Raspberry Pi Forums

Posted: **Thu May 01, 2014 1:15 pm**

Since not everyone is familiar with the Linux commandline, SSH, SCP, rsync, UFW, etc.. I made some scripts that might make things a bit easier. At least it will take away the need to remember lot's of commands and their syntax when doing basic management tasks from a remote computer.

Since I think it's useful for anyone that owns a Pi to know the basics of executing commands in a terminal this script has no GUI. This way it can be used on any PC that includes the bash shell and an ssh client program, it should even work from Windows if you edit the filesystem path's and names of the bash and ssh executables in the script.

Features:
[Picmd Version 0.0.1]

Usage:
picmd [action] [arguments]

Actions: Arguments:

configure : Create new config file
add-key : Upload public ssh key to Pi

connect : Open a remote BASH shell
execute - Any command
execute-x11 - gui-program (forward remote X11 apps to local xorg)

reboot
poweroff

list-shares : List remote shares
sshmount - /remote/directory /local/mount/point
root-sshmount - /remote/directory /local/mount/point
unmount - /local/mount/point

service - service-name [start|stop|restart|status]
- list (lists all available services)
autostart - service-name [enable|disable]
firewall - port/type [allow|deny]
- [enable|disable|status]

upload - local/file /remote/directory
download - /remote/file /local/directory

update : Update server apt sources
upgrade : Perform update and do dist-upgrade
install - app-1 app-2 app-ect
uninstall - app-1 app-2 app-ect
apt-search - app-name
clean : clean apt cache + autoremove orphaned packages

mplay - /remote/path/to/music/dir/or/file.mp3
mplaylist - /remote/path/to/playlist.txt

help : Display this help text

Examples:

Start a Bash shell on the Pi:

Code: Select all

picmd connect

Execute "ls /var/www/html/" on the Pi:

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picmd execute ls /var/www/html/

Mount and unmount your Pis music folder on your workstation:

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picmd sshmount /media/music /home/username/Music/ 
picmd unmount /home/username/Music/

Install/Remove/Update/Search Software:

Code: Select all

picmd install package-name otherPackage stuff 
picmd uninstall package-name 
picmd upgrade 
picmd apt-search firefox

Upload/Download files to/from the Pi:

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picmd upload /home/username/nice-image.png /var/www/html/my-site/ 
picmd download /var/www/html/my-site/index.html /home/username/Workspace/my-site/

Real world examples:

Install the NginX webserver, enable it to start at system boot and allow firewall traffic on TCP port 80:

Code: Select all

picmd upgrade
picmd install apache2
picmd autostart apache2 enable
picmd firewall 80/tcp allow
picmd firewall 22/tcp allow
picmd firewall enable

List available devices on the Pi, mount a device via sshfs and dismount it when done:

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mkdir pi-mount
picmd list-shares
picmd sshmount /media/myusbdisk pi-mount/
# Open the pi-mount folder in your file manager
picmd unmount pi-mount/

So, that's how things work.... Now if you like to try it:

Install:

Use GIT to clone the scripts to your PC or download a zip archive.:

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git clone https://github.com/socialdefect/picmd.git

Change to the picmd directory (extract the zip first if you didn't use GIT):

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cd picmd

Execute the script in the downloaded directory:

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./picmd

The first time you execute it you'll be asked for your username (defaults to root), the Pi's IP address and ssh port (22) to configure the scripts. If you need to run this wizard again just execute: picmd configure

To be able to run the script from any directory you need to copy it in your executable PATH:

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sudo cp picmd /usr/local/bin/

Set-up public key authentication for ssh (if you already have an ssh keyring skip the ssh-keygen step):

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ssh-keygen
# Press [Enter] twice to create a key pair with empty password
picmd add-key

If you like to use the mplaylist scripts you need to copy these to an executable dir on your Pi. You can use picmd to do this:

Code: Select all

picmd upload *mplaylist /usr/local/bin/
picmd install mplayer

Raspberry Pi Forums

piCMD: Simplified remote pi management

piCMD: Simplified remote pi management