How to Find Out What Version of Linux You Are Running
---------- On Red Hat Linux ----------
$ cat /etc/redhat-release
---------- On CentOS Linux ----------
$ cat /etc/centos-release
---------- On Fedora Linux ----------
$ cat /etc/fedora-release
---------- On Debian Linux ----------
$ cat /etc/debian_version
---------- On Ubuntu and Linux Mint ----------
$ cat /etc/lsb-release
---------- On Gentoo Linux ----------
$ cat /etc/gentoo-release
---------- On SuSE Linux ----------
$ cat /etc/SuSE-release
AS you can see this various depending on on which form of the original Linux Operating System so I usually end up searching for this as it is not something that I use day to day in my professional or work life. I hope it makes somees’s day that much easier. 🙂
If you use the popular Homebrew package manager on MacOS you are very familar with running something similar to this command on a regular basis.
brew update && brew upgrade && brew cleanup
this type of command informs Homebrew to update it’s list of package versions, locate any that need to be updated, and clean up any left over files generated by there processes. If you remember to run this all the time then it is a pretty quick command, but if like me, you forget to do this for weeks or months at a time it can start to take quite some time to finish it’s maintenance.
Yesterday, I was looking into ways to automate this process through adding the command to Cron or to have Cron run a shell script or apple script file with the commands in it. After some quick searching on my search engine of choice, Kagi, I found a great Github project called Homebrew Autoupdate.
The project describes itself thusly.
An easy, convenient way to automatically update Homebrew.
This script will run brew update in the background once every 24 hours (by default) until explicitly told to stop, utilising launchd.
brew upgrade and brew cleanup can also be handled automatically, but are optional flags.
Notifications are enabled by default using a new, code-signed, universal AppleScript applet.
https://github.com/DomT4/homebrew-autoupdate
If you decide to install this project every morning you can look forward to notifications like this.
Do you already use this project? If you tried it, what did you think? Hit me up on Mastodon or my Contact page so we can discuss it or you can ask me any questions you might have.
I can’t believe I’ve been struggling with apps in the Task Manager randomly moving around without realizing there’s a simple keyboard shortcut to pause the Task Manager and stop its contents in their tracks. Yup, all you have to do is hold down the CTRL key and it will pause the Task Manager on both Windows 10 and Windows 11, and perhaps even older versions of Windows, too.
This tip only applies to Windows 10 and 11 and I wish I had known this years ago! At any rate as you can see in the original article at your leisure and I hope it helps out others out there in this wide world.
This is a really weird edge case that I came across at work. After an update to Windows subsystem for Linux (WSL) I was no longer able to use my Cisco AnyConnect VPN connection to connect to any of the infrastructure I manage.
WSL (112) ERROR: CreateProcessParseCommon:782: Failed to translate
Currently, the only method that I have to use a WSL Virtual Machine (VM) is to use this great third party script so that my VM knows how to actually use a network. I do with Microsoft had an easier way to do this, WSL has no network connectivity once connected to a VPN. 🤦🏻♂️
At any rate, all of these weird tech issues aside with how I choose to SSH into the systems I manage at work, this is how you correct the error WSL (112) ERROR: CreateProcessParseCommon:782: Failed to translate when attempting to use a WSL VM on a VPN Connection. You will need to edit the .profile folder in your home directory (/home/your_userneame_here) and add the following line to the end of the file.
wsl.exe -d wsl-vpnkit --cd /app service wsl-vpnkit start
To apply the fix, power cycle your WSL VM with your method of choice. I hope this helps and same you time having to search all over the Internet or watch a Youtube “tutorial” what wastes your time. If you have any questions, etc. hit me up via one of the methods on my contact page. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
As you may or may not know the way most people determine what version of MAcOS they are running is by clicking on the Apple Menu in the upper left hand corner of the screen and selecting About this Mac. You will see a popup dialog that looks something like this.
I am using MacOS’ Dark Mode so you might not see this exact window.
If you would like a geekier and possibly faster way to determine this you can launch Terminal by either using Spotlight Search (Click the magnifying class (🔍) in your Mac’s Menu Bar or use the hand keyboard shortcut of ⌘(Command)+Space. Once the appliation finsihes launching you will see a window that looks something like this:
I have gone a little nuts with customizing my terminal experience so your will most likely look totally different. 🙂
There are two commands you can now run that will display your MacOS version:
#Simple Output:
gatewayy@Swordfish-II ~ sw_vers -productVersion
15.0
#More detailed Output:
gatewayy@Swordfish-II ~ system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:
System Software Overview:
System Version: macOS 15.0 (24A5264n)
Kernel Version: Darwin 24.0.0
Boot Volume: Macintosh HD
Boot Mode: Normal
Computer Name: Swordfish II
User Name: Brett Elliff (gatewayy)
Secure Virtual Memory: Enabled
System Integrity Protection: Enabled
Time since boot: 1 day, 17 hours, 29 minutes
I keep having to search for this, so I thought I might as well put this down so others can benefit from the knowledge. If you have any questions, thoughts, etc. you can reach me via my Contact page or feel free to DM me on Mastodon.
In my day job I recently came across a much easier was to deal with file and/or directory permissions on Linux based systems. Typically, to determine the permissions of a file or directory you would use the ls command with various potions appended to the end of the command and to change the same file or directory’s permissions you would use the chmod command. As I recently discovered the chmod is also able to clone or copy permissions as well as manually set them.
To lustrate what I ma talking about let’s create a hypothetically example where we have two files with the following permissions.
I had a little bit of an issue finding this but stubbled across this site that provided me with the syntax and examples. Although, I am making this entry mainly for myself but I also hoping that this post will make another Sys. Admin. Job easier. Uf you have any questions, comments, etc. please feel free to contact me on my Contact page or on Twitter.
