ELPA (Emacs Lisp Package Archive) is the built-in package manager for Emacs. Keeping packages up to date is straightforward using the interactive package interface. Using the Package Menu Open the package list with: M-x list-packages This command displays all installed and available packages, and automatically refreshes the package archive contents. The buffer shows each package…
Rate-limiting SSH brute-force attempts is essential for any server exposed to the internet. Using iptables with the recent module, you can drop connections from IPs that exceed a threshold in a given time window—for example, blocking IPs that attempt more than 6 connections in 60 seconds. Using iptables The recent module tracks connection attempts by…
Making firewall rules persistent across system reboots is essential for any production Linux system. While the original iptables-persistent approach works, modern systems typically use ufw (Uncomplicated Firewall) or firewalld, but understanding the underlying iptables mechanism is still valuable for lower-level control. Using iptables-persistent The iptables-persistent package automatically saves and restores your firewall rules during boot….
musl libc is a lightweight C library implementation that’s useful for creating statically-linked binaries, containerized applications, and embedded systems. It’s the standard C library in Alpine Linux and increasingly common in production environments. Installation from distribution repositories The simplest approach is installing musl from your distribution’s repositories: sudo apt update sudo apt install musl musl-dev…
When managing packages on Ubuntu or Debian systems, knowing what versions are available—and which one will be installed—is essential for dependency management and system stability. The aptitude command provides several ways to inspect package versions. Check all available versions of a package The most straightforward approach is to use the versions subcommand: aptitude versions package-name…
Xterm doesn’t send Alt key escape sequences by default, which breaks Alt-based keybindings in Vim, Emacs, shell readline, and other applications. Here’s how to fix it across different terminal setups. Xterm Configuration Add this to your ~/.Xresources file: xterm*metaSendsEscape: true Then load the changes and restart xterm: xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources xterm & This tells xterm…
When backing up with rsync, you often need to skip directories like cache/, node_modules/, or .git/ that appear at multiple levels in your directory tree. Listing every instance individually is impractical, but rsync’s exclude patterns handle this elegantly. Basic exclude syntax The simplest approach uses –exclude with a directory name pattern: rsync -avxP –exclude=cache/ /path/to/src/directory/…
When you create a new branch locally and try to git pull, you’ll hit this error if the branch doesn’t have upstream tracking configured: You asked me to pull without telling me which branch you want to merge with, and ‘branch.dev-harry.merge’ in your configuration file does not tell me, either. This happens because Git doesn’t…
When you need to audit disk usage or understand directory structure, counting files in each subdirectory is a common task. This is especially useful when dealing with large directory trees where you need a quick overview of distribution. The Basic Approach The simplest method uses a loop with find and wc: for i in */;…
When you run cat /etc/resolv.conf on a modern Linux system, you’ll often see nameserver 127.0.0.1 or 127.0.1.1 pointing to localhost. This doesn’t mean you’re actually using your ISP’s DNS directly — it usually means your system is running a local DNS stub resolver or caching service like systemd-resolved or dnsmasq. To find out which actual…
A USB drive that’s mounted as read-only is frustrating — you can read files but can’t write, delete, or modify anything. This usually happens due to filesystem issues, hardware problems, or missing drivers. Check the Current State First, identify how the drive is mounted and what filesystem it uses: lsblk -f Look for your USB…
MPlayer is largely unmaintained as of 2026. For playing 3D movies on standard displays, mpv is the modern replacement and offers better stereo rendering support. Using mpv for 3D Playback The most straightforward approach with mpv is to use the stereo3d filter to convert side-by-side or other 3D formats to anaglyph (color-separated) stereo: mpv –vf=stereo3d=sbsl:arced…
fdisk -l displays partition information in sectors by default, which isn’t practical for most sysadmin tasks. While fdisk itself lacks options to change the unit display, parted shows partition sizes in GB/MB/KB automatically and is the better tool for this job. Using parted for readable partition output Run parted with the -l flag to list…
When you need to change the commit message of a past commit that isn’t HEAD, git commit –amend alone won’t help. You’ll need to use interactive rebase to stop at that commit, amend it, and then continue. Interactive Rebase to Edit a Commit The core approach is git rebase -i with the commit hash. Say…
Linux Mint’s Cinnamon desktop automatically mounts removable media like USB drives and external hard drives by default. If you prefer manual control over when and how storage devices are mounted, you can disable this behavior through Nemo, the Cinnamon file manager. Disable Auto-Mounting via Nemo Preferences The simplest approach is to configure Nemo’s mounting behavior…
Attaching storage to a running Xen DomU without rebooting is straightforward using the xl toolstack. This is useful when you need to add capacity, attach backup storage, or provision new volumes without downtime. Basic Disk Attachment To attach a logical volume or physical disk to a running DomU, use xl block-attach on Dom0: xl block-attach…
When working with codebases that use non-standard file extensions for C source files, ctags won’t recognize them by default. You can configure it to treat files with custom extensions like .c0 or .puc as C source code. Using the langmap option The simplest approach is to add language mappings to your ctags configuration. Edit ~/.ctags…
When you need to share work in progress or maintain a separate feature branch on a remote Git server, you’ll need to create a local branch and push it upstream. Here’s how to do it properly. Basic workflow The fundamental process involves three steps: Create a local branch and switch to it Make changes and…
If you need to resize, crop, or annotate images on Linux but GIMP feels like overkill, several lightweight alternatives exist that handle everyday editing tasks efficiently without the complexity. Pinta Pinta is a straightforward drawing and image editor designed for simplicity. It covers basic operations like resizing, cropping, rotating, and adding text annotations without overwhelming…
When managing a Linux system remotely, you sometimes need to terminate all sessions for a specific user—whether they’re logged in locally at the console, via SSH, through X11 forwarding, VNC, or any other method. Here’s how to do it. Quick Answer To terminate all processes for a user named bob: killall -u bob This kills…