All commands

All commands (14,187)

sorted by

Copy via tar pipe while preserving file permissions (cp does not!; run this command with root!)

cp options: -p will preserve the file mode, ownership, and timestamps -r will copy files recursively also, if you want to keep symlinks in addition to the above: use the -a/--archive option
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

cp -pr olddirectory newdirectory

stanishjohnd · 2009-08-22 22:11:24 8
Download Youtube Playlist

This will download a Youtube playlist and mostly anything http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/2.0/reference.html#Video_Feeds The files will be saved by $id.flv
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

y=http://www.youtube.com;for i in $(curl -s $f|grep -o "url='$y/watch?v=[^']*'");do d=$(echo $i|sed "s|url\='$y/watch?v=$.*$&.*'|\1|");wget -O $d.flv "$y/get_video.php?video_id=$d&t=$(curl -s "$y/watch?v=$d"|sed -n 's/.* "t": "$[^"]*$",.*/\1/p')";done

matthewbauer · 2009-08-22 21:31:29 53
YES = NO
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

yes n

elzapp · 2009-08-22 20:32:23 116
Copy via tar pipe while preserving file permissions (run this command as root!)

It's the same like 'cp -p' if available. It's faster over networks than scp. If you have to copy gigs of data you could also use netcat and the tar -z option in conjunction -- on the receiving end do: # nc -l 7000 | tar -xzvpf - ...and on the sending end do: # tar -czf - * | nc otherhost 7000
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

tar -C /oldirectory -cvpf - . | tar -C /newdirector -xvf -

Cowboy · 2009-08-22 20:05:49 5
Print a random 8 digit number
This is sample output - yours may be different.
5

jot -r -n 8 0 9 | rs -g 0

curiousstranger · 2009-08-22 19:31:17 6
watch iptables counters

This will allow you to watch as matches occur in real-time. To filter out only ACCEPT, DROP, LOG..etc, then run the following command: watch 'iptables -nvL | grep -v "0 0" && grep "ACCEPT"' The -v is used to do an inverted filter. ie. NOT "0 0"
This is sample output - yours may be different.
7

watch --interval 0 'iptables -nvL | grep -v "0 0"'

Code_Bleu · 2009-08-22 18:18:05 51
Verbosely delete files matching specific name pattern, older than 15 days.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
6

find /backup/directory -name "FILENAME_*" -mtime +15 | xargs rm -vf

monkeymac · 2009-08-22 16:58:23 6
Remove empty directories

It only works in zsh
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

rmdir **/*(/^F)

unixmonkey5248 · 2009-08-22 12:31:55 3
Cleanup firefox's database.

Sqlite database keeps collecting cruft as time passes, which can be cleaned by the 'vacuum;' command. This command cleans up the cruft in all sqlite files relating to the user you have logged in as. This command has to be run when firefox is not running, or it will exit displaying the pid of the firefox running.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
11

pgrep -u `id -u` firefox-bin || find ~/.mozilla/firefox -name '*.sqlite'|(while read -e f; do echo 'vacuum;'|sqlite3 "$f" ; done)

kamathln · 2009-08-22 10:36:05 10
List files and sizes

List files and sizes
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

find / -type f -exec wc -c {} \; | sort -nr | head -100

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:38:44 10
Reverse DNS lookups

Reverse DNS lookups, from a file with list of IP's, here the file is called lookups.txt
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

sed 's/$[0-9]*$\.$[0-9]*$\.$[0-9]*$\.$[0-9]*$.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer$.*$\./\4.\3.\2.\1\5/' \ lookups.txt

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:37:20 4
Ping sweep without NMAP

Ping sweep without NMAP
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

for i in `seq 1 255`; do ping -c 1 10.10.10.$i | tr \\n ' ' | awk '/1 received/ {print $2}'; done

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:34:27 12
DNS cache snooping

DNS cache snooping
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

for i in `cat names.txt`; do host -r $i [nameserver]; done

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:26:31 3

Show account security settings Show Sample Output

chage -l <user>

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:12:03 6

List all groups and the user names that were in each group

"cut" the user names from /etc/passwd and then running a loop over them. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
avahi-autoipd:avahi-autoipd
avahi:avahi
backup:backup
bin:bin
daemon:daemon
debian-tor:debian-tor
debian-transmission:debian-transmission
games:games
gdm:gdm
gnats:gnats
haldaemon:haldaemon
```
3

for u in `cut -f1 -d: /etc/passwd`; do echo -n $u:; groups $u; done | sort

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:06:02 7
Remove empty directories

You can also use, $ find . -depth -type d -exec rmdir {} \; 2>/dev/null
This is sample output - yours may be different.
6

find . -type d -empty -delete

hemanth · 2009-08-22 09:03:14 8
Random number generation within a range N, here N=10
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

echo $(( $RANDOM % 10 + 1 ))

hemanth · 2009-08-22 08:57:01 5
power off system in X hours form the current time, here X=2
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

echo init 0 | at now + 2 hours

hemanth · 2009-08-22 08:10:46 3
Day Date Time> Instead of $ or # at the terminal
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

export PS1='\D{%a %D %T}> '

hemanth · 2009-08-22 08:07:47 4
check open ports

Tested in Linux and OSX Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
kopete  1782   user   18u  IPv4  12568      0t0  TCP *:8010 (LISTEN)
sshd    2215   root    3u  IPv4  35583      0t0  TCP *:22 (LISTEN)
```
19

lsof -Pni4 | grep LISTEN

evenme · 2009-08-21 22:51:41 75
purge old stale messages on a qmail queue
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

for i in `grep "unable to stat" /var/log/syslog | cut -d "/" -f 3 | sort | uniq`; do find /var/qmail/queue -name $i -type f -exec rm -v {} \; ; done

foob4r · 2009-08-21 22:03:39 3
delete all DrWeb status, failure and other messages on a postfix server
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

mailq | grep DrWEB | awk {'print $1'} | sed s/*//g | postsuper -d -

foob4r · 2009-08-21 22:01:41 3
less an message on a postfix mailsystem with a specific message-id
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

id=<XXXX>; find /var/spool/postfix/ -name $id -exec less {} \;

foob4r · 2009-08-21 21:58:58 3
replace old htaccess php AddHandler values with new one

Alter "AddHandler php5-cgi .php" and "AddHandler php4-cgi .php" entries to new "AddHandler x-httpd-php5 .php" respective php4 entries in all .htaccess files under /var/www Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
-
```
0

find /var/www/ -type f -name ".htaccess" -exec perl -pi -e 's/AddHandler[\s]*php(4|5)-cgi/AddHandler x-httpd-php\1/' {} \;

foob4r · 2009-08-21 21:55:22 3
floating point operations in shell scripts

allows you to use floating point operations in shell scripts Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
.6000
```
3

echo "scale=4; 3 / 5" | bc

foob4r · 2009-08-21 21:51:46 3
‹ First < 459 460 461 462 463 > 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

Graphical tree of sub-directories

Prints a graphical directory tree from your current directory

Setup an ssh tunnel

Uses ssh as tunnel tunnel for an other connection. -f runs ssh in the background -N tell that there is no command to run -L deals with the forwarding aspect where the first number is the local port number, the second is parameter is the name of the server to forward to and the third parameter is the port number on that server. The last part of the command is the usual ssh form consisting of the user name and remote server name

Search some text from all files inside a directory

List the size (in human readable form) of all sub folders from the current location

Print trending topics on Twitter

Clean up display when the bash prompt is displayed

This will cause bash to fix a garbled terminal before the prompt is printed. For example, if you cat a file with nonprintable character sequences, the terminal sometimes ends up in a mode where it only prints line drawing characters. This sequence will return the terminal to the standard character set after every command.

small CPU benchmark with PI, bc and time.

$ # 4 cores with 2500 pi digits $ CPUBENCH 4 2500 $. $ every core will use 100% cpu and you can see how fast they calculate it. $ if you do 50000 digitits and more it can take hours or days

Detect illegal access to kernel space, potentially useful for Meltdown detection

Based on capsule8 agent examples, not rigorously tested

Sort on multiple dis-contiguous keys/fields (can even specify key number/field from the end)

Notes: 1) -n-1 means sort key is the last field 2) -l is important if each separate record is on a new line (usually so for text files) 3) -j tells msort not to create log file (msort.log) in the working directory 4) may need to install msort package. 5) msort does lot more. Check man msort

Which processes are listening on a specific port (e.g. port 80)

swap out "80" for your port of interest. Can use port number or named ports e.g. "http"

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:

» all commands
» commands with 3 up-votes (commandlinefu3)
» commands with 10 up-votes (commandlinefu10)

All commands (14,187) the last day the last week the last month all time sorted by date votes

What's this?

Check These Out

Stay in the loop…

All commands (14,187)

sorted by