Very simpel thing to do:

1. open .cshrc and add:

   setenv CLICOLOR 1

2. save the file, logout and login again

You now have a colored terminal 🙂

How do put a user into a restricted bash environment? Let's say for example for using the shell access only for SSH tunneling? Here a small howto:

First you need to create a symlink called "rbash" as it does not exist on CentOS/Fedora. If bash is invoked as rbash it automatically transforms into a restricted shell

# ln -s /bin/bash /bin/rbash

now open your passwd file and change the shell to rbash and save, your line should then look like the following:

<USER>:x:<UID>:<GID>::<HOMEDIR>:/bin/rbash

Next step is to harden the bash for that previously mentioned user so that he cannot execute any commands:

open .bashrc in the user's homefolder and change the "export PATH" line:

export PATH=~

this sets the path to the home folder. Now secure the file against further changes:

chown root:<myuser> .bashrc
chmod 640 .bashrc

That's it. now test it and the logged in user should not be able to execute any commands. More information about the restricted shell can be found here.

If you want the user to execute specific commands use symlinks into his homefolder:

# ln -s /bin/ping /home/<user>/ping

This article/howto is based on this one. Thanks for your work!

iPerf is a tool for active measurements of the maximum achievable bandwidth on IP networks. It supports tuning of various parameters related to timing, buffers and protocols (TCP, UDP, SCTP with IPv4 and IPv6). For each test it reports the bandwidth, loss, and other parameters. It exists for multiple platforms, but not officially for VMware ESXi. Apparently a binary compiled for RHEL5 can still be run on any ESXi host from 4.1 to 5.5. Download and extract the file to your ESXi host and execute it. If it is not executable set the permissions accordingly.