The Command Line

Linux Format talks about Arch Linux in issue 145. It says that "Arch is often described as the Linux distro for users who aren't afraid of the command line."

Well, I think that's incorrect.

Arch is the Linux distro for users who love the command line.

Port scanning in bash

There was a short discussion over at securityoverride on port scanning using only bash, and I whipped up the short piece of code below. Unfortunately, while udp scans are possible, I don't think stealth scans are possible using bash alone.

#!/bin/bash

for p in {1..1024}
do
(echo >/dev/tcp/192.168.0.50/$p) && echo "port $p is open."&
done

If you don't want Connection refuses and Connection timeouts cluttering your screen, add in the /dev/null stuff:

(echo >/dev/tcp/192.168.0.50/$p) >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "port $p is open."&

And keep an eye on the number of ports you are scanning -> number of child processes being spawned.

Openbox, tint2 and conky

Hmm, just a quick update on Crunchbang Statler... it came with so many pre-installed packages that I got rid of it the same day I installed it, a few weeks ago.

3 good things happened though, namely: openbox, tint2 and conky.

I removed all traces of KDE from my Arch system and installed the 3 above-mentioned items instead. My Arch desktop has never looked so clean and sleek.

The only thing I miss is KDE's Dolphin filemanager. But thus far, qtfm is more than an able replacement.

And right now, I can go from startup to internet-connectivity in less than 60 seconds.