All commands

All commands (14,187)

sorted by

Numerically sorted human readable disk usage

Provides numerically sorted human readable du output. I so wish there was just a du flag for this. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
# du -x --max-depth=1 /var | sort -n | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs du -hx --max-depth=0
0       /var/lock
128K    /var/run
4.0K    /var/crash
4.0K    /var/games
4.0K    /var/local
4.0K    /var/opt
4.0K    /var/tmp
8.0K    /var/mail
692K    /var/spool
7.2M    /var/backups
13M     /var/log
97M     /var/www
236M    /var/lib
539M    /var/cache
891M    /var
```
4

du -x --max-depth=1 | sort -n | awk '{ print $2 }' | xargs du -hx --max-depth=0

d34dh0r53 · 2010-02-18 19:46:47 6
Speed up upgrades for a debian/ubuntu based system.

Please install aria2c before you try the above command. On ubuntu the command to install aria2c would be: sudo aptitude install aria2
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

sudo aptitude update; sudo apt-get -y --print-uris upgrade | egrep -o -e "http://[^\']+" | sudo aria2c -c -d /var/cache/apt/archives -i -; sudo aptitude -y safe-upgrade

freethinker · 2010-02-18 16:02:29 6
Pull Total Memory Usage In Virtual Environment

This command basically adds up all of the individual instances processes and gives you a grand total for used memory in that instance alone.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

ps axo rss,comm | awk '{sum+=$1; print $1/1024, "MB - ", $2} END {print "\nTotal RAM Used: ", sum/1024, "MB\n"}'

johnss · 2010-02-18 12:05:45 7
Type a random string into a X11 window

Just after you type enter, you have 3 seconds to switch window, then "texthere" will be "typed" in the X11 application that has focus. Very useful to beat your score at games such as "How fast can you type A-Z".
This is sample output - yours may be different.
5

sleep 3 && xdotool type --delay 0ms texthere

drinkcat · 2010-02-18 11:44:18 20
List available upgrades from apt without upgrading the system
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

apt-get --just-print upgrade

noqqe · 2010-02-18 11:19:05 8
Show top committers for SVN repositority for today
This is sample output - yours may be different.
6

svn log -r {`date "+%Y-%m-%d"`}:HEAD|grep '^r[0-9]' |cut -d\| -f2|sort|uniq -c

ivanatora · 2010-02-18 10:41:17 4
Averaging columns of numbers

Computes a columns average in a file. Input parameters = column number and optional pattern. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$> cat 0.5-10000.dat | avg 2 
Average over 10000 lines: 1.005299
```
0

function avg { awk "/$2/{sum += \$$1; lc += 1;} END {printf \"Average over %d lines: %f\n\", lc, sum/lc}"; }

vimzard · 2010-02-18 10:20:22 4
output your microphone to a remote computer's speaker
This is sample output - yours may be different.
32

arecord -f dat | ssh -C user@host aplay -f dat

drinkcat · 2010-02-18 06:00:33 25
How to install cron (crond, crontab)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-15

yum install vixie-cron crontabs

svnlabs · 2010-02-17 16:36:10 6
Caching-Nameserver

Caching-Nameserver Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
install packages
yum -y install bind bind-chroot caching-nameserver

start service
service named restart

set autostart
chkconfig named on
```
-11

yum -y install bind bind-chroot caching-nameserver

svnlabs · 2010-02-17 16:35:06 3

RHEL / CentOS Support 4GB or more RAM ( memory )

RHEL / CentOS Support 4GB or more RAM ( memory ) Show Sample Output

-13

yum install kernel-PAE

svnlabs · 2010-02-17 16:34:09 4

How to Disable SELinux

just change SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=permissive, and you're done. Reboot if you want to prove it. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
just change SELINUX=enforcing to SELINUX=permissive, and you're done. Reboot if you want to prove it.
```
-7

echo 0 >/selinux/enforce

svnlabs · 2010-02-17 16:33:26 3
View acceptable client certificate CA names asked for during SSL renegotiations

The key is to use the -prexit option at the command line, and then type "quit" instead of CTRL-C to exit OpenSSL. OpenSSL will then dump its last negotiated state, printing out the contents of the renegotiated handshake. Crucial for debugging client certificate configurations on web servers such as IIS, which renegotiate the SSL/TLS connection with the HTTP request in-flight to ask the client for a cert. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com

read R BLOCK
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden

quit

---
Acceptable client certificate CA names
/C=US/O=YourOrg/OU=YourUnit/CN=YourCertificateAuthorityName1
/C=US/O=YourOrg/OU=YourUnit/CN=YourCertificateAuthorityName2
---
```
3

openssl s_client -connect www.example.com:443 -prexit

JonInVA · 2010-02-17 15:46:37 5
Provide a list of all ELF binary objects (executable or libs) in a directory

This is a dirty raw way to simply list ELF objects in a folder. The output is ready to be parsed i.e to the stripper or what else needs a path to an ELF object. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
karmic@linux64:/home/karmic64/Test$ file /usr/bin/* | grep ELF | cut -d":" -f1 
/usr/bin/a2p
/usr/bin/aacplusenc
/usr/bin/aconnect
/usr/bin/acpi_fakekey
/usr/bin/acpi_listen
/usr/bin/addpart
/usr/bin/addr2line
/usr/bin/alsamixer
/usr/bin/amdcccle
/usr/bin/amidi
/usr/bin/amixer
/usr/bin/animate
/usr/bin/aplay
/usr/bin/aplaymidi
/usr/bin/appres
/usr/bin/apt-cache
```
-1

file /usr/bin/* | grep ELF | cut -d":" -f1

LucaCappelletti · 2010-02-17 14:01:52 3
Remote screenshot

The `export` is unnecessary if it's only applicable to the one command.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
18

DISPLAY=":0.0" import -window root screenshot.png

walterl · 2010-02-17 13:02:24 16
Remote Screenshot

Like the given command, but combines _DISPLAY=":0.0"_ with _export DISPLAY_ to get _export DISPLAY=":0.0"_ and only imports if DISPLAY is set successfully.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-3

export DISPLAY=":0.0" && import -window root screenshot.png

fraktil · 2010-02-17 12:13:49 3
Count and show duplicate file names

Useful for C projects where header file names must be unique (e.g. when using autoconf/automake), or when diagnosing if the wrong header file is being used (due to dupe file names) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[user@localhost]$ find . -type f  |sed "s#.*/##g" |sort |uniq -c -d
      2 globals.h
      9 Makefile
      8 Makefile.bak
```
0

find . -type f |sed "s#.*/##g" |sort |uniq -c -d

shadycraig · 2010-02-17 11:59:54 5
diff recursively, ignoring CVS control files

This will cause diff to ignore any files whose path matches "*CVS*", ie any CVS control files.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

diff -x "*CVS*" -r <path-1> <path-2> [<path-3>]

sanmiguel · 2010-02-17 11:08:17 5
Introduction to user commands

Tested on debian and ubuntu. Translations could be useless, so "LANG=C man intro" is a better alternative.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

man intro

peppet · 2010-02-17 10:11:56 5
Allow any local (non-network) connection to running X server
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

xhost +local:

peppet · 2010-02-17 09:20:39 3
Remote screenshot

Say if you're logged into a remote system via ssh and this system has an x window system, but yet you still want a screen shot of what's going on graphically. This will do it for you. :-)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

DISPLAY=":0.0"; export DISPLAY; import -window root gotya.png

Abiden · 2010-02-17 09:13:54 3
Google Spell Checker

I took matthewbauer's cool one-liner and rewrote it as a shell function that returns all the suggestions or outputs "OK" if it doesn't find anything wrong. It should work on ksh, zsh, and bash. Users that don't have tee can leave that part off like this: spellcheck(){ typeset y=$@;curl -sd "<spellrequest><text>$y</text></spellrequest>" https://google.com/tbproxy/spell|sed -n '/s="[1-9]"/{s/<[^>]*>/ /g;s/\t/ /g;s/ *$.*$/Suggestions: \1\n/g;p}';} Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ spellcheck motaive
Suggestions: motive motives mutative emotive motif

$ spellcheck now is the winter of our dicontent
Suggestions: discontent content contend

$ spellcheck panoply
OK
```
6

spellcheck(){ typeset y=$@;curl -sd "<spellrequest><text>$y</text></spellrequest>" https://www.google.com/tbproxy/spell|sed -n '/s="[0-9]"/{s/<[^>]*>/ /g;s/\t/ /g;s/ *$.*$/Suggestions: \1\n/g;p}'|tee >(grep -Eq '.*'||echo -e "OK");}

eightmillion · 2010-02-17 08:20:48 17
Google Spell Checker

http://immike.net/blog/2007/04/07/hacking-google-spell-checker-for-fun-and-profit/ Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
spell
```
1

spellcheck(){ curl -sd "<spellrequest><text>$1</text></spellrequest>" https://www.google.com/tbproxy/spell | sed 's/.*<spellresult [^>]*>$.*$<\/spellresult>/\1/;s/<c $[^>]*$>$[^<]*$<\/c>/\1;\2\n/g' | grep 's="1"' | sed 's/^.*;$[^\t]*$.*$/\1/'; }

matthewbauer · 2010-02-17 01:55:28 14
rename all jpg files with a prefix and a counter
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

ls *.jpg | grep -n "" | sed 's,.*,0000&,' | sed 's,0*$...$:$.*$.jpg,mv "\2.jpg" "image-\1.jpg",' | sh

pepin · 2010-02-16 23:59:28 3
Get your commandlinefu points (upvotes - downvotes)

This version prints current votes and commands for a user. Pass the user as an argument. While this technically "fits" as a one liner, it really is easier to look at as a shell script with extra whitespace. :) Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
  0  sed 's/.*/ /'
  0  date -s "`curl -sI www.example.com | sed -n 's/^Date: //p'`"
  0  jot -s '' -b '-' 50
  7  command | sed -n '1,/regex/p'
  4  curl -s search.twitter.com | awk -F'</?[^>]+>' '/\/intra\/trend\//{print $2}'
  5  dig +short -x {ip}
```
2

curl -s http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/by/$1/xml | awk -F'</?div[^>]*>' '/class=\"command\"/{gsub(/"/,"\"",$2); gsub(/</,"<",$2); gsub(/>/,">",$2); gsub(/&/,"\\&",$2); cmd=$2} /class=\"num-votes\"/{printf("%3i %s\n", $2, cmd)}'

putnamhill · 2010-02-16 17:24:45 5
‹ First < 398 399 400 401 402 > 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

Use the builtin ':' bash command to increment variables

I just found another use for the builtin ':' bash command. It increments counters for me in a loop if a certain condition is met... : [arguments] No effect; the command does nothing beyond expanding arguments and performing any specified redirections. A zero exit code is returned.

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"

Download all Red Hat Manuals - A better way by user Flatcap

Let's give Flatcap credit for this elegant solution, instead of leaving it hidden as a comment. Tested on RHEL6 and it works. Nice and clean.

Check syntax for all PHP files in the current directory and all subdirectories

Show drive names next to their full serial number (and disk info)

As of this writing, this requires a fairly recent version of util-linux, but is much simpler than the previous alternatives. Basically, lsblk gives a nice, human readable interface to all the blkid stuff. (Of course, I wouldn't recommend this if you're going to be parsing the output.) This command takes all the fun out of the previous nifty pipelines, but I felt I ought to at least mention it as an alternative since it is the most practical.

Convert a Python interactive session to a python script

Used to copy and paste a terminal buffer of a python interactive session into an editor

Set laptop display brightness

Run as root. Path may vary depending on laptop model and video card (this was tested on an Acer laptop with ATI HD3200 video). $ cat /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness to discover the possible values for your display.

AWK Calculator

rsync should continue even if connection lost

Manage partial uploads using append option.

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