My console toolbox for NethServer

Testimonials
#1

My further installation of NethServer will include this set of tools for the console:

  • mc don’t ask why, it’s always useful
  • screen I desperately need to learn how it works and how use it but… This could be the lifesaver into upgrade/update processes
  • links/elinks you never know how hard it will be to surf the web, if you mess up the network configuration. Sometimes from console is better than nothing.
  • nano is the acronym of “i am too n00b to use VIM”. Which is far more powerful, i know, but i don’t write code or scripts on console (yet)
  • alpine i still don’t know how to use it, but a console email client can be a gamechanger for tests… Because it’s faster and lighter than the webmails

Anyone want to give contribution?

8 Likes
#2

I use tmux instead of screen–first started using the tool on FreeBSD. mutt for email. But definitely nano for a text editor–if I actually need advanced editor features, I’m going to be doing the work locally, not ssh’d into my Neth box.

3 Likes
#3

And now i add another “not so necessary” tool: spectre-meltdown-checker
Most of people won’t think this as a necessary package, because many of the IT guys/ladies cannot do really something to solve the issue than “waiting for new hardware” or “waiting for new software”.
Sometimes a vulnerability status (and report) could be an useful information, expecially for publicy-available servers like application, mail and webserver.
As stated in many other places…

A false sense of security is worse than no security at all

Maybe one day there will be the “Vulnerability assessment tool” into Cockpit.

1 Like
What hardware to have a physical firewall
#4

iperf3. You never know when you need to test the bandwidth

#5
  • mlocate a good tool to find a file wherever it is on your server, one cons you need to updatedb from time to time, then locate toto.conf
  • iftop to understand what is occuring on your NIC (who is connecting/downloading)
  • htop (no need to introduce),
  • tree, to display how is organised the folder
  • iptraf when iftop is not enough accurate, better but a bit harder
  • curl to test services, send email, a nice tools
  • netstat to check what port is opened on your firewall (netstat -tulpn)
  • rsync to copy and preserve ownership/permissions
  • grep, a tool to find…it saved my life so many time (grep -srni 'string' | /etc/e-smith)
#6

Hi

My toolbox contains:

  • mc
  • nano
  • htop
  • screen
  • fail2ban
  • snmpd
  • grep
  • curl
  • wget
  • rsync
  • testdisk & photorec

For those who don’t know testdisk, it’s the BEST tool to repair a Disk…
And it’s freely available for Most platforms…

  • Recovering a deleted HP RAID Partition where no HP tool will help
  • Repairing a mainframe disk, or a MSDos, or an Atari (and a lot more!)
  • I’ve run it on: Mac, Windows, Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris…

Also USB and CD (ISO on Proxmox) versions of:

  • SystemRescueCD
  • CloneZilla

Windows (Absolute Musts!):

  • PuTTY
  • WinSCP

I use mostly my Mac personally (Macbook), but I do have a Win7 & Win10 on my Mac (Parallels).
At my home Lab I also have a Linux and Windows Desktop, both virtualized on Proxmox, and both available with RDP & Guacamole. Display is a Raspberry 4 with Remina RDP. :slight_smile:

Andy

#7

broot for tree navigation: https://dystroy.org/broot/
INXI for system information: https://www.tecmint.com/inxi-command-to-find-linux-system-information/
YTOP combined System Monitor: https://github.com/cjbassi/ytop for Centos7

3 Likes
#8

Not a package but i like a colored prompt with a line feed. :grinning:

Below how my ‘root’ .bashrc typically looks like with the PS1 for the prompt. (as you can see I’m a nano fan too…)

image
image1046×548 10.6 KB

EDIT:
PS1 for a red (root) prompt:

PS1='\[\033[91m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[94m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\n# '

PS1 for a green (user) prompt:

PS1='\[\033[92m\]\u@\h\[\033[00m\]:\[\033[94m\]\w\[\033[00m\]\n\$ '

#9

Better still, create /etc/profile.d/local.sh:

#!/bin/sh
# Modify the shell prompt and update user umask

if [ "`id -u `" = "0" ]; then
 PS1='\[\033[1;31m\][\u@\h \W]\$\[\033[0m\] '
else
 PS1='\[\033[1;32m\][\u@\h \W]\$\[\033[0m\] '
 umask 002
fi

# PS1='[\u@\h \W]\$ '

export PS1

Then root = red, user = green, without having to remember to update individual profiles.

Cheers.

3 Likes
#10

more like this :slight_smile:

image
image1458×296 53.9 KB

#11

Looks like someone’s using Oh My ZSH…

#12

exactly

#13

For who manage bare metal installation and still rely on HD drives… cannot forget yum install hdparm