Command Line on Holyarmy.org

Killing “find” Errors

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:46:53 +0000

I’ve used the unix filesystem search utility find for many years. Though, like most things, until forced to learn its deeper secrets, I generally get by with only the most basic knowledge.

One of the cool things about find is that you can specify a search and then execute an action on the results, all in one command.

This example is probably my most common use of find:

find . -type d -name .svn -exec rm -fr {} \;

This means: find, in the current directory (.), a directory (-type d), named .svn (-name .svn), and for every result (-exec) remove that directory (rm -fr {}) . The “{}” represents the matched path string, and the “;” is required to end the “-exec” command.

Use vi key bindings in bash

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:29:38 +0000

A long time ago I used ksh with vi key bindings, and life was good.

Then I moved on to bash, but for some reason, I never investigated using vi key bindings. I simply lived with the defaults (which, for the record, are emacs-like key bindings).

So, just the other day I said to myself, “Self, I want to use vi key bindings in bash. I want to again experience the joy of traversing and editing my command line in COMMAND MODE. I want the speed and the power of my precious vi (well, I use vim) at my finger tips. And I NO LONGER want to waste time holding arrow keys or to think about using emacs-like commands.”

Fight Back! (When VPN Clients Mis-Behave)

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:20:19 +0000

I have to use VPNs at work. Specifically, to access my production webservers (etc), I have to use a Cisco VPN client. Sadly, the VPN concentrator overrides my choice of allowing local LAN access. So, when I am on the VPN, I have my DNS options changed so I can’t use any local servers. This is a serious, serious pain. So painful in fact, that many times instead of fight with it, I simply would run a Windows session in VMware (on my Mac) and connect the VPN there. This has drawbacks too, but it’s better than not having local network access.