note 0.4.2 by Thomas Linden, 23/01/2000 Introduction ============ This is a small console program written in perl, which allows you to manage notes similar to programs like "knotes" from commandline. This version is completely rewritten and it is able to display colored output. You can add, edit, list and delete as many notes as you want. You can run note from the commandline or interactive from within your console. There are now two version of note in one package: o (binary) the binary version resists in the subdirectory "binary-db". It uses a binary file for data storage. The format of this file will be described later on. o (mysql) the mysql version resists in the subdirectory mysql-db. It uses a mysql database as backend. There are some special installation steps required in order to run the mysql version which are documented in the README within this subdirectory. Requirements ============ You need the following things: o perl installed (5.004x) o The module IO::Seekable, which should be already installed with your perl distributuion. o Mysql.pm if you want to use the mysql version. Installation ============ Simple: Copy it to a place inside your $PATH, probably as root. (for example to /usr/bin). For installation instructions for the mysql version see mysql-db/README. Configuration ============= This version of note doesn't neccessarily need a configuration file. But you can have one and change some default values. Take a look to the file config/noterc provided with this tarball. There are detailed instructions about every available parameter. Simply copy this file into your home-directory and name it .noterc Usage ===== Usage of the mysql and binary version is similar, there are only differences between the database backends of each other. If you don't know, how to run note, try "note -h" first. It will tell you all available commandline options. To create a new note, simply run "note". You can enter the note (the length is by default limited to 1024 bytes, which you can change from your config file). End by typing a . on a line itself. note will tell you the number of the note. If you want to view the note, type "note 1", if the notenumber was 1. If you want to get an overview of all notes, type "note -l". You will get a list of all notes, containing the number, the first line and the creation date. To edit a certain note, type "note -e 1". It will invoke your editor (vi or pico). You can edit it, after saving, note will store the changed note to the database. Of course you can drop a certain note: "note -d 1" deletes note number 1. If a note in the middle or the beginning of the database will be deleted, note will recount the other existent notes. For example there are 3 notes, number 1, 2 and 3. If you delete number 2, then number 3 will become number 2. If you cannot remember, which note you are looking for, you can use the search capability of note: "note -s ". note will search the whole note database case insensitive for an occurence of this string and tell you the number and first- line it have. Instead of using note from the commandline you can use the interactive mode. Run note with "note -i". If you need assistance type "?" or "h" at the "command>" prompt. The interactive mode provides you the most functions of note. You can also dump the contents of your note-database into a ASCII-textfile. You can use this file later to import it into your note-database. This is usefull, if you want quickly trans- fer your notes from one host to another (i.e. you could mail your note-dump form your office to home and import it there for further use). The dumps from the two versions of note are in the same format. Format of the notedb (binary version) ===================================== The database where the notes are stored is a binary file of the following format: It consists of three fixed length fields per entry. The fields have the following types: o Number: Integer (1 byte) o Note: String (default 1024 bytes) o Time: String (default 64 bytes) You can change the sizes of the fields "Note" and "Time" in the configfile "~/.noterc". If it does not exist, the above defaults will be used. If the data to be stored is smaller then the size of the field, it will be filled with ZERO's ("\0"). The Note and the Time fields will be uuencoded before storage. Of course, this is no security, never mind... The note-database (mysql version) ================================= The sql-database for the mysql version has the following design: +--------+---------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +--------+---------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ | number | int(10) | | PRI | 0 | auto_increment | | note | text | YES | | NULL | | | date | text | YES | | NULL | | +--------+---------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ Format of the ASCII-dump file (note -D) ======================================= The dump of a note-database (if you use note -D) has the following format: --- snip --- Number: 1 Timestamp: 14.01.2000 00:25:01 This is a sample text in a sample note. Number: 2 Timestamp: 14.01.2000 02:37:40 And this is another sample of a note. --- snip --- You can reimport a dump into your note-database with "note -I " Existing notes will not overwritten, note will append the imported data to your note-database. Security ======== You can't use the following hints with the mysql version! Refer to the mysql manual for more informations about security of mysql databases: http://www.mysql.org/Manual_chapter/manual_Privilege_system.html If you want to protect the notedb against unauthorized persons (even root), you might want to use pgp. I use gpg (GNU privacy guard), which is compatible to pgp, usage should be similar. You could add a function to your .profile or .bashrc or whatever: --- snip --- function note { gpg -o ~/.notedb -d ~/.notedb.gpg note $1 $2 $3 gpg -e ~/.notedb --yes -r username rm -rf ~/.notedb } --- snip --- You should replace with your real username. After applying this function to your .profile, issue the following command: "source .profile" You shell will reread the file, so you can try it out without the need of new login. This function assumes, there exists a file called "~/.notedb.gpg", therefore you need to encrypt your notedb once before you can use this funcion: "gpg -e ~/.notedb --yes -r username" Here is, how to do it with pgp, create a shell script with the following content: --- snip --- #!/bin/sh /bin/echo -n "passphrase:" pgp -o ~/.notedb -d ~/.notedb.pgp > /dev/null 2>&1 rm -f ~/.notedb.pgp > /dev/null 2>&1 note.pl $1 $2 $3 pgp -e ~/.notedb tlinden > /dev/null 2>&1 rm -f ~/.notedb > /dev/null 2>&1 --- snip --- Do "chmod 700 whatevername". That's it. If you don't make use of encryption, I suggest you to chmod it: "chmod 600 .notedb" So, only you can read the file (and root or any intruder who became root). Comments ======== You can send any comments to Thomas Linden . If you find a bug or if you have a suggestion for improvement of the script feel free to send me a patch ;-) License ======= This script comes with absolutely NO WARRANTY. It is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Use it at your own risk :-) You can read the complete GPL at: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html Author ====== The author is Thomas Linden. Last changed ============ 23.01.2000