All commands (14,187)

What's this?

commandlinefu.com is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again. That way others can gain from your CLI wisdom and you from theirs too. All commands can be commented on, discussed and voted up or down.

Share Your Commands


Check These Out

Find usb device in realtime
Using this command you can track a moment when usb device was attached.

Change every instance of OLD to NEW in file FILE
Very quick way to change a word in a file. I use it all the time to change variable names in my PHP scripts (sed -i 's/$oldvar/$newvar/g' index.php)

Convert CSV to JSON
Replace 'csv_file.csv' with your filename.

Programmatic way to find and set your timezone

easily strace all your apache processes
This one-liner will use strace to attach to all of the currently running apache processes output and piped from the initial "ps auxw" command into some awk.

Blacklist usb storage
Some times you may ban usb to protect thefting of your personal data. Blacklist the usb_storage module by adding blacklist usb_storage to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf. To load the module manually, $sudo modprobe usb_storage.

Convert a flv video file to avi using mencoder

Rename files in batch

connects to a serial console
cu (call UNIX) establishes a full-duplex connection to another machine (*BSD) using a serial console. It becames more useful than screen if you have to send a BREAK signal. using cu just type "~#". $man cu http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=cu&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=OpenBSD+Current&arch=i386&format=html

Convert numbers to SI notation
converts any number on the 'stdin' to SI notation. My version limits to 3 digits of precious (working with 10% resistors).


Stay in the loop…

Follow the Tweets.

Every new command is wrapped in a tweet and posted to Twitter. Following the stream is a great way of staying abreast of the latest commands. For the more discerning, there are Twitter accounts for commands that get a minimum of 3 and 10 votes - that way only the great commands get tweeted.

» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu3
» http://twitter.com/commandlinefu10

Subscribe to the feeds.

Use your favourite RSS aggregator to stay in touch with the latest commands. There are feeds mirroring the 3 Twitter streams as well as for virtually every other subset (users, tags, functions,…):

Subscribe to the feed for: