Rename & Combine Audio Book files into one audio book.

I like to listen to audio books and I get them them from places such as Audible, books on CD, the library or LibriVox. The issue is that all these places present the files to you in different ways. You can get one big file or a lot of small files. They all use different naming conventions which can make organizing your books difficult. To play my audio books I use the iBooks app from Apple and the Audible app form Audible, on my iPod Touch. Apples iBooks app works well but is missing some features that the Audible app has such as the bookmarking feature. The Audible app is really bad at playing books that are broken up into several files. The app will play the files out of order or show each file as a separate book.

So to fix the issues described above I recommend that you rename and/or combine all the files from one book into one file. Below I show the BASH script I wrote to fix this issue. I wrote and tested this script on a Mac. This script will also work on Linux and UNIX operating systems. After the files are combined the finder didn't show the right length for the audio book but when I imported the file into iTunes everything displayed right and the file worked fine.

The script below shows how to combine several MP3 files into one file. I put a comment after each command explaining what it is doing. If you have any questions about the script below ask it in the the comment section below.

script-book

Put contents of files here

#!/bin/bash
# This script was created on 20170216
# This script was created to combine MP3 files form audio books into one file.
# usage ./script-book bookname
#
if [ -z "$1" ]
  then
    echo -e "Please rerun the script with desired file name at the end \n 
              Example: ./script-book bookname"
    exit 1
fi

# The if statement checks for $1 variable. 

# If no variable is present then the gives error message and exits 

for s in $(ls |grep .mp3|egrep -v '(png|jpg)'|awk '{print $NF}')
# egrep removes pictures
# $NF gives the last column in the file name. This removes the spaces in the name.
do mv *$s $1$s
# This renames the files
cat *$s >> $1.mp3
# Cat combines the files
rm *$s
# Removes old files
done
ls -lh

In order to make the script work, copy it into the same directory the audio books files are located in. In the example below the script is called script-book and the ls command shows the script in the same directory as the audio book files.

man@earth> ls
The Hot Gate 001.mp3    The Hot Gate 021.mp3    The Hot Gate 041.mp3
The Hot Gate 002.mp3    The Hot Gate 022.mp3    The Hot Gate 042.mp3
The Hot Gate 003.mp3    The Hot Gate 023.mp3    The Hot Gate 043.mp3
The Hot Gate 004.mp3    The Hot Gate 024.mp3    The Hot Gate 044.mp3
The Hot Gate 005.mp3    The Hot Gate 025.mp3    The Hot Gate 045.mp3
The Hot Gate 006.mp3    The Hot Gate 026.mp3    The Hot Gate 046.mp3
The Hot Gate 007.mp3    The Hot Gate 027.mp3    The Hot Gate 047.mp3
The Hot Gate 008.mp3    The Hot Gate 028.mp3    The Hot Gate 048.mp3
The Hot Gate 009.mp3    The Hot Gate 029.mp3    The Hot Gate 049.mp3
The Hot Gate 010.mp3    The Hot Gate 030.mp3    The Hot Gate 050.mp3
The Hot Gate 011.mp3    The Hot Gate 031.mp3    The Hot Gate 051.mp3
The Hot Gate 012.mp3    The Hot Gate 032.mp3    The Hot Gate 052.mp3
The Hot Gate 013.mp3    The Hot Gate 033.mp3    The Hot Gate 053.mp3
The Hot Gate 014.mp3    The Hot Gate 034.mp3    The Hot Gate 054.mp3
The Hot Gate 015.mp3    The Hot Gate 035.mp3    The Hot Gate 055.mp3
The Hot Gate 016.mp3    The Hot Gate 036.mp3    The Hot Gate 056.mp3
The Hot Gate 017.mp3    The Hot Gate 037.mp3    The Hot Gate 057.mp3
The Hot Gate 018.mp3    The Hot Gate 038.mp3    The Hot Gate 058.mp3
The Hot Gate 019.mp3    The Hot Gate 039.mp3    The Hot Gate 059.mp3
The Hot Gate 020.mp3    The Hot Gate 040.mp3    script-book

Note- Make sure the script is executable before you run the command as shown below. Alternately you can also run the script by bash before the command if you don't know how to make the script executable. Example: bash ./script-book bookname

In the example below the I show how to execute the script and show example output. This shows that the script combined the files listed above and named the file TheHotGate and removed all the old unneeded files.

man@earth> ./script-book TheHotGate
total 447744
-rw-r--r--  1  arich   staff    219M  Feb 20 11:34    TheHotGate.mp3
-rw-r--r--  1  arich   staff    624B   Feb 20 11:33    script-book

I hope this helps anyone who is having a similar issue.


Links to places to get audio books.

LibriVox

             Audible

Using SCP on Windows Command Prompt

In this post, I show how to move files between a Windows machine and a UNIX machine, using the command line. When I say a UNIX machine, I mean all UNIX based operating systems such as UNIX, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS. In this post I will be using the free PuTTY utility called PSCP.

As you know SSH is not supported in Windows, you will need to download a 3rd party program.
The People who make PuTTY, which gives SSH terminal emulation on Windows machines, has a program called PSCP. PSCP gives you the ability to use SCP or SFTP form the Windows command prompt.

You could use a GUI program that lets you SCP or SFTP the files. The issue with this approach is that an application with a GUI has limitations. If you use a command line tool, like PSCP, to move the files then you can also put it in a script. A script that can be used by the Windows Task manager or the UNIX crontab. PSCP is free and doesn't need to be installed.

Download pscp from  PuTTY download page.

After you download PSCP move it to your My  Documents folder. As the program doesn't need to be installed, It is ready to use as soon as you download it. All you need to do, to use PSCP is follow the examples below.

Run the command as shown below to move files from the Windows machine to a UNIX machine

Command Prompt

C:\> pscp.exe files man@earth:/path

Run the command as shown below to move files form a UNIX machine to a Windows machine.

Command Prompt

C:\> pscp.exe man@earth:/path/files  C:/path/

In the example above, man is the user name and earth is the name of the UNIX server. The user name can be left off if the user account in Windows have the same name as the user account on the UNIX server. I would highly recommend that you use the same user name on both systems.

Some options
If you want to force the use of ether SCP or SFTP add -scp or -sftp right after pscp.exe. If you want to use a SSH agent to manage you SSH Keys add the -agent option. I will go more into how to use SSH Key with PSCP in a future post.

Draw Back
In the method I shown here, you must start the SCP or SFTP session from the Windows machine. The Windows machine can't accept incoming requests, because there is no SSH sever running on the the Windows machine.

References
PuTTY documention

My BASH profile

These are notes on how I like to have my command prompt set up. I'm a BASH user so I will be updating the .profile and the .bashrc files. Both files are located in the users home directory.


This what my prompt looks like. It is a two line prompt, I find that it helps break up the commands from the output. The second line also gives more room for long commands and helps prevent the line from wrapping over top of the prompt.

earth:~

man@earth
< 

The basic bash prompt don't look all the great, as seen below. To get it look like the example above run the command below.

bash

bash$

export PS1="\[\e]2;\h:\w \a\[\e[0;31m\]\u\[\e[0m\]@\e[0;32m\h\e[0;34m\]\n<\[\e[0m\] "

Below I have posted my .profile file.

earth:~

man@earth
< more .profile

PATH=/usr/xpg4/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/openwin/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/ucb:/etc:/usr/X11/bin:/sbin:/usr/openv/netbackup:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/admincmd:/usr/openv/netbackup/bin/goodies:/usr/openv/volmgr/bin:/usr/sfw/bin/:$HOME

MANPATH=/usr/share/man:/usr/dt/man:/usr/openwin/share/man:/usr/X11/man:/usr/man:/usr/sfw/man:/usr/local/man:

EDITOR=/usr/bin/vi
TMOUT=0
TIMEOUT=0

#alias xterm="xterm -sl 1000 &"
#export PS1="\[\e]2;\h:\w \a\[\e[0;31m\]\u@\e[0;32m\h\e[0;34m\]>\[\e[0m\] "
export PS1="\[\e]2;\h:\w \a\[\e[0;31m\]\u\[\e[0m\]@\e[0;32m\h\e[0;34m\]\n<\[\e[0m\] "

The PATH statement is used to store the paths of the commands you want to use. This way you don't need to provide the full path for each command you want to run. The MANPATH statement is basically the same thing, but used to help you access the man pages.

Get the OpenSSL version

I often have to check which versions of applications we have installed our servers. Below I have post the method of checking the version of OpenSSL installed on a server. The command below should work with any UNIX based operating system. I might even work on Windows.

man@earth> openssl version -a

To find the non system or embedded versions you will have to run the find command. Shown below.

root@earth> find / -name openssl -type f 2>/dev/null

I hope this helps someone

How to setup SSH Keys

Note - I have a newer version of this how-to. Please click here 

This is a guide on setting up SSH Keys for a UNIX based account. What are SSH keys you ask? They are means of identifying yourself to an SSH server using public-key cryptography and challenge-response authentication. SSH Keys are considered more secure than using passwords to access systems, because user accounts are authenticated by the server without ever having to send your password over the network. If the passwords are not transmitted then they can't be intercepted.
This guide is not for installing or setting up a SSH server. You must have SSH running on your servers in order to get your SSH keys to work. All the examples are take from a Solaris 10 (SPARC) server. This guide should as work on any UNIX based operating system like Linux, BSD and the Mac.

Create you key pair
The ssh-keygen command will generate a public and private keypair. The keys will be stored at ~/.ssh.The basic command looks like this: ssh-keygen -t [dsa|rsa]  The -t sets the type of keys used. In the example below I create a rsa key pair.

man@earth> ssh-keygen -t rsa
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/man/.ssh/id_rsa): Press [Enter] key
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/man/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/man/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:dfhjodfnk
04:be:15:ca:1d:0a:1e:e2:a7:e5:de:98:4f:b1:a6:01

Make sure you don't use a blank passphrase. Doing this is very insecure. Having a blank passphrase defeats the purpose of having having the extra security of a key exchange setup. It is also import to never give out your private key, which also compromises security of your account.

Copy public key
Copy you public key to the authorized_keys file on the remote server.

man@earth> scp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub moon:~/.ssh/authorized_keys

If your home directory automounts across a lot of servers. You can copy it over with the cat command.

man@earth> cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Setup Agent
At this point, when you login you get prompted for a passphase. To stop this from happening you need to setup a SSH agent. Run the command below and type in your passphare when prompted.

man@earth> eval `ssh-agent`
man@earth> ssh-add
Enter passphrase for /home/man/.ssh/id_rsa:
Identity added: /home/vivek/.ssh/id_dsa (/home/man/.ssh/id_rsa)

There are other ways to set up the agent such as using the gnome GUI for example. Unfortunately that only works if your running a gnome desktop. If your a VNC user, you should start your VNC server session after starting your agent in the same terminal. This way all your terminals launched in your VNC session, will use the same agent.

One issue with agents is that sometimes you end up running a lot of agents. Run the command below and kill any agents that you are not using, as a good practice.

man@earth> ps -ef | grep agent

References
g-loaded.eu
Symantec: SSH and ssh-agent

If you have any questions or comments please post below.

Getting NetBackup 7.5 files for install

We just upgraded our NetBackup from 7.1 to 7.5. These are my notes on upgrading our UNIX and Linux clients.

Go to https://fileconnect.symantec.com and download the required files. You will need to enter a serial number to get access to the files. As seen to the right.

After you download the files you will have to join them together before you can do a install.


Unix joining instructions:
cat "NB_CLT_7.5.0.4-tar-split.1of3" "NB_CLT_7.5.0.4-tar-split.2of3" "NB_CLT_7.5.0.4-tar-split.3of3" > "NB_CLT_7.5.0.4.tar"

now you are ready to begin the install.

Bash Shortcut keys

I found this little reference chart on the short cut keys in BASH. These short cut keys allow for command line editing. I for example use Ctrl + A all the time to edit the line.

Ctrl + A	Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + E	Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on
Ctrl + L	Clears the Screen, similar to the clear command
Ctrl + U	Clears the line before the cursor position. If you are at the end of the line, clears the entire line.
Ctrl + H	Same as backspace
Ctrl + R	Let’s you search through previously used commands
Ctrl + C	Kill whatever you are running
Ctrl + D	Exit the current shell
Ctrl + Z	Puts whatever you are running into a suspended background process. fg restores it.
Ctrl + W	Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl + K	Clear the line after the cursor
Ctrl + X	Then Backspace clear the line before the cursor
Ctrl + T	Swap the last two characters before the cursor
Esc + L	Changes to upper case
Esc + U	Changes to lower case
Esc + T	Swap the last two words before the cursor
Alt + F	Move cursor forward one word on the current line
Alt + B	Move cursor backward one word on the current line
Tab	Auto-complete files and folder names

Referance:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/keyboard-shortcuts-for-bash-command-shell-for-ubuntu-debian-suse-redhat-linux-etc/
I found this chart at the link above.

How to use VNC to view a remote system

VNC is a free 3rd party program that allows a remote login, similar to Remote Desktop in Windows or Daemonware. One nice thing about VNC, is that it's multi-platform. It works on Windows, UNIX, BSD, Linux and MAC. The down side to using VNC is that it's insecure, but you can wrap it in a SSH tunnel. Most of my experience with VNC is on Solaris and Red Hat. Most of the examples below are from a Solaris server.


To see if any VNC sessions is running on your server run the command below. # ps -ef|grep vnc
If you have a session running it will look like this. rich 15137 14170  0 Nov 24 ?    0:00  vncconfig -iconic
rich  538  8833   0 Nov 24 ?    7:34  Xvnc :1 -desktop server:1 (rich) -auth /home/rich/.Xauthority -geometry 1900
To start a basic VNC server session just type vncserver. # vncserver After you run this command you will get a session ID number. For example the first user of VNC server will get session number 1. When you connect to the session from a remote computer you use the hostname:1.

You will also need to set the VNC password to connect the session. # vncpasswd This sets the password for your account.

If you want more options, check the these popular options below. For screen size use -geometry widthxhight. If the computer you are connecting from doesn't have VNC Viewer installed then, you can use the -httpd option to connect using a web browser.  # vncserver :3 -geometry 800x600 -http

VNC is installed on MACs and you can turn on the VNC server by going to System Preferences -->  Sharing. Select Remote Management and then click Computer settings. In the drop down select VNC viewers may control screen with password. Then put in desired password in box.

The xstartup file controls the desktop you get. Uncomment lines 4 & 5 to get a gnome desktop.

Sometimes you need to shutdown the VNC session your using. # vncserver -kill :#Replace # with the session number VNC gave you.

Now that you have started the VNC server you will want to connect to use it. From a UNIX or Linux  you run the following command. vncviewer hostname:1 # vncviewer server1:1
If you are using VNC from a Windows PC, then there is a VNC viewer application.


Warning: If you auto-mount your home directory. Beware that different operating systems have different setting in the xstartup file. All VNC sessions use the same xstartup file, so changes made by you or the VNC program will effect the VNC experience. I ran into an issue when I tried to use the gnome desktop on both a RHEL & Solaris 10 servers. When I got the gnome desktop working for RHEL the gnome desktop was unusable with Solaris 10. The best way to get around this is to use different accounts or different windowing programs on different operating systems.

Important VNC files
$HOME/.vnc/xstartup -- The file that controls them all. This is the main config file used for the session on VNC server.

$HOME/.vnc/passwd -- The VNC password file

$HOME/.vnc/host:display#.log -- The log file for Xvnc and applications started in xstartup

$HOME/.vnc/host:display#.pid -- Identifies the Xvnc process ID, used by the -kill option.

Package list for Solaris 10
SUNWxvnc                VNC Server
SUNWvncviewer       VNC Viewer