All commands (14,187)

  • Command to build one or more network segments - with for

    Show Sample Output


    0
    seg() { for b in $(echo $1); do for x in $(seq 10); do echo $b.$x; done; done }
    Waldirio · 2009-10-20 18:14:25 3
  • Command to build one or more network segments - with while

    Show Sample Output


    0
    seg() { echo -e "$1" | while read LINE; do for b in $(seq 10); do echo $LINE.$b; done; done; }
    Waldirio · 2009-10-20 17:45:43 3
  • Partition a new disk as all one partition tagged as "LInux LVM"

    This is a bit hacky, but if you're setting up a bunch of new LUNs, it can save a bunch of time. Also check out sfdisk. The fdisk will fail if, for example, a partition table already exists.


    -1
    echo -e "n\np\n1\n\n\nt\n8e\nw" | fdisk /dev/sdX
    sud0er · 2009-10-20 16:21:54 5
  • List system's users


    -12
    teste.txt < cut -d : -f 1,5 /etc/passwd | tr : \\t | tr a-z A-Z | cat teste.txt
    osvaldofilho · 2009-10-20 14:53:38 8
  • Set default "New Page" as HTML in TextMate

    When you press "cmd+n" in TextMate, you can have "HTML" language as default document format... You can also define other languages too. You need to know the UUID of your language bundle.


    -1
    defaults write com.macromates.textmate OakDefaultLanguage 17994EC8-6B1D-11D9-AC3A-000D93589AF6
    vigo · 2009-10-20 07:10:34 4
  • Restore a local drive from the image on remote host via ssh


    2
    ssh user@server 'dd if=sda.img' | dd of=/dev/sda
    newrain7803 · 2009-10-20 06:52:26 3
  • Backup a local drive into a file on the remote host via ssh


    12
    dd if=/dev/sda | ssh user@server 'dd of=sda.img'
    newrain7803 · 2009-10-20 06:47:01 7
  • Compression formats Benchmark

    See: http://imgur.com/JgjK2.png for example. Do some serious benchmarking from the commandline. This will write to a file with the time it took to compress n bytes to the file (increasing by 1). Run: gnuplot -persist <(echo "plot 'lzma' with lines, 'gzip' with lines, 'bzip2' with lines") To see it in graph form.


    3
    for a in bzip2 lzma gzip;do echo -n>$a;for b in $(seq 0 256);do dd if=/dev/zero of=$b.zero bs=$b count=1;c=$(date +%s%N);$a $b.zero;d=$(date +%s%N);total=$(echo $d-$c|bc);echo $total>>$a;rm $b.zero *.bz2 *.lzma *.gz;done;done
    matthewbauer · 2009-10-20 01:00:51 5
  • Quickly Encrypt a file with gnupg and email it with mailx

    This is a quick and easy way of encrypting files in a datastream, without ever really creating an output file from gpg. Useful with cron also, when file(s) have to be sent based on a set schedule.


    3
    cat private-file | gpg2 --encrypt --armor --recipient "Disposable Key" | mailx -s "Email Subject" user@email.com
    slashdot · 2009-10-19 20:38:37 4
  • List your largest installed packages (on Debian/Ubuntu)

    Use the hold space to preserve lines until data is needed.


    -3
    sed -ne '/^Package: \(.*\)/{s//\1/;h;};/^Installed-Size: \(.*\)/{s//\1/;G;s/\n/ /;p;}' /var/lib/dpkg/status | sort -rn
    arcege · 2009-10-19 19:01:17 24
  • To print a specific line from a file

    I don't know if it's better but works fine :)


    -5
    awk '{if (NR == 3) print}' <file>
    yooreck · 2009-10-19 15:58:09 5
  • List your largest installed packages (on Debian/Ubuntu)

    List packages and their disk usage in decreasing order. This uses the "Installed-Size" from the package metadata. It may differ from the actual used space, because e.g. data files (think of databases) or log files may take additional space. Show Sample Output


    0
    perl -ne '$pkg=$1 if m/^Package: (.*)/; print "$1\t$pkg\n" if m/^Installed-Size: (.*)/;' < /var/lib/dpkg/status | sort -rn | less
    hfs · 2009-10-19 12:55:59 7
  • Copy recursivelly files of specific filetypes

    Copying only wmv and mpg files recursively from to


    1
    rsync -rvtW --progress --include='*.wmv' --include='*.mpg' --exclude='*.*' <sourcedir> <destdir>
    MauricioVieira · 2009-10-19 10:38:11 4
  • encode image to base64 and copy to clipboard

    I use it for embedding images in CSS for Stylish, the Firefox addon. Thought it might be useful to others.


    1
    uuencode -m $1 /dev/stdout | sed '1d' | sed '$d' | tr -d '\n' | xclip -selection clipboard
    caliburning · 2009-10-19 09:03:09 4
  • Extract a bash function

    I often need to extract a function from a bash script and this command will do it. Show Sample Output


    8
    sed -n '/^function h\(\)/,/^}/p' script.sh
    haivu · 2009-10-19 07:55:35 33
  • geoip lookup


    4
    geoip(){curl -s "http://www.geody.com/geoip.php?ip=${1}" | sed '/^IP:/!d;s/<[^>][^>]*>//g' ;}
    twfcc · 2009-10-19 05:48:07 17
  • Battery real life energy vs predicted remaining plotted

    This time I added a print to reemaining energy, every minute, time stamped. The example shown here is complete and point to large discrepancies as time passes, converging to accuracy near the end. Show Sample Output


    1
    echo start > battery.txt; watch -n 60 'date >> battery.txt ; acpi -b >> battery.txt'
    m33600 · 2009-10-19 05:28:15 4
  • Localize provenance of current established connections

    Sample command to obtain a list of geographic localization for established connections, extracted from netstat. Need geoiplookup command ( part of geoip package under CentOS) Show Sample Output


    3
    for i in $(netstat --inet -n|grep ESTA|awk '{print $5}'|cut -d: -f1);do geoiplookup $i;done
    servermanaged · 2009-10-18 20:41:47 4
  • Do you really believe on Battery Remaining Time? Confirm it from time to time!

    Fully recharge your computer battery and start this script. It will create or clean the file named battery.txt, print a start on it and every minute it will append a time stamp to it. Batteries last few hours, and each hour will have 60 lines of time stamping. Really good for assuring the system was tested in real life with no surprises. The last time stamp inside the battery.txt file is of interest. It is the time the computer went off, as the battery was dead! Turn on your computer after that, on AC power of course, and open battery.txt. Read the first and last time stamps and now you really know if you can trust your computer sensors. If you want a simple line of text inside the battery.txt file, use this: watch -n 60 'date > battery.txt' The time of death will be printed inside Show Sample Output


    0
    echo start > battery.txt; watch -n 60 'date >> battery.txt'
    m33600 · 2009-10-18 07:00:26 4
  • Show current weather for any US city or zipcode

    Scrape the National Weather Service Show Sample Output


    4
    weather() { lynx -dump "http://mobile.weather.gov/port_zh.php?inputstring=$*" | sed 's/^ *//;/ror has occ/q;2h;/__/!{x;s/\n.*//;x;H;d};x;s/\n/ -- /;q';}
    zude · 2009-10-17 23:47:47 4
  • Get decimal ascii code from character

    printf treats first char after single ' as numeric equivalent


    1
    ord() { printf "%d\n" "'$1"; }
    zude · 2009-10-17 22:02:52 3
  • Make directories for and mount all iso files in a folder

    Show Sample Output


    2
    for file in *.iso; do mkdir `basename $file | awk -F. '{print $1}'`; sudo mount -t iso9660 -o loop $file `basename $file | awk -F. '{print $1}'`; done
    jaymzcd · 2009-10-17 20:07:31 4
  • Testing hard disk writing speed


    1
    time dd if=/dev/zero of=TEST bs=4k count=512000
    flojb · 2009-10-17 17:50:53 39
  • create iso image from a directory

    create iso image from directory . Usefull for virtualised machine To create CD ISO image of directories that contain long file name or non-8.3 format (particularly if you want to burn the CD image for use in Windows system), use the -J option switch that generates Joliet directory records in addition to regular iso9660 file names. For example, to create CD image of Vista SP1 directory: mkisofs -o VitaSP1.iso -J VistaSP1 Show Sample Output


    8
    mkisofs -o XYZ.iso XYZ/
    eastwind · 2009-10-17 16:28:47 53
  • Get decimal ascii code from character

    the shortest command for character 'a' i know Show Sample Output


    1
    echo -n a | od -d | sed -n "s/^.* //gp"
    stf42 · 2009-10-17 15:46:00 7
  • ‹ First  < 435 436 437 438 439 >  Last ›

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

quickly formats a fat partition. usefull for flash drives

Download all images from a 4chan thread
First (and only) argument should be a 4chan thread URL.

memory usage

import gpg key from the web
imports a public key from the web. I know this by head.. but useful nevertheless

Rename files in batch

Rsync remote data as root using sudo
If your user has sudo on the remote box, you can rsync data as root without needing to login as root. This is very helpful if the remote box does not allow root to login over SSH (which is a common security restriction).

Create and replay macros in vim
You can record, then replay a series of keystrokes in vim. In command mode 'q', then a letter [a-zA-Z] starts macro recording mode. Enter a series of vim commands. When done, enter command mode again, and press 'q' to stop recording. To replay, enter command mode, then press @{letter}

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

Adding Color Escape Codes to global CC array for use by echo -e
I was looking for the fastest way to create a bunch of ansi escapes for use in echo -e commands throughout a lot of my shell scripts. This is what I came up with, and I actually stick that loop command in a function and then just call that at the beginning of my scripts to not clutter the environment with these escape codes, which can wreck havok on my terminal when I'm dumping the environment. More of a cool way to store escape ansi codes in an array. You can echo them like: $ echo -e "${CC[15]}This text is black on bright green background." I usually just use with a function: $ # setup_colors - Adds colors to array CC for global use $ # 30 - Black, 31 - Red, 32 - Green, 33 - Yellow, 34 - Blue, 35 - Magenta, 36 - Blue/Green, 37 - White, 30/42 - Black on Green '30\;42' $ function setup_colors(){ declare -ax CC; for i in `seq 0 7`;do ii=$(($i+7));CC[$i]="\033[1;3${i}m";CC[$ii]="\033[0;3${i}m";done;CC[15]="\033[30;42m"; export R='\033[0;00m';export X="\033[1;37m"; }; $ export -f setup_colors CC[15] has a background of bright green which is why it is separate. R resets everything, and X is my default font of bright white. $ CC[15]="\033[30;42m"; R=$'\033[0;00m'; X=$'\033[1;37m' Those are just my favorite colors that I often use in my scripts. You can test which colors by running $ for i in $(seq 0 $((${#CC[@]} - 1))); do echo -e "${CC[$i]}[$i]\n$R"; done See: http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html for more usage.

Easy and fast access to often executed commands that are very long and complex.
When using reverse-i-search you have to type some part of the command that you want to retrieve. However, if the command is very complex it might be difficult to recall the parts that will uniquely identify this command. Using the above trick it's possible to label your commands and access them easily by pressing ^R and typing the label (should be short and descriptive). UPDATE: One might suggest using aliases. But in that case it would be difficult to change some parts of the command (such as options, file/directory names, etc).

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: