Emoticons and Their Meanings

A co-worker of mine emailed me this table of emoticons. I thought it was a fairly comprehensive list until I did a brief Internet search. The list was just a snippet, especially in the chat room space. I rarely engage in chat activities (maybe an occasional MSN chat with a family member), so I had no idea how many emoticons were out there. I discovered that I have been misusing a couple, which probably prompted the email and subsequently the table.



Here are a few more reference links.
Emoticons & Smiley Page
List of Emoticons
Gmail Emoticons
Emoticons and Smileys 101
Wiki - List of Common Emoticons

SSH Secure Shell for Workstations

A few years ago I took an Oracle database class at a university. I remember running SQL commands to perform a number of DBA tasks, such as creating databases, creating tables, creating procedures, altering tables, etc. via the command line. But in order to complete these tasks, we had to connect to the university's UNIX server via SSH. I remember using a nifty ssh client application. I found a link to its website while browsing my old coursework archive. At the time, I downloaded the "university use" copy, which was free, and it worked pretty well for the course.

Per the vendor's website, you can still download their SSH Secure Shell 3.2 non-commercial source code and there is also a Windows Client executable. Both are free of charge from various anonymous ftp sites around the globe for purposes of EVALUATION, NON-COMMERCIAL USE, and UNIVERSITY USE as defined in their license agreement.

Here is the link to the SSH Secure Shell for Workstations.

Other suggestions are always welcome.

Modify Information in a Nisplus Table

The nistbladm command is used to modify information in a nisplus table. In this example, the passwd.org_dir table was modified. The login directory and shell was modified for the esoft user. Here is the syntax.

Prior to modification
# niscat passwd.org_dir | grep esoft
esoft:SNVE9mJSZ9ub6:1005:10:Test Account:/export/home/esoft:/bin/sh:13947::::::

Modify the user's home directory
# nistbladm -e home=/home/esoft '[name=esoft]'passwd.org_dir
# niscat passwd.org_dir | grep esoft
esoft:SNVE9mJSZ9ub6:1005:10:Test Account:/home/esoft:/bin/sh:13947::::::

Modify the user's shell
# nistbladm -e shell=/bin/zsh '[name=esoft]'passwd.org_dir
# niscat passwd.org_dir | grep esoft
esoft:SNVE9mJSZ9ub6:1005:10:Test Account:/home/esoft:/bin/zsh:13947::::::

###
Add a user
# nistbladm -a name=softhub uid=1000 gid=10 home=/home/softhub shell=/bin/zsh passwd.org_dir

Display the Structure of a Nisplus Table

Building on the last post, I am using the niscat -o flag to display the structure of a common nisplus table. In the example below, the run shows the passwd table and its specific metadata/attribute information. Here is the syntax.

# niscat -o passwd.org_dir
Object Name : "passwd"
Directory : "org_dir.esofthub.com."
Owner : "esoft.esofthub.com."
Group : "admin.esofthub.com."
Access Rights : ----rmcdrmcdr---
Time to Live : 12:0:0
Creation Time : Sun Feb 24 18:22:47 2008
Mod. Time : Sun Feb 24 18:22:47 2008
Object Type : TABLE
Table Type : passwd_tbl
Number of Columns : 8
Character Separator : :
Search Path :
Columns :
[0] Name : name
Attributes : (SEARCHABLE, TEXTUAL DATA, CASE SENSITIVE)
Access Rights : r---r---r---r---
[1] Name : passwd
Attributes : (TEXTUAL DATA)
Access Rights : ----rm--r---r---
[2] Name : uid
Attributes : (SEARCHABLE, TEXTUAL DATA, CASE SENSITIVE)
Access Rights : r---r---r---r---
[3] Name : gid
Attributes : (TEXTUAL DATA)
Access Rights : r---r---r---r---
[4] Name : gcos
Attributes : (TEXTUAL DATA)
Access Rights : r---rmcdrmcdr---
[5] Name : home
Attributes : (TEXTUAL DATA)
Access Rights : r---rmcdrmcdr---
[6] Name : shell
Attributes : (TEXTUAL DATA)
Access Rights : r---rmcdrmcdr---
[7] Name : shadow
Attributes : (TEXTUAL DATA)
Access Rights : ----------------

List Objects and Tables in Nisplus

I have had a few search queries (metadata) via MyBlogLog analytics from readers who were searching for commands to show Nisplus objects and tables. Frankly speaking, I neglected posting much about this legacy name service (earlier on) because I did not really think it was worthwhile. But apparently, there seems to be a decent number of organizations still using it. At any rate, here is an example run.

Show the objects
# nisls
esofthub.com.:
org_dir
groups_dir

Show the tables
# nisls org_dir
org_dir.esofthub.com.:
passwd
group
auto_master
auto_home
bootparams
cred
ethers
hosts
ipnodes
mail_aliases
sendmailvars
netmasks
netgroup
networks
protocols
rpc
services
timezone
client_info
auth_attr
exec_attr
prof_attr
user_attr
audit_user

Other posts on nisplus

Add DES Credential For a Client Workstation

If you want to add a credential for a workstation, you will need to make an entry into the niscred.org_dir table on the server. This example demonstrates what is done on the server side and workstation side. There are third party tools out there to manage credentials, but personally I like using the command line. Here is what a colleague and I did to support a NIS+ server change.

On Server
C shell
# setenv PATH $PATH:/usr/lib/nis
Bourne or Korn Shell
# PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/nis; export PATH
# nisclient -c -o -d esofthub.com esoft
# nisaddcred -p unix.esoft@esofthub.com -P esoft.esofthub.com. des
# nisgrpadm -a admin.esofthub.com esoft.esofthub.com.

On Workstation
C shell
# setenv PATH $PATH:/usr/lib/nis
Bourne or Korn Shell
# PATH=$PATH:/usr/lib/nis; export PATH
# nisclient -i -d esofthub.com -h esoftsvr -a IPADDRESS