the-book-of-secret-knowledge
A collection of inspiring lists, manuals, cheatsheets, blogs, hacks, one-liners, cli/web tools and more.
The Book of Secret Knowledge, one person's working collection
The Book of Secret Knowledge is a personal collection of lists, manuals, cheatsheets, blogs, hacks, and one-liners. Its author describes it as the material and tools used daily in his own work.
A collection, not a product
The README calls the repository a collection of inspiring lists, manuals, cheatsheets, blogs, hacks, one-liners, and CLI and web tools. The author adds a more personal note: it gathers materials and tools he uses every day in his work, a source of knowledge he looks back on often. The tone is that of a well-kept notebook rather than a packaged product.
Who it is for
The author says the material is for everyone, really, then gets honest: it is aimed toward system and network administrators, DevOps, pentesters, and security researchers. The table of contents reflects that audience. Chapters run from CLI tools and shell one-liners to containers and orchestration, hacking and penetration testing, blogs and podcasts, and cheat sheets.
Shell territory
Shell content is deep. GNU Bash, Zsh, and Fish get configuration guidance, alongside frameworks like bash-it, Oh My ZSH!, and Starship. File managers include Midnight Commander, ranger, and nnn. Terminal multiplexers like screen and tmux sit next to editors including vim, emacs, and neovim. Fuzzy finders such as fzf and autosuggestion tools round out the section.
Networks and security
The network chapter lists PuTTY, Mosh, nmap, masscan, mtr, netcat, and tcpdump, among others. DNS tooling covers dnsdiag, subfinder, sublist3r, and amass. On the security side: openssl, sslyze, testssl.sh, and hardening frameworks like SELinux and AppArmor, plus monitoring tools such as ossec and Lynis. The entries are one-line descriptions with links, nothing more.
How it stays useful
Contributions come through pull requests, and the README asks for well-reasoned explanations when something does not make sense. URLs marked as temporarily unavailable should not be deleted until confirmed dead. A table of contents keeps the material findable, an RSS feed of commits tracks changes, and the to-do list still mentions shell functions and one-liners to add.
Community notes