Watch coomand

Use the watch command to highlight changes in vmstat & iostat

watch -d --interval=1 iostat -xc

watch --color -d --interval=1 vmstat

cpio examples

To create an archive
find . | cpio -ocvB > x.cpio

Read an archive:
cpio -itcvB -I x.cpio

Read a file from archive:
cpio -itcvB -I x.cpio ".ssh/known_hosts"

Restore the file (remove the t option).
cpio -icvB -I x.cpio ".ssh/known_hosts"

List hardware

dmidecode

wget tips

Using wget to download file with a site that requires authentication.

wget ftp://user:password@ftp.site.com/dir/file.name

Grub. Quick fix after XP re-install

Boot off rescue dvd/cd.
start grub.
>find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd0,2)
>root (hd0,2)
>setup (hd0)
>exit

reboot.

Create large files for testing.

This command will create a 100Mb file.

dd if=/dev/random of=myfile.dat bs=$(( 1024 * 1024 )) count=100

This can take a long time, so try this

dd if=/dev/zero of=myfile.dat bs=$(( 1024 * 1024 )) count=100

See Unix Administratosphere for more detail.

Redhat: Change server name

Edit name in /etc/sysconfig/network