune2fs -l /dev/sda1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'
Filesystem created: Thu Sep 6 21:44:22 2012

Above command assumes the Linux's root partition / is installed on /dev/sda1 however if your case is different, e.g. the primary root partition is installed on /dev/sda2 or /dev/sdb1 / dev/sdb2 etc. just place the right first partition into the command.

If primary install root partition is /dev/sdb1 for example:

root@pcfreak:~# tune2fs -l /dev/sdb1 | grep 'Filesystem created:'

To find out what is the root partition of the Linux server installed use fdisk command:

root@pcfreak:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 465,8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00051eda

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1 *         2048 965193727 965191680 460,2G 83 Linux
/dev/sda2       965195774 976771071 11575298   5,5G 5 Extended
/dev/sda5       965195776 976771071 11575296   5,5G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 111,8 GiB, 120034123776 bytes, 234441648 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Other ways to check the Linux OS install date on Debian / Ubuntu / Mint etc. deb. based GNU / Linux

Deban based Linux distributions do create an initial /var/log/installer directory containing various install information such as hardware-summary, partition, initial installed deb packages, exact version of Linux distribution, and the way it was installed either it was installed from an ISO image, or it was network install etc.

root@pcfreak:~# ls -al /var/log/installer/
total 1228
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root   4096 sep 6 2012 ./
drwxr-xr-x 72 root root 12288 окт 22 06:26 ../
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root   4096 sep 6 2012 cdebconf/
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 17691 sep 6 2012 hardware-summary
-rw-r–r– 1 root root    163 sep 6 2012 lsb-release
-rw——- 1 root root 779983 sep 6 2012 partman
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 51640 sep 6 2012 status
-rw——- 1 root root 363674 sep 6 2012 syslog

If those directory is missing was wiped out by the previous administrator, to clear up traces of his previous work before he left job another possible way to find out exact install date is to check timestamp of /lost+found directory;

root@pcfreak:~# ls -ld /lost+found/
drwx—— 2 root root 16384 sep 6 2012 /lost+found//

Check OS Linux install date on (Fedora, CentOS, Scientific Linux, Oracle and other Redhat RPM based Distros)

[root@centos: ~]# rpm -qi basesystem
Name        : basesystem
Version     : 10.0
Release     : 7.el7
Architecture: noarch
Install Date: Mon 02 May 2016 19:20:58 BST
Group       : System Environment/Base
Size        : 0
License     : Public Domain
Signature   : RSA/SHA256, Tue 01 Apr 2014 14:23:16 BST, Key ID     199e2f91fd431d51
Source RPM : basesystem-10.0-7.el7.src.rpm
Build Date : Fri 27 Dec 2013 17:22:15 GMT
Build Host : ppc-015.build.eng.bos.redhat.com
Relocations : (not relocatable)
Packager    : Red Hat, Inc. <http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla>
Vendor      : Red Hat, Inc.
Summary     : The skeleton package which defines a simple Red Hat Enterprise Linux system
Description :
Basesystem defines the components of a basic Red Hat Enterprise Linux
system (for example, the package installation order to use during
bootstrapping). Basesystem should be in every installation of a system,
and it should never be removed.

Tags: administrator, check, Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type, filesystem, hardware, How to, how to check linux install date, howto, info, initial, Install, Linux, partition, pcfreak, root root, sector size, use

How to check Java JAR JDBC / ODBC version on Linux / Unix and Windows server

Tuesday, March 31st, 2015

how-to-check-java-jar-odbc-jdbc-version-linux-unix-windows-server
If you're forced to update some Java based Web application using Java + Tomcat / WebSphere / Weblogic it is a common thing that the Java App developer handed to you will ask you which version is the Oracle JDBC / ODBC driver on current Java Virtual Machine version installed.

Actually there are few methods to check Java JDBC / ODBC version:

1. Check Java ODBC version greeping it in WEB-INF/MANIFEST.MF

Usually the .jar file comes archived in a .ZIP – i.e. application-name5 .zip

server:~# unzip application-name5.zip

Then if the .zip file contains the OJDBC as a .JAR extension – (Java Archive), inflate it with jar tool.

server:~# jar -xvf ojdbc7.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
inflated: META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

server:~# grep Implementation META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
Implementation-Vendor: Oracle Corporation
Implementation-Title: JDBC
Implementation-Version: 12.1.0.1.0

Alternative way to check the info (if you don't have java or jar installed on the Linux / Unix machine) is simply with unzip + grep like so:

server:~# unzip -p ojdbc14.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF | grep -C 1 version

Manifest-Version: 1.0
Implementation-Version: "Oracle JDBC Driver version – 10.1.0.5.0"
Specification-Title: "Oracle JDBC driver classes for use with JDK1.4"
Specification-Version: "Oracle JDBC Driver version – 10.1.0.5.0"
Implementation-Title: "ojdbc14.jar"

If you're on a Windows (and you have Windows server grep.exe installed), use instead:

C:\jar> unzip -p ojdbc14.jar META-INF/MANIFEST.MF | grep -C version

2. Getting some info with Java JRE tool

You can check some useful Java version info also just with Java Runtime Environment (java) tool

server:~# java -jar ojdbc5.jar

Oracle 11.1.0.7.0-Production JDBC 3.0 compiled with JDK5

Tags: check, grep, How to, info, MF, server, tool, unzip, use, version, Windows

Tags: check, grep, How to, info, MF, server, tool, unzip, use, version, Windows
Posted in Everyday Life, Java, Linux, Windows | No Comments »

How to View Mail (Full Headers) in Outlook 97 / 98 / 2003 / 2007 / 2010 and Outlook 2013 Mail client on Windows and Mac OS

Tuesday, December 16th, 2014

View-Full-Mail-headers-in-Outlook-97-98-2003-2007-2010-2013-on-Windows-Mac-OSX

Being able to see the headers is very important if you have to administer Microsoft Exchange mail server / Windows Active directory in case whether mails have some issues not being received within a Corporate Outlook MS Clients because of being mistakenly flagged as spam, or just to track the route of the mail. By default Outlook displays only few fields of the headers: From, Sent (date and time), To, and CCs. This gives too little info and is often irritating, as you can't really see important info such as:

Mail Carriers (Mail SMTPs) through which Mail has been passed
Mail MIME Header / Type (specifics)
Any extra written by mail server Anvirus
Anti-Malware check headers etc
Pyzor / Razor / Blacklisting check pass / fail headers etc.

1. How to view Mail headers in Outlook 2010 / 2013

In Outlook 2010 / 2013 when you use the default settings, you need to OPEN the message (Double Click on some random Mail) and either go to the Tags section of the ribbon or go to File, Properties.

message-property-tag-microsoft-outlook-2010-2013-screenshot

Click on the Expand button (highlighted in yellow) in the lower right corner to show the Message options dialog. Voila You will have the Properties dialog with the (Mail) Internet headers in the bottom (see screenshot)

One thing to mention is when you have a Mail Message Headers visible through the Properties dialog in Outlook, it is very unpleasent there is no way to search inside Visualized Mail headers ..

2. How to access Outlook Full Mail Headers using a shortcut

For those who had to regularly check Mail headers, it is very useful to make Outlook View Headers accessible through a key shortcut.

Here is how:

a) Go to File > Options > Quick Access Toolbar.
b) In Choose Commands From, select Commands Not in the Ribbon

c) Click in the list of commands and press M on the keyboard

d) Scroll to find Message Options

e) Click Add > (button) to add it to the QAT.

Outlook-Options-Quick_Access_Toolbar_screenshot-ms-windows-add-QAT-shortcut-to-message-options

To Quickly Access New added "Message Options" / View headers QAT, the shortcut to use is something like ALT + 3, or ALT + number (depending on the number of QATs already existing in the mailbox, the position of the Message Options on the QAT bar determines the exact nr. to be used.)

On older versions of Microsoft Outlook Mail Clients 97 / 98 / 2003 / 2007 to View Mail Headers

Right-click on Mail message in the folder view, then choose Options.

In an Opened Mail Message, choose View -> Options.

3. Viewing Mail Headers on MS Outlook running on Mac OS

If you happen to need use MS Outlook on Mac OS X (hope you'll not 🙂 ) to View Complete Mail Headers

Select the message whose headers you want to view.
Right-click (or Control-click) on the message and choose View Source.
Message headers appear at the top of the text document that opens.

Tags: Alt, default settings, How to, info, key shortcut, keyboard, Message Options View, Microsoft Outlook, need, outlook, outlook express view headers, outlook headers shortcut, Pyzor Razor Blacklisting, QAT, use, view full headers outlook, view headers, View Mail Headers, Windows Active

How to determine WordPress blogs with most spam on multiple blog hosting server

Thursday, November 27th, 2014

determine_find_blogs_with_most_spam-on-multiple-wordpress-blogs-hosting-server-stop-and-clea-large-amounts-ofrcomment-spam
If you're a hosting company that is hosts Joomla / WordPress / ModX websites (each) on separate servers and thus you end up with servers hosting multiple WordPress customer Blogs only, lets say (100+ WP blogs per host) soon your MySQL blogs databases will be full (overfilled) with spam comments. Blogs with multitude of spam comments reduces the WordPress site attractiveness, takes useless disk space, makes wp databases hard to backup and slowing drastically the SQL server.

As our duty as system administrators is to keep the servers optimized (improve performance) and prevent spam-bots to hammer your Linux servers, its is always a good idea to keep an eye on which hosted blogs attract more spammers and cause server overheads and bad hardware optimization.

WordPress blogs keeps logged comments under database_name.wp_comments (table) thus the quickest way to find out blogs with largest comments tables is to use Linux's find command and print out only comments tables larger than set size.

Here is how:

find /var/lib/mysql/ -type f -size +1024k -name "*_comments.MYD" -exec ls -lh {} ; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }'

/var/lib/mysql/funny-blog/wp_comments.MYD: 15,7M
/var/lib/mysql/wordblogger/wp_comments.MYD: 5,3M
/var/lib/mysql/loveblog/wp_comments.MYD: 50,5M
…

A comments database of 1MB means about at least 500+ comments, thus the blog loveblog's wp_comments.MYD = 50,5 Mbs contains probably about 10000! comments and should be definitely checked in a browser, if its overfilled with spam because of bad anti-spam policy or missing currently best wordpress spam catcher plugin Akismet. In cases of lack of client to protect his spam you can write quickly a script to auto mail him and ask him kindly to check / fix his blog spam.
In some cases it is useful to write a few liners bash script to automatically disable users with extraordinary blog spam comments databases (quickest way to do it is to move users blog data under quarantine directory and adding a Blog Suspended static html webpage with text like "Please contact support for more info".

1024k find arguments is 1MB, on a big hosted blogs this might be low and you might want to use (100Mb) = 102400kbytes.
You should note that *_comments.MYD in above find cmd is because though standardly wordpress sets wp_ as a prefix to its created skele table structures it is not always the case.

In above command example find looks for spam comments in /var/lib/mysql (because this is a Debian Linux server), however on other MySQL custom installs, it might be in another dir i.e. /usr/local/mysql/data etc.

It is useful to set the wp_comments statistics output to execute at least once a day as a cronjob:

crontab -u root -e 00 24 * * * /usr/sbin/check_spammed_blogs.sh

vim /usr/check_soammed_blogs.sh

Set a script like:

#!/bin/sh
find /var/lib/mysql/ -type f -size +1024k -name "*_comments.MYD" -exec ls -lh {} ; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }' | tee -a /var/log/blogs_with_most_spam_comments.log

Though above commands is to run on GNU / Linux, for Windows servers based hosting you can install GNUWin tools and adapt above cmd using windows standard commands or PowerShell to do the same.
Finally you can might want to use some other SQL script to clear blogs with enormously large tables from spam or clear all unapproved spam comments

Tags: bash script, blogs, hosting server, How to, info, lib, multiple, MYD, servers, spam, var

Tags: bash script, blogs, hosting server, How to, info, lib, multiple, MYD, servers, spam, var
Posted in Computer Security, Everyday Life, Various, Web and CMS, Wordpress | 1 Comment »

Check how webpage looks with Internet Explorer on Linux and FreeBSD with Mozilla Firefox (Netrenderer Firefox plugin)

Thursday, November 1st, 2012

Simulate Internet Explorer in screenshots on GNU / Linux and FreeBSD using Netrenderer in Firefox - Internet Explorer testing tool for web developers on Linux and FreeBSD

I'm not full time web developer. But sometimes, I develop websites too or just had to do some website testing.
I'm using GNU / Linux and BSD as main server and desktop platforms for many years already and hence I don't have regular access to Windows OS and respectively Internet Explorer. In that manner of thoughts it is very useful to have a way to check if a certain website I create displays fine on Internet Explorer 6,7,8 too.

Usually whether I need to test if website displays properly its elements in Internet Explorer I do use the infamous http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/index.php – I guess it is almost impossible anyone is developing websites on Linux and don't know it :). Fortunately while I was googling to remind myself about the exact link location to netrenderer, I've stumbled upon Mozilla Firefox add-on extension which does precisely what ipinfo.info/netrenderer/ website does – i.e. renders a website with HTML Web Engine compatible to most Internet Explorer versions and creating screenshots on how a website would look under Internet Explorer. Of course the plugin is not a panace and since it only makes screenshots whether there are problems with interactivity (Javascript AJAX) of a website on IE will the plugin will be of zero use. However in general it is good to know if at least the website elements are ordered fine.
After the plugin is added in the usual way as any other plugin in FF, you can start using it with keyboard shortcuts:

Ctrl+Shift+F5/F6/F7/F8 – respectively renders the page in IE5.5, IE 6, IE 7 / IE 8 Beta 2

Pressing CTRL + Shift + FX, makes the IE screenshot of site using http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/

I'm currently running latest Firefox version 16.0.2 and here plugin works, fine I guess on most FF releases not older than few years it should work fine too.

Below is description of the plugin, as taken from plugin website:

IE NetRendered Add-on Description

Adds buttons, tools menu and contextual menu entries to get a screenshot of the current page with IE NetRenderer.

Keyboard shortcuts are also available: Ctrl+Shift+F5/F6/F7/F8 to render the page in IE5.5/6/7/8 Beta 2 (Cmd+Shift+F* on Mac).

Really useful for webmasters which are not using Windows!

You can also access the IE NetRenderer service here: http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/index.php

Please note that the extension developper is not affiliated with GEOTEK, providing the IE NetRenderer service. You can visit his website here: http://nicopensource.free.fr/

Tags: ff, fine, GEOTEK, IE, info, internet explorer, keyboard, mozilla firefox, plugin, testing, webpage, website

Tags: ff, fine, GEOTEK, IE, info, internet explorer, keyboard, mozilla firefox, plugin, testing, webpage, website
Posted in Everyday Life, Linux and FreeBSD Desktop, System Administration, Web and CMS | No Comments »

How to count lines of PHP source code in a directory (recursively)

Saturday, July 14th, 2012

Count PHP and other programming languages lines of source code (source code files count) recursively

Being able to count the number of PHP source code lines for a website is a major statistical information for timely auditting of projects and evaluating real Project Managment costs. It is inevitable process for any software project evaluation to count the number of source lines programmers has written.
In many small and middle sized software and website development companies, it is the system administrator task to provide information or script quickly something to give info on the exact total number of source lines for projects.

Even for personal use out of curiousity it is useful to know how many lines of PHP source code a wordpress or Joomla website (with the plugins) contains.
Anyone willing to count the number of PHP source code lines under one directory level, could do it with:::

serbver:~# cd /var/www/wordpress-website server:/var/www/wordpress-website:# wc -l *.php 17 index.php 101 wp-activate.php 1612 wp-app.php 12 wp-atom.php 19 wp-blog-header.php 105 wp-comments-post.php 12 wp-commentsrss2.php 90 wp-config-sample.php 85 wp-config.php 104 wp-cron.php 12 wp-feed.php 58 wp-links-opml.php 59 wp-load.php 694 wp-login.php 236 wp-mail.php 17 wp-pass.php 12 wp-rdf.php 15 wp-register.php 12 wp-rss.php 12 wp-rss2.php 326 wp-settings.php 451 wp-signup.php 110 wp-trackback.php 109 xmlrpc.php 4280 total

This will count and show statistics, for each and every PHP source file within wordpress-website (non-recursively), to get only information about the total number of PHP source code lines within the directory, one could grep it, e.g.:::

server:/var/www/wordpress-website:# wc -l *.php |grep -i '\stotal$' 4280 total

The command grep -i '\stotal$' has \s in beginning and $ at the end of total keyword in order to omit erroneously matching PHP source code file names which contain total in file name; for example total.php …. total_blabla.php …. blabla_total_bla.php etc. etc.

The \s grep regular expression meaning is "put empty space", "$" is placed at the end of tital to indicate to regexp grep only for words ending in string total.

So far, so good … Now it is most common that instead of counting the PHP source code lines for a first directory level to count complete number of PHP, C, Python whatever source code lines recursively – i. e. (a source code of website or projects kept in multiple sub-directories). To count recursively lines of programming code for any existing filesystem directory use find in conjunction with xargs:::

server:/var/www/wp-website1# find . -name '*.php' | xargs wc -l 1079 ./wp-admin/includes/file.php 2105 ./wp-admin/includes/media.php 103 ./wp-admin/includes/list-table.php 1054 ./wp-admin/includes/class-wp-posts-list-table.php 105 ./wp-admin/index.php 109 ./wp-admin/network/user-new.php 100 ./wp-admin/link-manager.php 410 ./wp-admin/widgets.php 108 ./wp-content/plugins/akismet/widget.php 104 ./wp-content/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/wp-gdata/wp-gdata.php 104 ./wp-content/plugins/cyr2lat-slugs/cyr2lat-slugs.php ,,,, 652239 total

As you see the cmd counts and displays the number of source code lines encountered in each and every file, for big directory structures the screen gets floated and passing | less is nice, e.g.:

find . -name '*.php' | xargs wc -l | less

Displaying lines of code for each file within the directories is sometimes unnecessery, whether just a total number of programming source code line is required, hence for scripting purposes it is useful to only get the source lines total num:::

server:/var/www/wp-website1# find . -name '*.php' | xargs wc -l | grep -i '\stotal$'

Another shorter and less CPU intensive one-liner to calculate the lines of codes is:::

server:/var/www/wp-website1# ( find ./ -name '*.php' -print0 | xargs -0 cat ) | wc -l

Here is one other shell script which displays all file names within a directory with the respective calculated lines of code

For more professional and bigger projects using pure Linux bash and command line scripting might not be the best approach. For counting huge number of programming source code and displaying various statistics concerning it, there are two other tools – SLOCCount
as well as clock (count lines of code)

Both tools, are written in Perl, so for IT managers concerned for speed of calculating projects source (if too frequent source audit is necessery) this tools might be a bit sluggish. However for most projects they should be of a great add on value, actually SLOCCount was already used for calculating the development costs of GNU / Linux and other projects of high importance for Free Software community and therefore it is proven it works well with ENORMOUS software source line code calculations written in programming languages of heterogenous origin.

sloccount and cloc packages are available in default Debian and Ubuntu Linux repositories, so if you're a Debilian user like me you're in luck:::

server:~# apt-cache search cloc$ cloc - statistics utility to count lines of code server:~# apt-cache search sloccount$ sloccount - programs for counting physical source lines of code (SLOC)

Well that's all folks, Cheers en happy counting 😉

Tags: Auto, blabla, code, cron, curiousity, cyr, directory level, Draft, expression, file, file names, header php, index, info, information, level, mail php, middle, number, opml, personal use, php, programmers, project, project evaluation, project managment, quot, rdf, script, show, SLOCCount, software, software project, something, source code, source file, source lines, statistical information, system administrator, totalThe, website server, Wordpress, wp

How to clean QMAIL mail server filled Queue with spam mail messages

Friday, June 8th, 2012

Sys Admins managing QMAIL mail servers know, often it happens QMAIL queue gets filled with unwanted unsolicated SPAM e-mails due to a buggy WEB PHP / Perl mail sendingform or some other odd reason, like too many bouncing messages ,,,,

For one more time I’ve experienced the huge SPAM destined mails queue on one QMAIL running on Debian GNU / Linux.

= … Hence I needed to clean up the qmail queue. For this there is a little tool written in PERL called qmhandle

A+) Download qmhandle;

Qmhandle’s official download site is in SourceForge

I’ve made also a mirror copy of QMHandle here

qmail-server:~# cd /usr/local/src qmail-server:/usr/local/src# wget -q https://www.pc-freak.net/files/qmhandle-1.3.2.tar.gz

B=) STOP QMAIL
As it is written in the program documentation one has to be very careful when cleaning the mail queue. Be sure to stop qmail with qmailctl or whatever script is used to shutdown any mail sever in progress operations, otherwise there is big chance the queue to mess up badly .

C#) Check extended info about the mail queue:

qmail-server:/usr/local/src/qmhandle-1.3.2# ./qmhandle -l -c 102 (10, 10/102) Return-path: anonymous@qmail-hostname.com From: QMAIL-HOSTNAME To: as1riscl1.spun@gmail.com Subject: =?UTF8?B?QWNjb3VudCBpbmZvcm1hdGlvbiBmb3IgU09DQ0VSRkFNRQ==?= Date: 1 Sep 2011 21:02:16 -0000 Size: 581 bytes ,,,, 1136 (9, 9/1136) Return-path: werwer@qmail-hostname.com.tw From: martin.georgiev@qmail-hostname.com To: costador4312@ukr.net Subject: Link Exchange Proposal / Qmail-Hostname.com Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2011 07:58:52 +0100 (BST) Size: 1764 bytes ,,,,.... 1103 (22, 22/1103) Return-path: anonymous@qmail-hostname.com From: SOCCERFAME To: alex.masdf.e.kler.1@gmail.com Subject: =?UTF8?B?QWNjb3VudCBpbmZvcm1hdGlvbiBmb3IgU09DQ0VSRkFNRQ==?= Date: 2 Sep 2011 00:36:11 -0000 Size: 578 bytes ,,,,,, ,,,,.... Total messages: 1500 Messages with local recipients: 0 Messages with remote recipients: 1500 Messages with bounces: 500 Messages in preprocess: 300

D-) Delete the Queue
qmail-server:/usr/local/src/qmhandle-1.3.2# ./qmHandle -D ...... ......

Fina1ly launch the qmail to continue normal oper.

qmail-server:~# qmailctl start ,,,,, ..,,,

Tags: Auto, bounces, bst, buggy web, c check, c102, chance, com, copy, Date, debian gnu, Draft, exchange proposal, Fri, Gmail, gnu linux, IgU, info, kler, mail messages, mail server, mail servers, martin, mirror copy, odd reason, program documentation, progress, qmailctl, qmhandleA, queue, reason, return path, riscl, size, sourceforge, time, tool, UTF, VSRkFNRQ, wget

MK Ultra Documentary movie on CIA Mind Research project – Human Experiments in U.S.

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

mk-ultra-CIA-mind-control-human-experiments-research-project

As I've talked already about the existence of mind control brain manipulation techniques developed in the 1960-70s in US under secrecy with a codename MK Ultra. While I was checking stuff in youtube, I've stumbled today on a whole length 47 minutes documentary. Going after the tracks of the MK-Ultra Project. The video gives quite a good details on how the project went and surely is a must see for anyone interested in the sphere…
Here is the video:

MKULTRA Documentary: CIA Mind Control Research – Human Experiments in the United States

As one can guess the Russian had also a similar mind control secret program runnning in their secret services. There is not so much available on how far the Russians has gone. Some of the programs Russians done is using waves to damage or put under a hypnotic like state the masses. The Russia's research was mostly in the field of Psychotronic research – This means using elecromagnetic forces to alter the human psycho. Here is one video I found on the subject, though I'm not so sure how reliable the quoted info is.
As always Russia is way more secret than the rest of the world.
I guess secrecy is part of the slavonic nations genes 🙂

Monarch Chapter 10B: Russian Mind Control

We can only guess, how far have nowdays the researches on Mind Control and Psychotronic weapons go. Some people say (as far as I've researched so far) there are already some kind of radio sound waves going around that puts us in a state that we can easily accept suggestions, I'm not sure this info is real though. As I don't think God will allow humans to do something such monsterous as behind the scenes mass human population mind control.

My guess is people involved into business, are pretty much aware of this programs and has researched plenty on the topic already. As succesful manipulation (mind control / branwashing) call it as you will is a key to almost every kind of succesful business out there.

Tags: good, guess, info, kind, manipulation, Monarch Chapter, rest, Russian Mind Control, today, United States, waves, youtube

Tags: good, guess, info, kind, manipulation, Monarch Chapter, rest, Russian Mind Control, today, United States, waves, youtube
Posted in Curious Facts, Everyday Life, Psychology, Various | No Comments »

☩ Walking in Light with Christ – Faith, Computing, Diary

Posts Tagged ‘info’

Why don’t you use Window Maker GNU Step to improve your computer interaction performance

How to View Mail (Full Headers) in Outlook 97 / 98 / 2003 / 2007 / 2010 and Outlook 2013 Mail client on Windows and Mac OS

How to determine WordPress blogs with most spam on multiple blog hosting server

Check how webpage looks with Internet Explorer on Linux and FreeBSD with Mozilla Firefox (Netrenderer Firefox plugin)

IE NetRendered Add-on Description

How to count lines of PHP source code in a directory (recursively)

How to clean QMAIL mail server filled Queue with spam mail messages

MK Ultra Documentary movie on CIA Mind Research project – Human Experiments in U.S.

Daily Bible quote

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