How to open your browser from bash on Windows (WSL), GNU/Linux, macOS and Solaris

Sometimes it can be useful to open a browser from your bash. I have developed a bash function that does exactly that - and since I am a fan of multiple operating systems - the function works not only on GNU/Linux, macOS, and Solaris but also on the bash on Windows as part of the WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

function openBrowser() {

  URL=$1

  OS=$(uname -s)

  case "$OS" in

      Darwin)

          open "$URL"

          ;;

      Linux)

          if [[ "$(cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease)" =~ "Microsoft" ]]; then

              # We are in bash on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

              # We don't need a Linux-Browser and an X-Server,

              # we just can call iexplore.exe,

              # see also https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/interop

              if [[ "(uname -p)" == "x86_64" ]]; then

                  /mnt/c/Program\ Files/Internet\ Explorer/iexplore.exe "$URL" 2> /dev/null

              else

                  /mnt/c/Program\ Files\ \(x86\)/Internet\ Explorer/iexplore.exe "$URL" 2> /dev/null

              fi

          else

              xdg-open "$URL"

          fi

          ;;

      Solaris)

          /usr/dt/bin/sdtwebclient "$URL"

          ;;

      *)

          printf "Not supported on %s\n" "$OS"

          ;;

  esac

}

To use the function in your bash-script, simply source the file that contains the function - I called the file network.include. You find the file as well at the repository of my tiny project called bashberries - that is a tiny collection of both bash scripts and bash includes, released under the terms of the Apache 2.0 license. The script below calls the function from above and opens the homepage to bashberries:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

. ./network.include

openBrowser https://github.com/jonelo/bash-dwarfs

Best regards,

Johann

Update Oct 23, 2017:
uname -r is not reliable enough, it does not work on the wls beta with Ubuntu 14.04 for example, better is to do a cat /proc/sys/kernel/osrelease

Update Oct 23, 2017:
bash-dwarfs has been renamed to bashberries.

Solaris' pargs, penv, pfiles, pmap, pstack, and pwdx on macOS

Three weeks ago I posted Solaris' pargs, penv, pfiles, pmap, and pstack on GNU/Linux and since I am also a Mac user, I thought it could be a good idea to have those commands also on macOS. Here we go ...

function pargs()  { L=$(ps ww $1 | tail -1); echo ${L:27}; }

function penv()   { L=$(pargs $1); C=${#L}; L=$(ps wwe $1 | tail -1); L=${L:27}; echo ${L:$C} | tr ' ' '\n'; }

function pfiles() { lsof -p $1; }

function pmap()   { vmmap $1; }

function pstack() { echo "thread backtrace all" | lldb -p $1; }

function pwdx()   { L=$(lsof -a  -d cwd -p $1 | tail -1); echo /${L#*/}; }

Since there is no access to a proc file system on macOS (at least not by default), both pargs and penv call the ps command and pmap calls vmmap. Furthermore pwdx calls lsof with the current working directory descriptor request in order to get the required info. Since "ps wwe" returns not only the environment variables for the given process but also the program arguments on macOS, we need to strip the program arguments from the output. This has been done by calling pargs, determining the length of that output and cutting that length from the string again before we pass it to the tr command that gives us an environment variable for each line. For blog purposes I have shortened the variable names, L stands for line and C for count.

References:
http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/syntax/pe
http://yongsun.me/2009/01/tips-the-equivalents-of-ldd1-and-pmap1-on-mac-os-x/

Solaris' pargs, penv, pfiles, pmap, and pstack on GNU/Linux

I really like the p-commands on Sun/Oracle Solaris and I miss those on GNU/Linux. Therefore I have gathered/created rudimental equivalent one-liners that work on a PID.

I have added the following functions to my ~/.bash_aliases file that is being sourced by my ~/.bashrc. pargs, penv, and pmap are gathering the proc file system, while pfiles and pstack are calling lsof resp. gdb.

function pargs() { cat /proc/$1/cmdline | tr '\0' ' ' | sed 's/ $/\n/g'; }
function penv() { cat /proc/$1/environ | tr '\0' '\n'; }
function pfiles() { lsof -p $1; }
function pmap() { cat /proc/$1/maps; }
function pstack() { sudo gdb --pid=$1 --batch -ex "thread apply all bt"; }

Note that due to a kernel hardening (ptrace protection) on Ubuntu 10.10 and later you need to call gdb under the control of sudo, or alternatively modify the ptrace_scope property. See also https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/Roadmap/KernelHardening#ptrace_Protection and https://askubuntu.com/questions/41629/after-upgrade-gdb-wont-attach-to-process