Mounting Directories via SSH

For mounting directories from a remote machine, usually NFS or SMB/CIFS is used which requires a running file server. On many linux servers, however, all you have is a shell account, so file transfer has to be done via scp.
Using the FUSE Linux kernel module, which provides user space filesystems and its sshfs client, you [...]

Building RPMs Without Root Access

This week at work I had the opportunity to build an RPM for some third-party software package.
My previous experiences with RPM date back to SuSE 5 almost ten years ago and I haven’t touched it ever since. Packaging for Debian or even NetBSD is mostly a painless process, so I hoped today’s RPM wouldn’t be [...]

Lightweight Package Management using Stow

Package management tools like apt-get make it very easy to install and remove software. The package manager takes care of downloading the package together with its dependencies if, of course, someone has taken the time to create a package and made it available to you. In some cases, you don’t want to interfere with your [...]

Controlling Firefox via Command Line

Mozilla-based browsers like Firefox have inherited a useful feature from the good old Netscape Navigator: Controlling a running browser instance via the command line. Using command line options, you can open URLs or files inside your browser window without having to enter them in the address bar.

Creating HTML Reports with Oracle’s SQL*Plus (Part 2)

In the previous posting I gave an example on how to create an HTML report using Oracle’s sqlplus tool. This time, we’ll extend this example to demonstrate more of sqlplus’ features.

Creating HTML Reports with Oracle’s SQL*Plus

Oracle’s sqlplus command line utility feels a bit antiquated for spoilt open source users. But with a bit of tweaking, you can generate nice database reports in HTML. Sure, the syntax is arcane, but if you’re used to Perl you can get used to anything.

Printing RFCs and Internet Drafts

The a2ps command line utility converts text files to PostScript which can then be sent to a printer. The resulting output contains all kinds of boxes and additional information which limits the space on the printed page to make your own notes.

Using D-Bus Introspection

To control a D-Bus-enabled application, you need the interface definition to find out which methods are offered and which parameters they expect.
Of course, you can get the relevant interface definition from the application’s source distribution. But there’s an easier way: Ask the object in question via D-Bus to give you the interface description. All objects [...]