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Sysadmin Toolbox Top Ten

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the pick-your-poison dept.

Linux.com is running a user writeup of several handy tools by an up-and-coming Linux user. It is always interesting to see how newer users are approaching system customization. What have some of the more seasoned Linux power-users and sys admins put in their "toolbox top 10", and why?

34 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. Top 10? by Eightyford · · Score: 4, Informative

    I only counted 6.

    Torsmo
    http://torsmo.sourceforge.net/

    ImageMagick
    http://imagemagick.org/

    Aterm
    http://aterm.sourceforget.net/

    Root-tail
    http://www.goof.com/pcg/marc/root-tail.html

    Quod Libet
    http://sacredchao.net/quodlibet

    Transmission
    http://transmission.m0k.org/

    --
    Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
    1. Re:Top 10? by nizo · · Score: 4, Funny

      #7 is the cellphone number of a linux nerd (I almost wrote "with no life who can help you at any hour" but that would have been redundant :-) )

      --
      I Am My Own Worst Enemy
    2. Re:Top 10? by Mateito · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Leatherman supertool.

      Yeah, its hardware, but given that plenty of things go wrong with hardware, its a great thing to have.

      I used to carry it in my pocket, but that's now illegal in Aus without "good reason". Trying to explain to a street-cop that i need it to pull open servers, remove stuck ribbon cables and strips oxidized power cables is not worth the headache.

      --
      Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
  2. Nothing to do with systems administration by ximenes · · Score: 5, Informative

    As the author even says in the first paragraph of the article, this is totally not a systems administrator's toolbox. BitTorrent clients, music players and tail aren't super helpful in making disk quotas or setting up DNS.

    1. Re:Nothing to do with systems administration by ePhil_One · · Score: 3, Insightful
      this is totally not a systems administrator's toolbox

      Seriously, this is a list compiled by a 17 year old kid. He is a hobby user. While I grant that he has been a user for 6 years, an 11 year old has much different priorities than someone responsible for multiple users in a large LAN environment. Promoting this does nothing to aid the legitimacy of Linux.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
    2. Re:Nothing to do with systems administration by spxero · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Which ligitimacy are we talking about? I agree that these don't have much to do with administrative tasks, but bittorrent clients and media apps aid in trying to make Linux a legitimate alternative to Windows for desktop users. Linux is already established to be good for sysadmin uses.

      I don't think the goal of Linux is to be Windows-like(or OSX-like). I don't think the goal of Windows is even to be Windows-like. I think the goal is to effectivly perform a variety of tasks for as many people as possible. For sysadmins, they won't neccessarily use media tools. But for my Mom who may want the occational torrent of a show she missed or to watch a home movie clip I send her, these apps make or break the legitimacy. It all depends on who we(Linux users) are trying to convince. Yes, the title is decieving, but the underlying message isn't. Linux has many great tools, and letting people know that should be the focus.

    3. Re:Nothing to do with systems administration by belmolis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is one of an ongoing series of such articles, not the only one. So, yes, it is desirable for a certain class of reader to hear from someone who administers a large network, but since many people who ar enot professional sysadmins do in fact administer a machine or two (their own and sometimes others), it is quite reasonable to hear from people in other situations as well.

  3. Ethereal by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not sure how useful Ethereal would be for everyone, but I know i've found it useful in debugging network issues.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  4. My Top Ten by DrDitto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. /bin/ls
    2. /bin/cp
    3. /bin/mv
    4. /bin/mkdir
    5. /bin/sh
    6. /bin/sed
    7. /bin/awk
    8. /bin/grep
    9. /bin/kill
    10. /bin/vi

    1. Re:My Top Ten by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      ls? You n00b. In my day, we had echo * and we were grateful for it.

    2. Re:My Top Ten by Electrum · · Score: 3, Informative

      You can do the samething with mv.

      mv /myjunk /dev/null

      No, you can't. /bin/mv is going to perform a rename(2), which will fail with EXDEV if the source file is on a different file system from /dev, or fail with EACCES if you do not have write permissions to /dev, or succeed by replacing your null device (a character special file) with the source file.

  5. Torsmo is dead by g-to-the-o-to-the-g · · Score: 3, Informative

    Torsmo is dead and has been for some time. I'm the main dev for Conky, a continuation of torsmo with all its features plus other goodies. See for yourself @ http://conky.sourceforge.net/

    --

    Hi there

    1. Re:Torsmo is dead by miscz · · Score: 3, Funny

      Torsmo is dead and has been for some time.

      Did Netcraft confirm this?

  6. Phillips Screwdriver by maddskillz · · Score: 3, Funny

    I find it one of my favourite tools for working on computers...linux or other

  7. Top 10? Here it is... by yuretz · · Score: 5, Funny

    ls /usr/sbin/ | head -n 10

  8. aterm? by the_greywolf · · Score: 4, Interesting

    i only use rxvt-unicode. it's the only thing that will properly display the unicode text in the filenames of my Japanese music collection. :)

    also, rxvt has another cool feature. aside from its shockingly minimalistic memory usage, run urxvtd and then urxvtc for every term you need open and it uses even less memory. what could possibly be better than that?

    --
    grey wolf
    LET FORTRAN DIE!
  9. ren-regexp by Michael.Forman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My absolute must-have tool is a perl script I wrote to rename files using a series of regular expressions. Because it's implemented in perl, the command-line regular expressions can be just as complex as a perl regular expressions. I use it as much as or more than as I use "mv" to rename files.

    If it sounds interesting, you can find it here.

    Michael.

    --
    Linux : Mac :: VW : Mercedes
    1. Re:ren-regexp by Corgha · · Score: 4, Informative

      a perl script I wrote to rename files using a series of regular expressions.

      You realize that Larry Wall already wrote that a long time (14 years) ago and bundled it with the Perl sources, and it's installed on pretty much any Debian-based system (including Ubuntu), right?


      $ head `which rename`
      #!/usr/bin/perl -w
      #
      # This script was developed by Robin Barker (Robin.Barker@npl.co.uk),
      # from Larry Wall's original script eg/rename from the perl source.
      #
      # This script is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
      # under the same terms as Perl itself.
      #
      # Larry(?)'s RCS header:
      # RCSfile: rename,v Revision: 4.1 Date: 92/08/07 17:20:30

      $ tar ztf perl_5.6.1.orig.tar.gz | grep rename
      perl-5.6.1/eg/rename


      Whoops!

    2. Re:ren-regexp by Michael.Forman · · Score: 3, Informative

      Of course I know that, silly monkey. I've been a sysadmin and perl coder for eons. It was the limitations in those existing ren scripts that led me to create one with an expanded feature set (such as the ability to chain multiple regexps serially on the command line). :)

      Try out my version and compare it if you'd like. I only offer it to share resources with fellow sysadmins. :)

      Michael.

      --
      Linux : Mac :: VW : Mercedes
    3. Re:ren-regexp by Michael.Forman · · Score: 3, Informative

      If that's all the script did you'd have an excellent point. However, it's not and you don't.

      It's funny. I usually share this and a couple other scripts on various website, including Slashdot, every few months. I'm always thrilled by others who take the time to post and share their related programs as well, discussing the different features they've implemented and why. This is the first time I've been hit with a barrage of disparaging remarks by simply offering code to the community. It's a strange thing to see in "linux.slashdot.org".

      Michael.

      --
      Linux : Mac :: VW : Mercedes
    4. Re:ren-regexp by MCZapf · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Focus on the positive! This guy created a useful script that, you must admit, requires less typing on the command line once installed. He was thorough enough to create a manpage and post it all to the web.

      Similarly, your solution is an elegant one-liner. Focus on the positive!

  10. Toolbox? by Stavr0 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Let's see... *rummage* *rummage* *rummage*
    • Cluestick, for lightweight attitude readjustment
    • Clue-by-four, when the above doesn't work
    • Baseball Bat of Obviousness, last resort
    Top three, really.
    1. Re:Toolbox? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny

      You left out the canonical LART, which though it can be anything, traditionally consists of a piece of 1/2" to 3/4" rebar (depending on your size) with a handle crafted by wrapping one end with duct tape. There are times when even the baseball bat is insufficient for attitude correction.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  11. What the hell? by Arjuna+Theban · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is hands down, by far, the most useless article I've read on Slashdot. And that includes the April 1st articles.

    Imagemagick? ATerm? A fucking bittorrent client? What is the definition of sysadmin?

    Some guy decides to list apps he likes and it gets on /. as the "sys-admin top 10".

    Bra-fucking-vo.

  12. In no particular order: by commonchaos · · Score: 5, Interesting
    • emacs
    • grep
    • perl
    • sed
    • svn
    • xml (manipulate XML from the command line)
    • tar
    • ssh (this one is fun: "ssh server tar -cf - directory | tar -xv")
    • for (built-in bash command, one-line scripts from the command line are very useful)
    • lsof (what processes have open network ports? why can't I unmount that disk?)
    • wget
    • ping
    • telnet (test SMTP, HTTP, etc servers by hand)
    • nmap
    See also: Commonly used commands
    1. Re:In no particular order: by temojen · · Score: 4, Insightful
      ssh (this one is fun: "ssh server tar -cf - directory | tar -xv")
      scp -r server:directory .

      Not good enough for you?

  13. Tools for *actual* sysadmins by algae · · Score: 5, Informative

    The stuff posted in the article was alright, and given the guy is 17, I'll cut him some slack. However, as a professional sysadmin for the last 10 years, I think I can whip up a good list of my favorite tools.

    Bash. If you don't know how to write a for-loop in bash to connect to all your hosts and make some changes, you don't know what you're missing.

    SSH, with an agent and keys. If you get asked for the password every time you connect to a host with the above bash loop, you're missing on a very powerful tool. Passwords are a once-daily thing for me now, and that's only because my screen lock also kills my ssh agent.

    Osiris. Because you should know what's happening on the computers you maintain. File integrity monitoring is a Good Thing. File integrity monitoring with a client/server architecture is a Very Good Thing.

    Snort. Use snort. You have no idea what's happening on your network until you use snort. If you have desktop users, load up the bleeding-snort rulesets and be prepared to panic in horror as you see all the crapware flowing over your network.

    Perl. With bash-fu. Like this: $ perl -i.BAK -pe 's/(http://192/\.168\.0)\.2/$1.3/' `find . -iname "*.htm"` You'll never look at sed again ;)

    Finally, if you've got a boss who will let you, rip out those expensive proprietary firewalls and replace them with OpenBSD on a Soekris solid-state computer. OpenBSD pf is a joy to work with, and for VPNs, ipsecctl can't be beat. You can literally VPN two remote networks together in about five minutes.

    --
    Causation can cause correlation
    1. Re:Tools for *actual* sysadmins by corbettw · · Score: 4, Funny

      Bash. If you don't know how to write a for-loop in bash to connect to all your hosts and make some changes, you don't know what you're missing.

      You misspelled "doing".

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  14. Re:ISO's by pla · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You're right - it's preposterous to think a sysadmin would want to download distro ISO's quickly.

    I see that argument a lot, but y'know, I can download an ISO of any major distro via plain ol' FTP or HTTP as fast as my cablemodem will let me. What exactly would I gain by using P2P, other than yet another open port on my machine just waiting for someone to find an exploit?

    Though, don't take this as an anti-P2P stance... P2P has its uses, and more efficient (for the server, not for any particular recipient) distribution of large files comes in pretty high on that list. But on this list, of the top 10 sysadmin tools - It doesn't come in at all. It duplicates funcationality (if via a slightly different mechanism) already present on a stock Linux box.

  15. Multitail! by anonieuweling · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why wasn't multitail mentioned? MultiTail lets you view one or multiple files like the original tail program. The difference is that it creates multiple windows on your console (with ncurses). It can also monitor wildcards: if another file matching the wildcard has a more recent modification date, it will automatically switch to that file. That way you can, for example, monitor a complete directory of files. Merging of 2 or even more logfiles is possible. It can also use colors while displaying the logfiles (through regular expressions), for faster recognition of what is important and what not. It can also filter lines (again with regular expressions). It has interactive menus for editing given regular expressions and deleting and adding windows. One can also have windows with the output of shell scripts and other software. When viewing the output of external software, MultiTail can mimic the functionality of tools like 'watch' and such.

  16. i'm a unix sysadmin, here's my top ten list by Khopesh · · Score: 4, Informative
    (in no particular order)
    --
    Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
    1. Re:i'm a unix sysadmin, here's my top ten list by Khopesh · · Score: 3, Informative
      oops, forgot nmap and poke.

      poke is a shell function I wrote, as I needed to test network capability in a place that blocked ICMP traffic. It returns true when it can make a connection, or false otherwise. You may wish to add reporting; just uncomment the second line.

      poke() {
      echo X |telnet -e X $1 80 >/dev/null 2>&1
      #[ $? = 0 ] && echo connected to $1 || echo failed to connect to $1 >&2|false
      }
      Also please note that I purposefully left anything that is in standard installs (yes, Redhat fails to install cvs and vim-enhanced in its "server" config).
      --
      Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
  17. Mine by C_Kode · · Score: 4, Informative

    1) strace (Program stalling or not working with ambiguous error messages?)
    2) nmap
    3) sysstat utilities (sar, iostat, vmstat, etc)
    4) python (my automation tool of choice)
    5) grep/awk/sed (filtering output etc)
    6) Nagios
    7) DenyHost (log watcher that blocks hosts via deny.hosts file)
    8) snort
    9) screen
    10) lsof (list open file discriptors (sockets, streams, and actual files))

    As for those who keep saying "ImageMagick? What kind admin uses ImageMagick!" Well, I used to work for a e-commerice bookseller. We delt with millions of bookcover images and ImageMagick was a golden for mass manipulation of images. As for MP3 tools, I like my music why I work! Whats wrong with that? It's not essential for the job, but it is for my happiness.

  18. Win32 toolbox by glas_gow · · Score: 3, Funny

    Norton
    McAfee
    Disk Defrag
    Regedit
    Spybot
    Adaware
    ctr-alt-del
    Hard Reset
    Reinstall Windows
    Update

    My neice swears by the above