Hide

What's this?

commandlinefu.com is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again.

Delete that bloated snippets file you've been using and share your personal repository with the world. 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.

Get involved!

You can sign-in using OpenID credentials, or register a traditional username and password.

OpenID
or
Sign in Register

First-time OpenID users will be automatically assigned a username which can be changed after signing in.

Universal configuration monitoring and system of record for IT.
Hide

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:

Hide

News

May 19, 2015 - A Look At The New Commandlinefu
I've put together a short writeup on what kind of newness you can expect from the next iteration of clfu. Check it out here.
March 2, 2015 - New Management
I'm Jon, I'll be maintaining and improving clfu. Thanks to David for building such a great resource!
Hide

Top Tags


awk, bash, curl, find, grep, Linux, sed
Hide

Functions

Hide

Credits

Maintained by Jon H.

Site originally by David Winterbottom (user root).

Psst. Open beta.

Wow, didn't really expect you to read this far down. The latest iteration of the site is in open beta. It's a gentle open beta-- not in prime-time just yet. It's being hosted over at UpGuard (link) and you are more than welcome to give it a shot. Couple things:

  • » The open beta is running a copy of the database that will not carry over to the final version. Don't post anything you don't mind losing.
  • » If you wish to use your user account, you will probably need to reset your password.
Your feedback is appreciated via the form on the beta page. Thanks! -Jon & CLFU Team

All commands from sorted by
Terminal - All commands - 12,362 results
dir=/rom; a=$(find $dir -name \*.sh -exec cat '{}' \; | egrep -cv '^[[:space:]]*#'); b=$(find $dir -name \*.sh -exec cat '{}' \; | egrep -c '^[[:space:]]*#'); echo $((a+b)) lines = ${a} sloc [$((a*100/(a+b)))%] + ${b} comments [$((b*100/(a+b)))%]
2016-05-19 08:35:56
User: koniu
Functions: cat dir echo egrep find
Tags: Programming code documentation comments
0
Up
Down
Calculate comment density of shell scripts in a directory
Show sample output | Comments (4) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
"SELECT strftime('%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S', dateAdded/1000000, 'unixepoch', 'localtime'),url FROM moz_places, moz_bookmarks WHERE moz_places.id = moz_bookmarks.fk ORDER BY dateAdded;"; done
2016-05-19 02:09:17
User: weirdname
Tags: firefox bookmarks
2
Up
Down
get all bookmarks from all profiles from firefox

for i in $(ls /home/marco/.mozilla/firefox/*\.*/places.sqlite); do sqlite3 $i "SELECT strftime('%d.%m.%Y %H:%M:%S', dateAdded/1000000, 'unixepoch', 'localtime'),url FROM moz_places, moz_bookmarks WHERE moz_places.id = moz_bookmarks.fk ORDER BY dateAdded;"; done

Comments (6) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
dpkg -S "$(readlink -e $(which w))" | cut -d ':' -f 1
2016-05-18 09:41:29
User: Fox
Functions: cut
Tags: Debian Ubuntu which dpkg
1
Up
Down
Find name of package which installed a given shell command

Some command names are very different from the name of the package that installed them.

Sometimes, you may want to find out the name of the package that provided a command on a system, so that you can install it on another system.

Show sample output | Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
column -ts , /etc/openvpn/openvpn-status.log
2016-05-17 09:36:58
User: luxaeterna101
Functions: column
0
Up
Down
nice column format for openvpn servers log file

Formats nicely the Openvpn log file.

Show sample output | Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cat user_public_key.pub | ssh root@<host> "cat | su -c 'mkdir -m 700 -p ~/.ssh && cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys && chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys' <user>"
2016-05-09 08:48:40
User: noisy
Functions: cat ssh
Tags: ssh sudo su ssh-copy-id
-2
Up
Down
having root on server, add user's public key to his keys (no password required)
Comments (17) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
git commit -m "$(curl -s http://whatthecommit.com/index.txt)";
2016-05-04 09:51:18
User: paulera
Tags: git funny random random string git commits
15
Up
Down
random git-commit message

Do a git commit using a random message.

Show sample output | Comments (10) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
wget -q -O - http://192.168.0.1/goform/system/GatewaySettings.bin | strings | tail -n 2
2016-05-03 23:03:55
User: paulera
Functions: strings tail wget
Tags: router exploit vulnerability tc7200 technicolor
3
Up
Down
Recover username and password for Technicolor TC7200 admin page (vulnerability)

The router Technicolor TC7200 has an exploit where the file http://192.168.0.1/goform/system/GatewaySettings.bin is open for unauthenticated access. Even though it is binary, the 2 last strings are the username and password for the pages for router management. It can be read using the 'strings' command, 'hexdump -C' or a hexadecimal editor.

(default user/password = admin/admin)

Reveals more configuration, including SSID name and Key for the wifi network:

wget -q -O - http://192.168.0.1/goform/system/GatewaySettings.bin

Hexadecimal dump of the file:

wget -q -O - http://192.168.0.1/goform/system/GatewaySettings.bin | hexdump -C
Show sample output | Comments (6) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
bashrc-reload() { builtin exec bash ; }
2016-04-30 10:37:38
User: Xk2c
Functions: bash exec
Tags: bash terminal console aliases eval .bashrc
1
Up
Down
Make changes in .bashrc immediately available
Comments (7) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
command systemctl --no-page --no-legend --plain -t service --state=running
2016-04-30 10:35:05
User: Xk2c
Functions: command
Tags: services
9
Up
Down
Show running services (using systemctl)
Comments (8) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
systemctl --no-page -t service -a --state running --no-legend
2016-04-30 08:41:57
User: nadavkav
Tags: services
0
Up
Down
Show running services (using systemctl)
Comments (8) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
mplayer http://pub7.di.fm/di_ambient_aac?1 -user-agent "AudioAddict-di/3.2.0.3240 Android/5.1"
2016-04-29 23:41:17
User: sxiii
Tags: mplayer music digitallyimported player
2
Up
Down
Listen Digitally Imported Radio from CLI (without premium!)

This commands does just two things: fakes user agent (the one was taken from recent Android app) and sends the (possibly) listener ID (it can be any - I put "1" here because it works like a charm - after the name of stream ?1 as you can see).

Look for the list of stations here: http://pub7.di.fm

Or here: https://goo.gl/pdhhpQ

Best regards, sxiii :)

Show sample output | Comments (10) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
for i in `ls`; do mv "$i" "`echo $i | sed s/.json/_20160428.json/`"; done
2016-04-29 12:32:22
User: rdc
Functions: mv
0
Up
Down
Insert a date before the suffix of all the json files in a directory
Comments (8) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt purge linux*{14..18}*
2016-04-20 07:44:55
User: ppq
Functions: apt
Tags: Debian Ubuntu apt apt-get kernel
1
Up
Down
Remove specific versions of old kernels (Ubuntu/Debian)

If, for example, you want to remove all kernels and headers but the last three versions, you can't use one of that magic all-in-one "remove old stuff" commands.

With this simple but elegant command you can remove a range of versions, or a list of versions with e.g. {14,16,20}.

Show sample output | Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
scriptName="reorder_files.sh"; echo -e '#!/bin/sh\n' > "${scriptName}"; cat files.txt | while read file; do echo "touch ${file}; sleep 0.5;" >> "${scriptName}"; done; chmod +x "${scriptName}";
2016-04-19 11:52:00
User: programmer
Functions: cat chmod echo read
Tags: bash script modification time create file
1
Up
Down
Create Bash script to change modification time of files

Create a bash script to change the modification time for each file in 'files.txt' such that they are in the same order as in 'files.txt'

File name for bash script specified by variable, 'scriptName'. It is made an executable once writing into it has been completed.

Show sample output | Comments (13) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ls *.pdf | while read file; do newfile="${file##CS749__}"; mv "${file}" "${newfile}"; done;
2016-04-19 11:06:43
User: programmer
Functions: ls mv read
Tags: rename file rename prefix
1
Up
Down
Removing Prefix from File name

Removing Course name prefix added

Show sample output | Comments (24) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ls *.pdf | while read file; do newfile="CS749__${file}"; mv "${file}" "${newfile}"; done;
2016-04-19 11:04:47
User: programmer
Functions: ls mv read
Tags: rename file rename prefix
1
Up
Down
Adding Prefix to File name

Adding course name prefix to lecture pdfs

Show sample output | Comments (19) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
touch files.txt; cat reorder_files.sh | while read line; do x=`echo $line | sed 's/touch \([a-z0-9\.]\+.*.pdf\);.*/\1/'`; echo $x >> files.txt ; done;
2016-04-19 11:01:17
User: programmer
Functions: cat echo read sed touch
Tags: sed file rename touch filenames
1
Up
Down
Get File Names from touch commands

retrieve file names back from touch commands for them

Show sample output | Comments (13) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
pkg update -nv | sed -n '/entire/{N;p;}'
2016-04-15 20:48:49
User: apaton
Functions: sed
Tags: solaris ips update patch
0
Up
Down
Solaris 11, test which version your IPS pkg will update you to.

Above example is upgrading Solaris from 11.1SRU20.0.5 to 11.2SRU15.0.5. Patches are not applied options "-nv" are for dryrun and verbose output.

Show sample output | Comments (10) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
head -n1 | xargs -I {} aws sts get-session-token --serial-number $MFA_ID --duration-seconds 900 --token-code {} --output text --query [Credentials.AccessKeyId,Credentials.SecretAccessKey,Credentials.SessionToken]
2016-04-12 10:57:00
User: keymon
Functions: head xargs
Tags: Security token api aws awscli
1
Up
Down
Get AWS temporary credentials ready to export based on a MFA virtual appliance

You might want to secure your AWS operations requiring to use a MFA token. But then to use API or tools, you need to pass credentials generated with a MFA token.

This commands asks you for the MFA code and retrieves these credentials using AWS Cli. To print the exports, you can use:

`awk '{ print "export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=\"" $1 "\"\n" "export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=\"" $2 "\"\n" "export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=\"" $3 "\"" }'`

You must adapt the command line to include:

* $MFA_IDis ARN of the virtual MFA or serial number of the physical one

* TTL for the credentials

Show sample output | Comments (4) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
echo Which way up? | flip.pl | cowsay | tac | sed -e "s,/,+,g" -e "s,\\\,/,g" -e "s,+,\\\,g" -e "s,_,-,g" -e "s,\^,v,g"
2016-04-08 11:41:44
User: mpb
Functions: echo sed tac
1
Up
Down
Inverted cowsay

It's quite fun to invert text using "flip.pl" (ref: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2078323 ).

Slightly more challenging is to flip a whole "cowsay". :-)

Show sample output | Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ASN=32934; for s in $(whois -H -h riswhois.ripe.net -- -F -K -i $ASN | grep -v "^$" | grep -v "^%" | awk '{ print $2 }' ); do echo " blocking $s"; sudo iptables -A INPUT -s $s -j REJECT &> /dev/null || sudo ip6tables -A INPUT -s $s -j REJECT; done
2016-04-08 11:30:12
User: koppi
Functions: awk echo grep iptables sudo whois
4
Up
Down
Block all FaceBook traffic
Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ss -t -o state established '( dport = :443 || dport = :80 )' | grep -Po '([0-9a-z:.]*)(?=:http[s])' | sort -u|netcat whois.cymru.com 43|grep -v "AS Name"|sort -t'|' -k3
2016-04-08 09:07:39
User: miniker84
Functions: grep sort
0
Up
Down
Lookup autonomous systems of all outgoing http/s traffic

Using GNU Grep with perl regexp (works on newer Ubuntus)

Show sample output | Comments (4) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ss -t -o state established '( dport = :443 || dport = :80 )'|grep tcp|awk '{ print $5 }'|sed s/:http[s]*//g|sort -u|netcat whois.cymru.com 43|grep -v "AS Name"|sort -t'|' -k3
2016-04-07 01:48:44
User: koppi
Functions: awk grep sed sort
3
Up
Down
Lookup autonomous systems of all outgoing http/s traffic
Show sample output | Comments (7) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
for i in *.flac; do flac -d -c "${i}" |lame -h --preset 196 --ta "Artist Here" --tl "Disc Title Here" --add-id3v2 - "./MP3/$i.mp3"; done
2016-04-06 13:39:52
User: arlequin
Tags: mp3 flac lame transcode
0
Up
Down
Transcode original FLAC files to downsampled MP3 files in exclusive folder

Make it better.

Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
function df_func { local dfts=$(ssh $1 "df -lP | tail -n +2 | sed 's/%//'"); echo $dfts | awk '$5 > 90 {exit 1}' > /dev/null; if [ $? == 1 ]; then echo -n "$1 "; echo $dfts | awk '$5 > 90 {printf "%s %d%%\n", $6, $5}'; fi }
2016-03-30 19:57:39
User: wytten12
Functions: awk echo ssh
Tags: bash function df
0
Up
Down
Reports file systems with disk usage exceeding 90% on the specified host
Comments (6) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate