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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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Execute a command with a timeout
In this example the command "somecommand" will be executed and sent a SIGALARM signal if it runs for more than 10 seconds. It uses the perl alarm function. It's not 100% accurate on timing, but close enough. I found this really useful when executing scripts and commands that I knew might hang E.g. ones that connect to services that might not be running. Importantly this can be used within a sequential script. The command will not release control until either the command completes or the timeout is hit.

Pretty Print a simple csv in the command line
Splits the input based on commas and prints it in a nice column format. This would not work for CSV rows that have "," between quotes or with newline characters. Use only simple simple csv files.

restoring some data from a corrupted text file
man tac When there is a bad block in the middle of your file, you can see its begninning with `cat' and its end with `tac'. But both commands terminates with an error. So this sequence rebuilds a new file without badblock.

Remove a line from a file using sed (useful for updating known SSH server keys when they change)
For example, to remove line 5 from foo, type: vi +5d +wq foo

Create an ISO Image from a folder and burn it to CD
Create an ISO Image from a folder and burn it to CD (Os X)

shell equivalent of a boss button
Nobody wants the boss to notice when you're slacking off. This will fill your shell with random data, parts of it highlighted. Note that 'highlight' is the Perl module App::highlight, not "a universal sourcecode to formatted text converter." You'll also need Term::ANSIColor.

Show permissions of current directory and all directories upwards to /
Useful if a different user cannot access some directory and you want to know which directory on the way misses the x bit.

connect via ssh using mac address
Instead of looking for the right ip address, just pick whatever address you like and set a static ip mapping.

Show memory usage of all docker / lxc containers (works on CoreOS)

Clear your history saved into .bash_history file!
Note the space before the command; that prevents your history eliminating command from being recorded. ' history -c && rm -f ~/.bash_history' Both steps are needed. 'history -c' clears what you see in the history command. 'rm -f ~/.bash_history' deletes the history file in your home directory.


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