I stumbled across pv the other day and found it interesting. It is not so much a utility as eye-candy, but useful non-the-less.

from the man page: pv allows a user to see the progress of data through a pipeline, by giving information such as time elapsed, percentage completed (with progress bar), current throughput rate, total data transferred, and ETA.

First, install pv with what ever package manager you use.

• # cd /usr/ports/sysutils/pv && make install clean
• # apt-get install pv
• # yum install pv

Using pv is analogous to using cat, only with a progress bar and some extra goodies!

1. # pv file.iso | dd of=/dev/cd0 bs=64k

1. (server)
2. # pv file.iso > nc -l 4444
3. (client)
4. # nc host 444 > file.iso

NanoBSD is an awesome set of scripts contained in the FreeBSD source tree that enables you to easily prepare and install a custom FreeBSD system for an embedded device. It is also highly optimized for Compact Flash media, providing a Read-Only file system and memory disks for the heavily written mount points, namely /etc and /var, to protect against wear-leveling.

I have provided a number of config files for a NanoBSD system that provides various services to get you started on an overlay of custom files that are geared towards making an AP (access point) out of an ALIX2C2 board from http://pcengines.ch (purchased at NetGate [US]), although these files require minor tweaks if you are using another ALIX board or even completely different hardware (mainly just network device names!).

1. # mkdir /mnt/nanobsd
2. # mount /dev/da0s1a /mnt/nanobsd
3. # mkdir /mnt/nanobsd/usr/ports
4. # mount -t nullfs /usr/ports /mnt/nanobsd/usr/ports
5. # mount /dev/da0s3 /mnt/nanobsd/cfg
6. # chroot /mnt/nanobsd

1. # cd /usr/ports/foo/bar
2. # make install clean
3. # mkdir /cfg/local
4. # cp -R /usr/local/etc/* /cfg/local

1. # exit
2. # umount /mnt/nanobsd/usr/ports
3. # umount /mnt/nanobsd/cfg
4. # umount /mnt/nanobsd