.Desktop with command line args passed to exec (similar to shell script) - linux

I typically write a shell script like this:
#!/bin/sh
nohup /path/to/myapp -test "$#" &
I can then launch this shell script from terminal and any command line arguments I give it are passed to the shell script which are then passed to the exec line myapp. I am using Ubuntu, and the issue is with shell script the icon of the launced up is not that of the shell file. It uses the default icon of the myapp. That's why I am moving to .desktop, it makes the launched app use the icon of the .desktop file.
I have written a .desktop file per:
[Desktop Entry]
Name=My Ro
Type=Application
Comment=Web Application
Exec=/path/to/myapp -test #
Icon=/opt/giteye/icon.xpm
Name[en_US]=My Ro
I put an # sign on the exec line, but its not working as expected. It is not taking the command line arguments I give to the .desktop and its not putting it into the exec line. Can you please help me to pass the command line arguments received by the .desktop to the Exec line/

What you want -- to open desktop files from the terminal with arbitrary arguments -- is not how .desktop files are used.
Only certain variables are allowed in the arguments, essentially corresponding to desktop-like actions: files to open, and so forth. If that's what you want, you may be able to do it using codes like %f for a file, and then using the UI to drag a file onto the application, for example.
Another way to configure an application is to use Desktop Actions, which essentially are an enumerated list of ways to open an application. So if you have a well-defined set of arguments you want to use, that would work.
See the Desktop Entry specification for details on the argument codes and how desktop actions work.

Related

How to use Node.js script as TTY using Upstart

I've got a Node.js command line interface that I'd like to use by default when booting up this Linux system, which is using Upstart (RHEL).
Right now I'm trying to replace the default TTY, mingetty, with my own script, I just haven't had any luck.
I've added my own .conf script to /etc/init that runs the script, but when I override the tty.conf and the serial.conf, I get an empty shell, it never displays my script's output.
What am I missing?
The utility openvt is used for exactly this. For example, copy /etc/init/start-ttys.conf into a /etc/init/start-ttys.override as Upstart likes you to do when editing its init files, and replace the line that calls mingetty with a line that asks openvt to run your utility.

what is .bashrc - How to find the startup file - putty

I was going over this article and it states in step 3
Add the following to your .bashrc (or the appropriate startup file for your shell) To use it immediately, be sure to type “source .bashrc”
Any idea on how I could know what my startup file is ? I am using putty ?
Once you use putty to SSH into your server, you can run "ls -al .bashrc" and it should show you the file, edit this with an editor you know, if none, then use vi like this "vi .bashrc".
Go to where you need to edit the file and type in "i" to put vi in Insert mode. Next type in your text. Once you are done press the escape button and ":wq", no quotes for the i or :wq.
Next you can source it by typing "source .bashrc" and the setting you added should be part of your BASH shell environment now.
The .bashrc is a file which is called by bash before on each start of a new interactive shell. The file can be used to setup the environment, export variables, create aliases and functions and more...
There are usually multiple instances of that file. One per system and one per user to allow system wide configuration but also customization by users ( users bashrc will be sourced after the system wide bashrc and can overwrite things). I suggest to add the lines to your user's bashrc first. The file is located in your home folder. Type:
vi $HOME/.bashrc
in order to edit the file. If you aren't familiar with the vi editor you can choose an editor of your choice like nano, mcedit or even a GUI text editor, but mind that a GUI editor's file dialog may hide the file because it's name starts with a .
Once you managed to edit the file, start a new connection or simply type
source $HOME/.bashrc
in order to parse the file
A path which will work with any bash shell regardless of operating system (macOS/Linux/BSD etc.) is:
~/.bashrc
check your home directory ...because it exists in user's home directory.
check /home/username/ on your terminal if you are using RHEL or CentOS.
.bashrc and .bash_profile are bash config files (bash shell script) that bash runs(execute) whenever it is started interactively. It initializes an interactive (non-login) shell session and the config is read from these files $HOME/.bashrc
.bashrc is a standard hidden file located in your home directory.It determines the behaviour of interactive shells.
.bashrc runs on every interactive shell launch.If you say: $bash
For login shells, the config is read from these files:
/etc/profile (always sourced)
$HOME/.bash_profile (the rest of these files are checked in order until one is found,then no other are read)
$HOME/.bash_login
$HOME/.profile
For example: I added an echo to my .bashrc and .bash_profile files and whenever I called bash or bash -l command in terminal it showed me the echo.

How do I pipe the output of an LS on remote server to the local filesystem via SFTP?

I'm logged into a remote server via SFTP at the command line. The folder I'm in contains hundreds of thousands of files. I need to get a list of these files in a text file so I can access them programmatically, as none of the PHP SFTP clients are able to return such a large list of files.
When I run an ls on the directory ( within the SFTP session ), it takes about 20 minutes for the file list to finally display.
I don't have write access on this server, so I can't pipe the output to a file on the remote server.
How can I pipe the output to a text file on my local machine ... or get a list of the files to my local machine some other way?
If you're willing to wait the 20 minutes for the data to scroll across your screen you can capture all the output using "script".
Call 'script' before you start your ssh or sftp session and it will capture all terminal output to your local disk. Type 'exit' to finish the capture.
NAME
script -- make typescript of terminal session
SYNOPSIS
script [-akq] [-t time] [file [command ...]]
DESCRIPTION
The script utility makes a typescript of everything printed on your ter-
minal. It is useful for students who need a hardcopy record of an inter-
active session as proof of an assignment, as the typescript file can be
printed out later with lpr(1).
If the argument file is given, script saves all dialogue in file. If no
file name is given, the typescript is saved in the file typescript.
If the argument command is given, script will run the specified command
with an optional argument vector instead of an interactive shell.
The following options are available:
-a Append the output to file or typescript, retaining the prior con-
tents.
-k Log keys sent to program as well as output.
-q Run in quiet mode, omit the start and stop status messages.
-t time
Specify time interval between flushing script output file. A
value of 0 causes script to flush for every character I/O event.
The default interval is 30 seconds.
The script ends when the forked shell (or command) exits (a control-D to
exit the Bourne shell (sh(1)), and exit, logout or control-D (if
ignoreeof is not set) for the C-shell, csh(1)).
Certain interactive commands, such as vi(1), create garbage in the type-
script file. The script utility works best with commands that do not
manipulate the screen. The results are meant to emulate a hardcopy ter-
minal, not an addressable one.
ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variable is utilized by script:
SHELL If the variable SHELL exists, the shell forked by script will be
that shell. If SHELL is not set, the Bourne shell is assumed.
(Most shells set this variable automatically).
SEE ALSO
csh(1) (for the history mechanism).
HISTORY
The script command appeared in 3.0BSD.
BUGS
The script utility places everything in the log file, including linefeeds
and backspaces. This is not what the naive user expects.
It is not possible to specify a command without also naming the script
file because of argument parsing compatibility issues.
When running in -k mode, echo cancelling is far from ideal. The slave
terminal mode is checked for ECHO mode to check when to avoid manual echo
logging. This does not work when in a raw mode where the program being
run is doing manual echo.
Wu's answer is good if you do it remotely. Here is another option if you are logged onto the remote server and want to send the file back home to yourself:
Proper answer is here: http://scratching.psybermonkey.net/2011/02/ssh-how-to-pipe-output-from-local-to.html
your_command | ssh username#server "cat > filename.txt"
If you have ssh access, that would be very easy:
ssh user#server ls > foo.txt
Otherwise, you can just redirect sftp's STDOUT and STDERR to a file. You have to type password and commands blindly though.
In my case following worked:
ssh user#server ls /path/to/source/folder/ > /path/to/destination/folder/filenames.txt
I wrote it in Git Bash. This will first ssh then list all files of source folder and then save the file names to the destination text file.
In this way you can also save the output to json file. Just change the file extension to json instead of txt.
For appending output just put ">>" instead of ">".

Terminal window closes after double clicking executable .sh file in Fedora Linux

I have to work on a project in Fedora Linux and I have to type the following very often:
player map1.cfg &
I figured out that I can create an executable .sh file and it contains this:
#!/bin/bash
player *.cfg &
However, when double click on the runmap.sh file it shows me 'Run in Terminal', 'Display', 'Cancel', and 'Run' and when I click 'Run in Terminal' a terminal window opens and closes immediately. If I just hit 'Run' then the .cfg opens but I need the Terminal window to run additional (Java) files.
How can I fix this problem?
Other information:
I use *.cfg because I want to copy and paste the .sh files into other folders that also contain .cfg files such as map2.cfg, map3.cfg, etc.
It's for a Player/Stage project.
When you run a script from the file manager, the shell that is started isn't interactive. The shell can only read the script file.
To open an interactive shell in addition to the files, you can exec the new shell at the end of the script, and use "Run in Terminal":
#!/bin/bash
player *.cfg &
exec /bin/bash
Well let's look at it this way.
When you run the command in a terminal, the command starts as a child process and is then sent to the background. Once the command finishes it terminates. During the time it is running in the background you can still issue commands because your parent process is the terminal window itself.
When you write a script that issues a command to run in the background it is started, spawns the command as a child to it and then closes because the script has finished.
These are a behavior of the OS and something that really shouldn't change. Essentially what you are therefore asking for is a way for it to run the command quickly for yourself yet still leave a command terminal for you to work with?
1) Why is typing the command such a hassle? Bash and other terminals have a history function for this very reason.
2) Why don't you just call the mini script you wrote from a terminal window whenever you need to call the commands. If you put the script in a folder on your $PATH variable it will be available to you in the terminal at any location.

How to get a filename in a bash script without the keyboard

I want to write a script for linux, that will first copy a movie/series file to cache with something like:
cat /filepath/filename > /dev/null
and than open the same file in vlc.
The problem is getting the file name and path in to the script. I would like to simply double click a file, or somehow make this a faster process than typing this manually (especially because the file names of some series are just inconsistent and hard to type, even with auto-complete).
This is useful for watching movies or series on a laptop/netbook, since it allows the disk to spin down.
You should be able to create your own 'program' in a bash script which takes its first argument to be the filename using the convention "$1".
The bash script should look something like the below. I tested it, storing the script in the file cachedvlc.sh. The inverted commas helping to handle whitespace and weird characters...
#!/bin/bash
cat "$1" > /dev/null
vlc "$1"
...and will need to be made executable by changing its permissions through the file manager or running this in the terminal...
chmod u+x cachedvlc.sh
Then within your operating system, associate your bash script with the type of file you want to launch. For example on Ubuntu, you could add your script and call it 'Cached VLC' to the Menu using the 'Main Menu' application, then right-click on the file in Nautilus and choose 'Open with' to select your bash script.
After this, double-clicking or right-clicking on a file within your filemanager should be good enough to launch a cached view. This assumes what you say about caching is in fact correct, which I can't easily check.

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