The epoch timestamp (seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC) is fundamental for Unix timekeeping. Every process needs reliable time access — whether for logging, scheduling, or benchmarking. Basic Second-Level Precision For simple timestamp needs, use time(): #include <time.h> time_t now = time(NULL); printf(“Current epoch: %ld\n”, (long)now); This returns seconds since epoch as a time_t. It’s…
Getting the current epoch timestamp is straightforward using the time package: package main import ( “fmt” “time” ) func main() { epoch := time.Now().Unix() fmt.Println(epoch) } The time.Now().Unix() call returns the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC as an int64. Getting nanosecond precision If you need higher resolution, use UnixNano() for nanoseconds since…
The date command is your primary tool for retrieving Unix epoch timestamps. It’s available on virtually all Unix-like systems and integrates seamlessly into scripts and command pipelines. Basic Epoch Timestamp date +%s This returns the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 UTC. Output looks like 1735689600. Higher Precision with Nanoseconds For microsecond or nanosecond…
There are several ways to retrieve the hostname on a Linux system from Python. The choice depends on your use case and whether you need the simple hostname or the fully qualified domain name (FQDN). Using socket.gethostname() The simplest approach uses the socket module from the standard library: import socket hostname = socket.gethostname() print(hostname) This…
Linux powers most of the cloud infrastructure, supercomputers, and embedded systems globally. The field itself spans kernel development, system administration, performance tuning, networking, and DevOps. Researching systems effectively requires understanding where to look, what tools matter, and how to validate your findings against real-world constraints. Start With the Right Foundation Before diving into specific research,…
When the kernel migrates a process from one CPU’s runqueue to another, the Completely Fair Scheduler (CFS) must adjust the process’s virtual runtime (vruntime) to account for the different scheduling histories of each CPU. This prevents fairness issues where a migrated process could gain an unfair advantage on the destination CPU. How vruntime Adjustment Works…
These are often confused terms in concurrent programming and multiprocessor systems, but they address different problems in shared memory architectures. Memory Coherence deals with writes to the same memory location. A cache-coherent system ensures that any read of a data location returns the most recently written value. If CPU A writes to address X, then…
curlftpfs is a FUSE-based filesystem that lets you mount FTP/SFTP servers as local directories. This is useful for treating remote FTP locations like local storage without downloading files individually. Prerequisites FUSE kernel module loaded (usually default on modern systems) Root or sudo access Network connectivity to your FTP server Installation on RHEL/CentOS/Rocky Linux The curlftpfs…
SSHFS (SSH Filesystem) mounts a remote filesystem over SSH, letting you interact with remote files as if they were local. It uses SFTP under the hood, so no additional server configuration is needed beyond SSH access. Install SSHFS on CentOS 7 # Enable EPEL repository sudo yum install epel-release # Install sshfs sudo yum install…
PARSEC is a widely-used CPU-bound benchmark suite containing real applications and complex third-party library dependencies. The installation can be challenging due to these external requirements, but following this guide will get you up and running. Prerequisites Before starting, install the required build tools and libraries: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install build-essential pkg-config gettext autoconf…
The Windows Start Menu pulls shortcuts from two key directories. Understanding where these files live is essential if you’re managing deployments, troubleshooting pinned apps, or automating setups. User-Specific Start Menu User-scoped shortcuts go here: C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs This directory contains all the Start Menu shortcuts specific to your user account. Shortcuts you create or applications install…
Modern Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps store their data in protected user-specific directories. Understanding this structure is essential if you need to back up app settings, troubleshoot issues, or migrate data between systems. Default Data Location UWP app data lives here: C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Local\Packages\<AppPackageName>\ The <AppPackageName> is a unique identifier assigned by Windows—typically a long alphanumeric string…
If your iPhone contacts search is returning “No results” after an iOS update, the issue is often a corrupted contacts database or a syncing problem with your contacts source. Here are the most effective fixes. Check Your Contacts Source First, verify where your contacts are actually stored. Go to Settings > Contacts > Default Account…
Monitoring directory growth is essential for tracking logs, temporary files, and catching runaway disk usage before it becomes a problem. Linux offers several approaches depending on whether you need simple periodic checks, interactive exploration, or event-driven monitoring. Simple periodic monitoring The watch command repeatedly runs a command at set intervals: watch -n 1 du -sh…
When pushing to GitHub over HTTPS, you’ll see: error: The requested URL returned error: 403 Forbidden while accessing https://github.com/username/repo.git fatal: HTTP request failed This means Git connected to GitHub successfully, but your credentials were rejected. Common causes: Expired or revoked Personal Access Token (PAT) Using a password instead of a PAT (GitHub disabled password auth…
The free command—along with ps, top, kill, pgrep, and dozens of other system utilities—is maintained as part of the procps-ng project. Source repository The source code is hosted at: https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps You can clone it with: git clone https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps.git cd procps Most distributions package procps-ng, so you likely already have it installed. You can verify the…
SSD performance varies significantly based on drive model, interface (NVMe vs SATA), and workload characteristics. Understanding how to benchmark your drives is more useful than memorizing typical specs—here’s how to measure actual throughput on your hardware. Basic Throughput Testing with dd The dd utility is the simplest way to measure sequential I/O performance. Here’s a…
When troubleshooting email delivery or verifying mail server configuration, you need to look up the MX (Mail Exchange) records for a domain. On Linux, two tools handle this: host and dig. Both are reliable, though dig is generally preferred for its flexibility and cleaner output format. Using dig to query MX records The dig command…
A 403 Forbidden error when running git push means your credentials aren’t valid or you lack permission to access the repository. This is one of the most common Git frustrations, but it’s usually fixable once you understand what’s actually happening. Why 403 Errors Happen Your authentication method has expired or been revoked Your GitHub Personal…
Skype periodically fails to start with a “system is unavailable” error when it can’t read or write to the user’s temporary directory. This typically happens when the temp folder becomes corrupted, has permission issues, or contains orphaned Skype cache files that prevent proper initialization. Understand the Problem On Windows, each user account has a temporary…