What Runs Where on Athena: Utilities

Title and Description:

aptitude
Description: Ubuntu command-line package manager

TO RUN:

athena% aptitude install package (to install package along with any dependencies)

Many other options exist- see man aptitude for details; the Ubuntu Packages Search page may help with finding packages, their contents and dependencies

See also: synaptic

Note:

You will need to sudo to root with sudo -i before running this application to install packages (on public cluster machines, the sudo password is your Athena password). On public machines in Athena clusters, any packages you install will only be installed temporarily, for the duration of your login session

Title and Description:

blanche
Description: command-line utility for examining and maintaining Moira lists; such lists can have elements of various types, such as users, lists, strings or Kerberos Principals. Please contact Athena accounts at x3-1325 (Email: accounts@mit.edu) or on the Web if you need to have a list set up

TO RUN:

athena% blanche list -option

Some of the most commonly used options are:

get information about the list:

athena% blanche list -i

show list members of all types:

athena% blanche list -m

add member to the list (if you have permission):

athena% blanche list -a member

delete member from the list (if you have permission):

athena% blanche list -d member

There is also a Web interface (MIT only)

See also: lastupd, listmaint, mailmaint, moira, rblanche

There are Stock Answers for creating and editing Athena mailing lists and groups and how to add or delete yourself from Athena mailing lists

Title and Description:

brasero
Description: records data on CD-R, CD-R/W and DVD drives

TO RUN:

athena% brasero

Select the type of project you want in the window that opens

See also: cdrecord

Note:

Nautilus (the Linux graphical file browser) can burn an iso image file: right-click on the file and select Write to Disk

Title and Description:

cdrecord
Description: records data on CD-R, CD-R/W drives

TO RUN:

athena% cdrecord file.iso (to burn an iso image file)

See also: brasero

Note:

Nautilus (the Linux graphical file browser) can burn an iso image file: right-click on the file and select Write to Disk

Title and Description:

clean
Description: removes control characters from text files (will convert DOS-style <CR><LF> newlines to UNIX-style <LF>)

TO RUN:

athena% add consult

athena% clean infile outfile

See also: dos2unix, unix2dos

Title and Description:

cvs
Description: version control system, operating on hierarchical collections of directories

TO RUN:

athena% cvs options cvs-command command-options command-args

see man cvs for more detailed information

See also: git, hg (Mercurial), svn (Subversion)

Title and description:

dos2unix, unix2dos
Description: utility that converts text file newline format between UNIX and DOS formats. UNIX normally ends lines with the <LF> character, while DOS ends them with <CR><LF>

To run:

athena% dos2unix file

athena% unix2dos file

The file is converted "in place", replacing the original; use the -b switch to save a copy of the original

See also: clean

Title and Description:

dsgrep
Description: allows searching Discuss meetings for text strings

TO RUN:

athena% dsgrep options "-e regexpr" meeting

See also: discuss

Title and Description:

fs commands
Description: entry point into a large suite of AFS file system commands. These commands will only work if you apply them to a directory that is within an AFS file system. fs help will list available commands. Some of the more commonly used ones are listed below:

TO RUN:

look up access permissions on directory directory:

athena% fs la directory

look up the quota for the AFS volume the current directory is in:

athena% fs lq

set access permission on directory directory for user user:

athena% fs sa directory user acl

where user is a username or AFS group name, and acl is an AFS access control list that contains several letters that set various access permissions. Several shorthand values for acl are allowed: read sets read permission, write sets read and write permission, all sets all permissions and none removes all permissions.

There are Athena and SIPB online documents explaining AFS in more detail; see also AFS at MIT

Title and Description:

g3data
Description: utility that captures numeric data values from graphs published in various image formats

TO RUN:

athena% g3data options imagefile

There is a Web site

See also: fityk

Title and Description:

git
Description: fast, scalable distributed version control system with a rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals

TO RUN:

athena% git [options] command [arguments]

There are many local git-* man pages- look below /usr/share/man/man1 to see what these are; see man gittutorial for an introduction; there is much information at the Git home page

See also: cvs , hg (Mercurial), svn (Subversion)

Note:

There is a confusing man git page in the current debathena release that has nothing to do with the git version control system

Title and Description:

GnuCash
Description: Personal finance manager, similar to Quicken. Used to track income, expenses, investments, etc. There is a GnuCash Web page

TO RUN:

athena% gnucash &

Title and Description:

gpg
Description: GNU Privacy Guard, tool for signing and encrypting digital files. Usage is complex and there are many options; the UNIX man page will supply a lot of information; see also the documentation site. There is a gpg Web page

TO RUN:

athena% gpg options file

athena% pgpgpg options file (for a wrapper taking pgp command-line options)

athena% gpg -h (for a command summary)

See also: alpine, pgp, pine, ssh

Title and Description:

helpquota
Description: Utility that allows users to examine files stored in AFS lockers (including user's home directories), ranked in various ways, and to optionally compress or delete them with the object of staying within the quota on the locker. Files that are generally considered deletable, such as various kinds of backup or temporary files, can be displayed and deleted selectively

TO RUN:

athena% add consult

athena% helpquota options

Note:

running as helpquota will print some usage explanations

Title and Description:

hesinfo
Description: Athena-specific interface to portions of the Hesiod database. This database is maintained by Athena Operations staff and contains information about user and filesystem names and ids, groups and various local services as well as resources associated with specific machines. Some typical usage forms are below- see man hesinfo for more

TO RUN:

athena% hesinfo name filsys (gives file system and local mount point info associated with name (name is an Athena username or locker name)

athena% hesinfo name passwd (gives password file entry associated with name (name is an Athena username)

athena% hesinfo name cluster (gives system pack version(s) and printers associated with name (name is a computer name)

athena% hesinfo uid uid (gives username associated with uid (uid is a UNIX user id number)

See also: lookup

Title and Description:

hfs, xhfs
Description: collection of utilities allowing users to read and write to HFS (Macintosh) formatted media. There also are commands that are analogous to equivalent DOS commands with "h" prepended, i.e hdir, hcopy etc.

TO RUN:

athena% hfs (for a TTY command-line interface)

athena% xhfs & (for a GUI interface)

See also: Mtools

Title and Description:

lastupd
Description: queries moira to determine when each of the mail hubs has last been updated. Any changes made in moira after an update will not be reflected when you send mail. Mostly of use to maintainers of mailing lists

TO RUN:

athena% add consult

athena% lastupd

See also: blanche, chpobox, moira, rblanche

Title and Description:

listmaint
Description: text-based menu-driven application for administering Moira lists; types of operation allowed include getting information about lists and their members, adding and deleting members and adding and deleting lists. Many of these operations involve privileges that must be set by Athena administrators. Please contact Athena accounts at x3-1325 (Email: accounts@mit.edu) or on the Web if you need to get such privileges or have a list set up

TO RUN:

athena% listmaint

There is also a Web interface (MIT only)

See also: blanche, mailmaint, moira

There are Stock Answers for creating and editing Athena mailing lists and groups and how to add or delete yourself from Athena mailing lists

Title and Description:

lookup
Description: finds AFS volumes(s) a locker is stored on, or volume a user's home directory is on. This is useful when you need to check if a file system is inaccessible due to servers being down

TO RUN:

athena% add consult

athena% lookup locker

athena% lookup username

See also: hesinfo, whichlocker

Title and Description:

lsof
Description: lists information about files open for reading or writing on the computer; many options exist- see man page for details

TO RUN:

athena% lsof options

See also: ps

Title and Description:

mailmaint
Description: text-based menu-driven application for examining and manipulating Athena mailing lists; emphasis is on operations Athena end-users are allowed to do themselves (add or remove yourself to/from a list, look up lists you are a member of...)

TO RUN:

athena% mailmaint

See also: blanche, listmaint, moira

Title and Description:

hg (Mercurial)
Description: lightweight source code management system designed for efficient handling of large distributed objects

TO RUN:

athena% hg command argument options

See man hg for more detailed information; there is much information at the Mercurial home page and online documentation

See also: cvs , git, svn (Subversion)

Title and Description:

moira
Description: general text-based interface to the Moira database. This database contains information about many named entities on Athena, such as usernames, locker names, lists etc. . Access permission is required to view or edit many of the entries

TO RUN:

athena% moira

See also: listmaint, blanche, lastupd, mailmaint, stella

Title and Description:

Mtools
Description: set of disk file I/O commands similar to DOS ones that allow users on UNIX systems to manipulate files on DOS filesystems (typically on a diskette). ZIP drives are also supported. Wildcarding follows UNIX, not DOS rules

Some of the major available commands:

mattrib - change MSDOS file attribute flags

mbadblocks - tests an MSDOS diskette and marks bad blocks in the FAT

mbackup - script that copies a tree, skipping AFS mountpoints

mcd - change MSDOS directory

mcopy - copy MSDOS files to/from UNIX

mdel - delete an MSDOS file

mdeltree - delete an MSDOS directory tree (use with caution)

mdir - display an MSDOS directory

mformat - add an MSDOS filesystem to a low-level formatted diskette

mkmanifest - creates a script that aids in restoring UNIX filenames clobbered by MSDOS name restrictions

mlabel - make an MSDOS volume label

mmd - make an MSDOS subdirectory

mmount - mounts an MSDOS disk (Linux only)

mmove - moves or renames an existing MSDOS file or directory

mrd - remove an MSDOS subdirectory

mren - rename an existing MSDOS file

mtype - display contents of an MSDOS file

mzip - issues ZIP drive-specific commands (Sun only)

To run:

athena% add mtools

athena% command file_or_directory

See also: hfs, Zmodem

Title and Description:

pgp
Description: public key encryption package. pgp has many features and you will need to read a considerable amount of documentation before you are able to use it

TO RUN:

athena% pgp options file

There is an OpenPGP home page and a quickstart guide

See also: gpg, ssh

Title and Description:

ps
Description: lists information about processes running on the computer; many options exist- see man page for details

TO RUN:

athena% ps options

See also: lsof

Title and Description:

rblanche
Description: Recursively lists all members of a mailing list, specifying members of each sublist; also indicates when users have forwarded their mail using chpobox, and if an account is deactivated. Uses the Moira database limited by permissions you have on respective lists

TO RUN:

athena% add consult

athena% rblanche listname

See also: blanche, chpobox, lastupd

Title and Description:

recode
Description: utility that converts files between various character sets and "surfaces"

TO RUN:

athena% recode options [charset | request file ]

Typing info recode and man recode will supply information

Title and Description:

renew, grenew
Description: renews user's Kerberos tickets and AFS tokens, which grant access to Athena services and file systems. These are currently set to expire 10 hours after login by default and you will need to renew them if you need to continue the current login session for longer than this. renew is a command-line utility; grenew runs the same command within a very simple GUI

TO RUN:

athena% grenew &

athena% renew

Title and Description:

samba
Description: utilities that allow access to SMB/CIFS/DFS file servers (usually Windows file systems). smbclient offers an interface similar to ftp; operations include things like getting files from the server to the local machine (and vice versa), retrieving directory information from the server and so on. Usage is complex, and users should consult the man page for smbclient for details. dfsclient is a locally developed script that wraps around smbclient to make it easier to use; see the README for usage examples

TO RUN:

athena% add samba

athena% dfsclient /profiles/u/username commands (to perform commands on \\win.mit.edu\dfs share for user username)

Title and Description:

saplogon
Description: Java-based client for accessing SAP databases

TO RUN:

This software can only be run if you are an administrator with access to a current SAP account

athena% add sapgui

athena% saplogon

Title and Description:

setup
Description: attaches Athena lockers, adds appropriate bin directory to user's path (similar to add command), but in addition automatically executes C-shell syntax commands in a file called .attachrc placed in the top level of the locker (or Bourne-shell syntax commands in .attachrc.bash if you use a Bourne shell or bash)

TO RUN:

athena% setup lockername

Note:

to properly use setup, create a file .attachrc or .attachrc.bash and put any initialization commands necessary in it, using syntax appropriate to your shell. These commands will be automatically executed when the setup command is run

Title and Description:

svn (Subversion)
Description: version control system offering significant enhancements to older systems like cvs

TO RUN:

athena% add svn

athena% svn command options arguments

see man svn for more detailed information. There is also a Subversion home page

See also: cvs, git, hg (Mercurial)

Title and Description:

synaptic
Description: Ubuntu GUI package manager

TO RUN:

athena% synaptic &

Many options exist, including the ability to add and remove packages, see which packages are installed and view their contents; the Ubuntu Packages Search page may help with finding packages, their contents and dependencies

See also: aptitude

Note:

You will need to sudo to root with sudo -i before running this application to install packages (on public cluster machines, the sudo password is your Athena password). On public machines in Athena clusters, any packages you install will only be installed temporarily, for the duration of your login session

Title and Description:

TSM backup
Description: network file backup utility for data on local hard drives of Athena workstations

TO RUN:

This software can only be run if you have a TSM account set up first for each machine you use it on. Registration information is here

TSM backup no longer runs from an Athena locker. You need to install it locally following instructions for installation and setup on standalone Linux machines. Ubuntu users need to follow special configuration steps. Information is here

Title and Description:

units
Description: interactive utility that converts various physical quantities between different units of measure

TO RUN:

athena% units

Title and Description:

weather
Description: weather data retrieval program. weather reports weather conditions and forecasts for over 1100 U.S. cities. See the man page (man weather) for more info

TO RUN:

athena% weather options identifier

athena% zctl add message weather \* (to receive hourly weather Zephyrgrams)

There are a number of good Web-based weather services, notably Intellicast

Title and Description:

xephem
Description: graphical astronomical epehmeris: displays positions of celestial objects visible at various times and locations

TO RUN:

athena% add xephem

athena% xephem &

Title and Description:

zap-firefox-certs, zap-mozilla-certs
Description: utility for deleting expired or damaged firefox or mozilla browser certificates and passwords. Please make sure to exit from any browser instances you are running before using this utility

TO RUN:

athena% add infoagents

athena% zap-firefox-certs

athena% zap-mozilla-certs

See also: firefox

Note:

You can get a new certificate here

Title and Description:

Zip utilities
Description: file compression/decompression programs for single files and directory trees, using the zip compression format. zip and unzip are compatible with pkzip and pkunzip on PCs and create archives of directory trees. gzip and gunzip operate on single files. gzip is often used in conjunction with tar to make compressed archives of directory trees on UNIX systems

TO RUN:

athena% gzip file

athena% gunzip file.gz

athena% bzip2 file

athena% bunzip2 file.bz2

athena% zip archive_name directory/*

athena% unzip archive_name.zip

Note:

bzip2 is a new compression protocol that operates essentially like gzip, but generally achieves higher compression ratios