Useful Unix Utilities
Pages: 1, 2
The last related utility I'll demonstrate is ipsc found in the
sysutils section of the ports collection:
ipsc
usage: ipsc [options] <addr/mask | addr/offset | addr>
-C <class> Network class (a, b, or c). Must be used with -B
-B <bits> Subnet bits (must be used with -C)
-i <if> Reverse engineer an interface (e.g. eth0)
-a Print all information available
-g Print general information
-s Print all possible subnets
-h Print host information
-c Print CIDR information
-v Print the program version
-? Print this help message
Report bugs to dan@vertekcorp.comThe most interesting feature of this utility is the -i option. Let's see
what happens when I use it and specify my outbound NIC:
ipsc -i ed1
Network class: A
Network mask: 255.0.0.0
Network mask (hex): FF000000
Network address: 24.141.116.0
Subnet bits: 14
Max subnets: 16384
Full subnet mask: 255.255.252.0
Full subnet mask (hex): FFFFFC00
Host bits: 10
Hosts per subnet: 1024
Bit map: nnnnnnnn.ssssssss.sssssshh.hhhhhhhhThis utility also gives a rather exhaustive output when you use the -a
switch. I'll do that with the same example I used for the other utilities:
ipsc -a 192.168.10.40/27
Network class: C
Network mask: 255.255.255.0
Network mask (hex): FFFFFF00
Network address: 192.168.10.32
Subnet bits: 3
Max subnets: 8
Full subnet mask: 255.255.255.224
Full subnet mask (hex): FFFFFFE0
Host bits: 5
Hosts per subnet: 32
Bit map: nnnnnnnn.nnnnnnnn.nnnnnnnn.ssshhhhh
Subnet 1: 192.168.10.0 192.168.10.31
Subnet 2: 192.168.10.32 192.168.10.63 *
Subnet 3: 192.168.10.64 192.168.10.95
Subnet 4: 192.168.10.96 192.168.10.127
Subnet 5: 192.168.10.128 192.168.10.159
Subnet 6: 192.168.10.160 192.168.10.191
Subnet 7: 192.168.10.192 192.168.10.223
Subnet 8: 192.168.10.224 192.168.10.255
IP address: 192.168.10.40
Hexadecimal IP address: C0A80A28
Address allocation range: 192.168.10.32 - 192.168.10.63
Full subnet mask: 255.255.255.224
Subnet mask: 0.0.0.224
Subnet ID: 0.0.0.32
Network ID: 192.168.10.0
Host ID: 0.0.0.40
Cisco Wildcard: 0.0.0.31
CIDR notation: 192.168.10.0/27
Route/Mask: 192.168.10.0 / 255.255.255.224
Hexadecimal route/mask: C0A80A00 / FFFFFFE0
Supernet max: 0Let's leave TCP/IP land and take a look at some utilities that deal with
logs. If you're using Sendmail, you might want to take a look at mreport
in the sysutils section of the ports collection. If you just type
mreport, you'll receive a summary of your Sendmail log:
mreport
[hostname] [/var/log/maillog]
[ 24] 101080 owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG genisis@localhost
[ 3] 11067 owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG genisis@localhost
[ 2] 7858 firewall-wizards-admin@nfr.com genisis@localhost
[ 2] 6407 owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG genisis@localhost
[ 1] 6158 owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG genisis@localhost
[ 2] 3913 root root
[ 1] 3415 tlangdon@atctraining.com.au genisis@localhost
[ 1] 3176 shrdlu@cnchost.com genisis@localhost
[ 1] 2378 listserv@ugu.com genisis@localhost
[ 1] 2183 giuliomaria.fontana@sinapsi.com genisis@localhost
=====================
Total Bytes : 147635
Number of Records : 10
---------------------
Host Name : hostname
Input File : /var/log/maillog
Output File : stdout
First Record : Jul 15 01:30:51
Last Record : Jul 15 09:35:51
---------------------
Time Taken : 10729 µs
=====================
mreport-0.9 by Jason Armstrong
If you read the man page for this utility, you'll see that the number in
the [] represents the number of emails, followed by the size in bytes; who
the email is from; and who the email is destined for. There are also switches to
customize how the output is sorted. Several examples are cited in the
man page to get you started.
Another utility in the sysutils section that deals with logs is colorize.
Once you've finished building this port, you'll have to do the following
as the superuser so the colorize utility can read its configuration file:
cp /usr/local/etc/colorizerc.sample /usr/local/etc/colorize
This file describes which colors are associated with which key terms and can be edited to your preference. You can also apply various attributes such as "bold" or "blink" to key terms.
To actually use the utility, use the < redirector to receive input from
the desired log file. Again, you'll have to remain the superuser due to
the permissions that are set on log files. For example, to view the
security log:
colorize < /var/log/securityUnfortunately, you can't send output to a pager utility and there isn't a
switch to page the results. You can see the beginning or end of a large
log if you pipe the results to either head or tail like so:
colorize < /var/log/security | head
colorize < /var/log/security | tailOne of the more interesting available switches allows you to create a
colorized HTML version of a log. Here I'll create a page called
security.html and send it to my home directory:
colorize -h < /var/log/security > ~genisis/security.html
I wasn't able to view the colors using Lynx, but the output looked very nice in Galeon and Netscape.
While I was in the sysutils section of the ports collection, I also
built the stat utility which can be used to print out inode contents. If
you remember back from "Understanding File System Inodes," every file has
a unique inode entry which contains its inode number and its metadata.
Let's use the stat utility on one of the files in my home directory which
is called unix:
stat unix
File: "unix"
Size: 10800 Allocated Blocks: 22 Filetype: Regular File
Mode: (0644/-rw-r--r--) Uid: (1001/genisis) Gid: (0/wheel)
Device: 160773 Inode: 912755 Links: 1
Access: Thu Jul 5 07:51:42 2001
Modify: Thu Jul 5 07:53:29 2001
Change: Thu Jul 5 07:53:29 2001
There are several nifty utilities in the textproc section that deal with
handling documents in various formats. I'll take a look at ascii2pdf,
word2x, and catdoc.
The utility ascii2pdf can quickly convert an ACSII file to PDF format.
To use, simply specify the name of the file you wish to convert; it will
create a second file with the same name but with a .pdf extension. To view
the new PDF file, you can use acroread from the print section of the
ports collection.
Another handy conversion utility is word2x which can convert a Word 97
document to ASCII, HTML, or Latex. I have to admit that I've done a pretty
good job of training my friends not to send me Word documents and I had to
go out on the Internet to find one to test out this program. I figured the
best place to find one would be at Microsoft's web site, so I did a search
for "*.doc" and downloaded the first document I found, it happened to be
called Core_cal.doc. I then ran the utility like so:
word2x Core_cal.docWithin a second, I had my prompt back and a new file called Core_cal.txt.
When I sent this file to the more utility, I was pleasantly surprised to
see that it was in a legible format.
Very handy utility indeed. Even though the man page for this utility didn't specify how, I tried to see if I could also create an HTML file using the format switch like so:
word2x -f html Core_cal.docAgain, a new file was created called Core_cal.html which displayed quite
nicely in my web browsers. Being curious, I also ran the file utility:
file Core*
Core_cal.doc: Microsoft Office Document
Core_cal.html: exported SGML document text
Core_cal.txt: ASCII English textIf you just want to read a Word document without converting it, try
catdoc. I could read that original Word document like so:
catdoc Core_cal.doc |moreOr, if I wished to convert it to ASCII, I could redirect the output to another file:
catdoc Core_cal.doc > Core
more CoreI guess I won't have to grumble to myself anymore the next time I come across a Word document.
To end today's article, let's take a look at some slightly less useful
utilities. The uf-view utility in the misc section has a nice little
interface to view various online cartoons. For some reason, I was unable
to get this utility to fetch the "User Friendly" cartoon, but I was able
to easily scroll through several years worth of "Calvin & Hobbes" which
more than made up for that glitch in my books. This utility will also
let you view the Penny Arcade, Mega Tokyo, Little Gamers, and Angst
Technology comic strips.
Another utility that falls into the easily amused category is oneko in
the games section. You may want to start it from xterm by typing
/usr/X11R6/bin/oneko; this way, if you get tired of watching the antics
of the kitten as it follows your mouse, you can quickly kill it from xterm. A similar utility in the games section is xneko, but I found
it rather cruel to watch the kitten try to scratch its way out of its box
in order to chase the mouse. Your mileage may vary.
Finally, try out the cowsay utility in the games section. Read the
well-written man page and see the care that was taken when this utility
was created. Try each of the numerous switches. As you do so, you'll probably
shake your head in wonder like I did and ask yourself, "Why?" The only answer I
could come up with is "Why not?"
Dru Lavigne is a network and systems administrator, IT instructor, author and international speaker. She has over a decade of experience administering and teaching Netware, Microsoft, Cisco, Checkpoint, SCO, Solaris, Linux, and BSD systems. A prolific author, she pens the popular FreeBSD Basics column for O'Reilly and is author of BSD Hacks and The Best of FreeBSD Basics.
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