Tech - Portable System Utilities

Alternative Intelligence Liberation Platform
Statically-linked, portable utilities for Linux systems

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Overview

This repository contains production-ready, statically-linked binaries compiled with musl libc for maximum portability. These tools run on any x86_64 Linux system without requiring shared libraries or specific libc versions.

Philosophy: Zero dependencies, maximum portability, minimal size.

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Tools

printc - ANSI Color Printing Utility

Size: 37 KB
Dependencies: None (statically linked)

POSIX shell-compatible color printing utility supporting 16 ANSI colors.

Usage:

printc COLOR "message"
printc red "Error: Something went wrong"
printc green "✓ Success!"
printc cyan "Info: Processing..."

Supported Colors (case-insensitive):

• Basic: black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, white
• Bright: bright_black, bright_red, bright_green, bright_yellow, bright_blue, bright_magenta, bright_cyan, bright_white

Installation:

# System-wide
sudo cp bin/printc /usr/local/bin/

# User-local
cp bin/printc ~/.local/bin/

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remote - SSH/SCP Session Manager

Size: 71 KB
Dependencies: ssh, scp (system utilities)

Wrapper around SSH/SCP with session management and config file support. Uses printc for colored output (optional - gracefully degrades to plain text).

Quick Start:

# Set up session
remote --set-user myuser
remote --set-remote server.example.com

# Connect
remote con

# Copy files
remote cpt localfile.txt /remote/path/
remote cpf /remote/path/file.log ./local/

Features:

• Session persistence across commands
• Config file support with layering
• Password storage (optional, not recommended)
• Colored output with printc integration

Usage: Run remote --help for full documentation.

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foreach - Command Iterator

Size: 66 KB
Dependencies: None (statically linked)

Apply a command to each element from args or stdin. Provides $_THIS_ and $_THIS_I for templating, plus a built-in search mode with extensive filters (ext, contains, prune, size/time, uid/gid, perms).

Usage:

foreach "echo $_THIS_" a b c
printf '%s\n' one two three | foreach "echo $_THIS_I: $_THIS_"
foreach -r 2 4 "echo $_THIS_" one two three four five
foreach --search /var/log -s-name "*.log" "echo $_THIS_"

Usage: Run foreach --help for full documentation.

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secret - Encrypted Vault Utility

Size: 75 KB
Dependencies: openssl, tar, steghide (optional)

Encrypted vault with optional steganographic key hiding. Stores data in a home-based vault by default and supports --peek and environment export.

Quick Start:

secret --init
secret --pack --strong "mypass"
secret --list --strong "mypass"
secret --peek api_key.txt --strong "mypass"

Usage: Run secret --help for full documentation.

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Building from Source

The source shell scripts are maintained in the educational repository for learning purposes.

To compile your own static binaries:

Prerequisites

# Install tools
sudo apt install shc upx

# Install musl libc
cd /tmp
wget https://musl.libc.org/releases/musl-1.2.5.tar.gz
tar xzf musl-1.2.5.tar.gz
cd musl-1.2.5
./configure
make
sudo make install

Compilation Process

# Generate C source from shell script
shc -v -r -f script.sh

# Compile statically with musl
/usr/local/musl/bin/musl-gcc -static -O2 script.sh.x.c -o script.static

# Strip debug symbols
strip script.static

# Compress with UPX (optional)
upx --best --lzma script.static -o script

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Technical Details

Why Static Linking?

Portability: These binaries run on:

• Minimal systems (Alpine Linux, BusyBox)
• Rescue/recovery environments
• Containers (FROM scratch)
• Older systems with different glibc versions
• Custom Linux distributions (like NitpickX)

No Dependency Hell: Unlike Flatpak (500MB+ for simple apps) or Snap packages, these tools have:

• Zero runtime dependencies
• No shared library version conflicts
• No framework bloat

Binary Validation

# Verify static linking
ldd bin/printc
# Output: "not a dynamic executable"

# Check file type
file bin/printc
# Output: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, statically linked, stripped

# Test functionality
./bin/printc green "Hello, World!"

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Comparison

Package Type	Simple Utility Size	Dependencies	Portability
Tech Binaries	37-71 KB	None	Any Linux x86_64
Flatpak	500 MB - 1.5 GB	Runtime framework	Flatpak-enabled systems
Snap	200-400 MB	Snap daemon	Snap-enabled systems
AppImage	50-150 MB	FUSE (sometimes)	Most Linux systems
Dynamic Binary	10-20 KB	libc, libs	Same libc version

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License

See LICENSE file.

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Contributing

This is a utility repository for production binaries. For source code contributions, see the educational repository.

For bug reports or feature requests, please open an issue.

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Changelog

v1.0.0 - 2026-02-07

• Initial release
• printc: ANSI color printing utility (37 KB)
• remote: SSH/SCP session manager (71 KB)
• foreach: Command iterator (66 KB)
• secret: Encrypted vault utility (75 KB)
• Both compiled with musl libc for static linking
• UPX compressed for minimal size