Passwordless ssh

It becomes a hassle hopping between servers with ssh if you have to type the password each time. To enable passwordless ssh go:

> ssh-keygen -t dsa (ENTER to skip password)
> scp ~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub user@other_server

And on the other server:
> cat ~/id_dsa.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
> rm ~/id_dsa.pub

Now you can hop between servers without a password. I only do this for servers that I can afford to be compromised.

Extracting tar balls

I always forget the flags:

tar -xvvf file.tar
tar -xvvzf file.tar.gz
tar -zxvf file.tgz
tar xjvf file.tar.bz2

Moving and svn repository

To move an svn repository first dump it to a file with:

> svnadmin dump /path/to/repository > svn.dump

Now to create the new repository go:

> svnadmin create new_repository_name
> svnadmin load new_repository_name < svn.dump

Mediawiki upload settings

By default the Mediawiki upload settings are too restrictive because they deny most filetypes. And changing the file extension is not enough because Mediawiki also checks the mime type. As a quick and dirty to allow what you want open LocalSettings.php and add:

$wgStrictFileExtensions = false;
$wgCheckFileExtensions = false;
$wgVerifyMimeType = false;

Mediawiki printing

By default mediawiki includes header and footer information, which looks unprofessional when printing. To disable this open up skins/common/commonPrint.css and add:

#footer {
display: none;
}
.printfooter {
display: none;
}
#bodyContent {
font-family: courier;
}

Mediawiki sidebar

To change the Mediawiki sidebar login as sysop and edit the page 'MediaWiki:Sidebar'. Note that the default sysop login name is WikiSysop.

Mediawiki refresh

To force Mediawiki to refresh anything it has cached just update LocalSettings.php:

> touch /var/lib/mediawiki/LocalSettings.php