All commands (14,187)

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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.

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Generate QR code for a WiFi hotspot
Prompts for network name (SSID) and password, and generates (as qr-wifi.png) a WiFi QR code (e.g. "WIFI:S:mynet;T:WPA;P:mypass;;" for mynet/mypass). Dependencies [sudo apt-get install]: qrencode zenity

Test network speed without wasting disk
The above command will send 4GB of data from one host to the next over the network, without consuming any unnecessary disk on either the client nor the host. This is a quick and dirty way to benchmark network speed without wasting any time or disk space. Of course, change the byte size and count as necessary. This command also doesn't rely on any extra 3rd party utilities, as dd, ssh, cat, /dev/zero and /dev/null are installed on all major Unix-like operating systems.

Perl oneliner to print access rights in octal format
This prints file access rights in octal - useful when "stat" is unavailable.

Watch active calls on an Asterisk PBX
Only the number of calls nothing else.

Copy modification timestamp from one file to another.

Pick a random line from a file

Create a mirror of a local folder, on a remote server
Create a exact mirror of the local folder "/root/files", on remote server 'remote_server' using SSH command (listening on port 22) (all files & folders on destination server/folder will be deleted)

find an unused unprivileged TCP port
Not really better - just different ;) There's probably a really simple solution out there somewhere...

Find out the starting directory of a script
Invoked from within a shell script, this will print the directory in which the script resides. Doesn't depend on external tools, /proc/self/*, etc.. (`echo` is a shell builtin.) To see the *current working* directory of a script, use `pwd`.

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"


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