Download a file from FTP in single command in Bash

I was just looking to download a file in bash from a FTP Server.

The following will work:

wget ftp://<username>:<password>@<ftp-server-url>/<file-name>

Setup Irscci on Ubuntu

Here are the steps while I was trying to learn setting up shell based IRC Client (I opted for Irssi ) on Ubuntu

1. Install irscci: sudo apt-get install irssi
2. Start irscci: irscci
3. Connect to an irc server e.g. /connect irc.freenode.net
4. Choose some screen name which should be unique:
1. /set nick <unique_nick_name>
5. You can opt to register this nickname and verify it
1. /msg nickserv register <password> <email>
2. To switch between message and current window use Alt+a, Alt+1, Alt+2
6. An email will be triggered with a verification command of the format: /msg NickServ VERIFY REGISTER <nickname> <passcode>
7. Join any group with groupname: /join <ircroom> e.g. /join ubuntu
8. To autoregister the nickname, use the following command
1. /network add -autosendcmd "/msg nickserv identify password ;wait 2000" freenode

Reference:
http://quadpoint.org/articles/irssi
http://www.kungfoocode.org/how-to/my-perfect-irssi-setup/
http://lizzie.spod.cx/screenirssi.shtml
http://irssi.org/documentation

Installing ArchLinux as Host on Virutalbox

These are the following steps I followed to setup a minimal ArchLinux installation. The detailed instructions are present at the excellent wiki of Arch.

1. Downloaded the latest Net Install Image via torrent.
2. Created a 512MB and 16GB Virtual Drive in VirtualBox 5.1
3. Followed the steps to complete a minimal installation.
4. On reboot, I tried to install openbox with the command pacman -S openbox which failed with error: 
1. error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db: failed to open '/var/lib/pacman/sync/extra/db'...
5. I ran the following command: pacman -Syy
6. Create an account using: adduser
1. Give the addional groups as 'audio,lp,optical,storage,video,wheel,games,power,scanner'
7. Now I was able to get the option
8. Do a system update: pacman -Syu
9. Installing LXDE 
1. # pacman -S lxde
2. Copying the config files to 
10. Installing slim
1. # pacman -S slim
11. After some command line fun, I eventually decided to install wicd for network management.

Post these steps I had a working after configuring /etc/rc.conf to include the services I need to run on boot.

Rain & Emotions

Rains bring out extreme emotions, either you feel happy or you feel dejected. Somehow this time of the year when it started raining I was experiencing the latter. I had a also a good idea what was the cause but there isn't anything I can do about it.

Setup Bitbucket using SSH on Ubuntu

Bitbucket is a good alternate to Github which provides free unlimited private hosting upto 5 collaborators. It uses Mercurial which is DVCS.

I prefer SSH over HTTP to access work on my repository. The steps to setup are as follows:

1. Signup on Bitbucket (Obviously)
2. Create a repository after login using Repository -> Create New Repository
3. Install mercurial on your local system

sudo apt-get install mercurial

4. Create the Mercurial Configuration File
1. vi ~/.hgrc

[ui]
editor = vi
username = FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME <email>

5. Create SSH Key if not present on your local system  using the following steps
1. ssh-keygen
2. The generated key files are stored under ~/.ssh
6. Upload the ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to Bitbucket under Account -> SSH Keys
7. Setup the Key in Ubuntu

chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
ssh-agent bash
ssh-add

8. Now clone the repository from remote server

hg clone ssh://hg@bitbucket.org/<username>/<repository>

9. To add and commit code use the following commands

hg add <file/folder>
hg commit -m '<commit message>'
hg push

 

A very good reference for basic Mercurial is

http://hgbook.red-bean.com/read/mercurial-in-daily-use.html

 

Generate ssh keys

By default ssh-keygen generates a RSA private/public key pair.

To generate a DSA Key

ssh-keygen -t dsa -b 1024 

The option -t is for the type of encryption (dsa/rsa)
The option -b is for the number of bits for encryption (1024,2048 etc)

Get the previous date in month-dd-yyyy formation in unix

Another nifty command in Bash to do so in the required format of month-dd-yyyy

date -d 'yesterday' +%B-%d-%G

Other Formats are mentioned at http://unixhelp.ed.ac.uk/CGI/man-cgi?date