A Guide to Efficiently Using Irssi and Screen – quadpoint.org; and

Linux Screen Tutorial and How To – Rackaid

Installation

If you do not already have it, install it using the package manager you currently have installed (yum install screen / apt-get install screen )

..(22:53 $).> yum install screen

Running

Starting it up is simple:

..(22:46 $).> screen

Common Commands

Commands in screen often follow the ctrl+a [x] style, most commonly used are

Ctrl+a d --> detaches screens and brings you back to your main terminal

Ctrl+a n --> moves to the next screen; and

Ctrl+a c --> creates a new window

Reattaching

When detached and at your main terminal window, you can restore your screens with:

..(08:19 $).> screen -raAd

Technically screen -r will work but this one does some more fancy voodoo with resizing and detaching from other sessions currently open.

Fixing screens

This is more a note to myself since I infrequently halt my screens, and for the most part the point of this posting here…

Ctrl+a s  or ctrl s --> halts screens (usually by accidental keystrokes)

Ctrl+a q or ctrl q --> starts them back up!

Alternately one can simply add “stty -ixon -ixoff” into their .bashrc profile to turn off flow control and that should take care of it as well.

My linux box is a headless system that is setup without a GUI, and accessible through SSH, and on the same home network as my windows computer. On the windows computer I currently have a few shares available – though I will just be demonstrating with one share in this tutorial.

First, to see what shares are available, we run a command with smbclient:

smbclient -L 192.168.100.50

L simply lists the shares it finds, and here I just use the IP address of the machine I am looking at.

It will produce some output like this:

Domain=[HOME] OS=[Windows 5.1] Server=[Windows 2000 LAN Manager]

Sharename       Type      Comment
---------       ----      -------
Complete        Disk
E$              Disk      Default share
IPC$            IPC       Remote IPC
D$              Disk      Default share
I$              Disk      Default share
G$              Disk      Default share
L               Disk
ADMIN$          Disk      Remote Admin
H$              Disk      Default share
C$              Disk      Default share
J$              Disk      Default share

In this case I wish to mount the L drive,  so I use the following command, where -t cifs is specifying the common internet file system, then we have the network path to the share, -o specifies options which are the username and password, and lastly the place we want to see the share (which is a folder that we’ve already created on the linux box) :

mount -t cifs //192.168.100.50/L -o username=owner,password= /home/user/winbox/L

So now that I have the share up and running, I can make it stick around permanently by editing fstab. I am a vi person, but just fire up your favourite editor like as follows:

vi /etc/fstab

At the bottom of the file we insert the following line, where we have the network path, the mount path, file system, username/password (_netdev so that it holds off trying to mount until the network is established), and 0 0  for the dump and fsck so that both ignore the mounted path:

//192.168.100.50/L /home/user/winbox/L cifs username=owner,password=,_netdev 0 0

Once we have that edited, we need to make sure the system will still survive a reboot by testing the mounts:

mount -a

And with that, it looks good to go. I can now SSH into this box from another pc somewhere else in the world, and with an application like winSCP I can pull files down to view them.

Other things that may be useful if you are stuck:

mount man page

how to edit fstab

Found myself with an A+ certification. Not much to really say about it other than it’s really just a drop in the bucket of the rest of things I’ve done. Gearing up to hammer out a CCNA finally though – especially considering that I have everything together for it – and likely my ITIL, CISSP, and sometime next year CCNP, and really finding myself with a rekindled interest in programming. My current employer seems interested in a different direction congruent to their own interests, but that doesn’t mean I cannot further my own self. It is plausible that I may be retuning to university next fall depending upon the environment I find myself in as well.

So, yep, I am pretty busy these days. Never really did much in terms of proving my skills and education, but the market seems to be calling for it as there are not all that many jobs available still. Also in the plan for the next week is to create a good solid workspace for myself. My old desk fails to have adequate space for all the computer equipment and leatherwork gear I have in my office area. There shall be photos of it when it is all done though!

And yes, I am continuing to work on leather items! Recently I’ve been working on a mask of sorts that I am quite excited about, and I have also managed to complete a neck corset, as well as a simple bracer. I have managed to get some nice new supplies and am hoping to get much more done whilst studying and in place of being bored.

That is about all for now though.

I also managed to capture some photos of the forest fire in Opal, the sunset on Highway 63 near Fort McMurray, and  some wildlife in the Muskoseepi Park in Grande Prairie, as well as some others here and there.

After completing that short contract, it was barely a week before I was put into my new role. It seems to be a fairly quiet and comfortable environment, which will certainly be nice. So finances looking up, free time looking up, and motivation also being quite on the up lately, things are really splendid! Still studying for some certifications (CCNA getting put on the backburner for the sake of what they wish me to complete for this new position), and still working on photography and some leatherwork, as well as taking care of my lovies, and seemingly reading more and more comics as the days go by…

It’s also very likely that I am moving (well less of the likely sort and more of a question of when it will happen).  Hopefully that gets cleared up – yet it is all for the best too since I shall finally get to have my Marilyn around more often.

Admittedly, the matter of employment has become a rather difficult thing. There is very little in terms of IT related jobs, especially around here. I’ve watched it since I became unemployed last year and while it improved marginally in the fall when I started job hunting again, I’ve also noticed that its gone downhill again here.

Terrible news for me at least, and I am trying my best to remain optimistic despite the fact that unless I have some money coming in right soon, bad things are going to happen.

While I created a few leather arm bands, and a choker, the most interesting items were the masks:

Beyond that, not a great deal is new, been doing plenty of reading, a fair bit of sketching, and just taking the time to enjoy the free time I have.

As it is, I still have need to share my two newest additions, Sponges and Deca:

Sponges is an amel motley corn snake, a few years old, and about four feet long. I adopted him from a friend who was unable to make certain he was getting the proper care he needed. Decarabia is my little baby black stripe ball python, only a few months old, and about a foot long currently. Already in the past month she has seemingly plumped up a bit. Both are very cuddly and friendly, and fairly constricty with their cuddles too!

Also, in the past few months I have been doing some manner of studying. Been working towards getting a couple IT certs, including redoing my CCNA (and likely continuing on towards the CCNP) and a CISSP certification. As such I now have this sitting alongside my desk:

And then of course, last but not least – given that this is the season for Halloween – I have an outfit to show off. Made by Kathleen, it is Silhouette from the Minutemen:

I rescued these lil fire bellied toads from a friend who wasn’t able to take care of them anymore today:

After some tank cleaning, and water changing and feeding they seem to have calmed back down. The kitty has sure taken an interest in them – though it seems that she is more keen on the surviving minnows in the tank ^^;

Hopefully in the next few days I’ll manage to get some rearranging done to keep them all happy~ I’m super excited though. They are really cute

Other than that, I’ve got a bunch of photos that I am slowly working through from the summer here. With any luck I’ll have something to show in a week or so. It’s been a very busy, crazy summer for me this year.

Canada Day 2009 – Edmonton

Also earlier this spring I took a few afternoons with my camera to walk about the river valley and other parts of the city. I’ve got one of those sets posted on myflickr as well at:

Spring Walks 2009

Other than that, I’ve been going through a great deal of my older unprocessed photos – albeit rather slowly. Hopefully one day I shall manage to catch up on it all.

For anyone intersted in seeing the set,  you can find it on my flickr account via:

The 2009 Edmonton Pride Parade!

There is a good chance that I may go back and edit a few of the photos to put them up on my site here too.  When that happens, I’ll be sure to bring it up

Somehow during the day of the parade I managed to sprain my toe which is interesting to say the least as I had no idea until I removed my footwear that evening.  I also got hit in the face by a stray beach ball and had to dive from water guns and water ballons a few times. Very treacherous!