The sys admin's daily grind: Snoopy
Guide Dog
Sometimes sys admin Charly needs to know when exactly he did something ingenious on one of his servers. Finding an infallible memory aid is difficult, you might think. "Peanuts!" says Charly.
At work, I'm sometimes plagued by annoying gaps in my memory: What exactly was the name of that neat tool that I used to flash the LEDs on a specific network adapter to help me find the NIC in the rack? Or: How exactly did I delete all files that were more than a week old in a directory? The answer to all of these questions is in the Bash history, but Murphy's Law dictates that the history is always a little bit too short. And, in my case, there's another degree of uncertainty: Which server did I do this on?
Snoopy potentially offers a solution. The small library with the dog's name, wraps around execve() and always wakes up when the computer runs a command. Many distributions have Snoopy in the pen, but if not, GitHub [1] will help you out. To enable Snoopy at boot time, you need an entry in /etc/ld.so.preload. I added the following line: /<path>/snoopy.so. The path is typically lib. If you are building Snoopy yourself, the library is likely to be found in /usr/local/lib/ or something similar.
Building Snoopy yourself does offer some benefits. For example, you can edit the snoopy.h header file in the source up front. If you enter
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Kali Linux Waxes Nostalgic with BackTrack Mode
For those who've used Kali Linux since its inception, the changes with the new release are sure to put a smile on your face.
-
Gnome 50 Smooths Out NVIDIA GPU Issues
Gamers rejoice, your favorite pastime just got better with Gnome 50 and NVIDIA GPUs.
-
System76 Retools Thelio Desktop
The new Thelio Mira has landed with improved performance, repairability, and front-facing ports alongside a high-quality tempered glass facade.
-
Some Linux Distros Skirt Age Verification Laws
After California introduced an age verification law recently, open source operating system developers have had to get creative with how they deal with it.
-
UN Creates Open Source Portal
In a quest to strengthen open source collaboration, the United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology has created a new portal.
-
Latest Linux Kernel RC Contains Changes Galore
Linux kernel 7.0-rc3 includes more changes than have been made in a single release in recent history.
-
Nitrux 6.0 Now Ready to Rock Your World
The latest iteration of the Debian-based distribution includes all kinds of newness.
-
Linux Foundation Reports that Open Source Delivers Better ROI
In a report that may surprise no one in the Linux community, the Linux Foundation found that businesses are finding a 5X return on investment with open source software.
-
Keep Android Open
Google has announced that, soon, anyone looking to develop Android apps will have to first register centrally with Google.
-
Kernel 7.0 Now in Testing
Linus Torvalds has announced the first Release Candidate (RC) for the 7.x kernel is available for those who want to test it.