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.

If you have a new feature suggestion or find a bug, please get in touch via http://commandlinefu.uservoice.com/

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.

World cup college
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

2010-03-18 - Top 10 commands explained
There's a great article by Peteris Krumins explaining the current top 10 commands: http://www.catonmat.net/blog/top-ten-one-liners-from-commandlinefu-explained/
2010-03-03 - Commandlinefu @ SXSW 2010
Am going to be at SXSW this year, in case you want to submit any CLI nuggets or suggestions to me in person. Ping me on the @codeinthehole Twitter account.
2009-09-12 - Email updates now available
You can now enable email updates to let you know each time you're command is commented on.
2009-07-11 - API and javascript blog widget now available
A simple API has been released, allowing commands to be retrieved in various formats. This also allows commands to be embedded on blogs/homepages.
Hide

Tags

Hide

Functions

Hide

Credits

Site by David Winterbottom (user root).

All commands

All commands from sorted by
Terminal - All commands - 5,761 results
sudo !!
2009-01-26 10:26:48
User: root
546
Up
Down
Run the last command as root

Useful when you forget to use sudo for a command. "!!" grabs the last run command.

Comments (25) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
python -m SimpleHTTPServer
2009-02-05 11:57:43
User: pixelbeat
Functions: python
411
Up
Down
Serve current directory tree at http://$HOSTNAME:8000/
Comments (17) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
:w !sudo tee %
2009-02-25 16:27:24
User: skinp
Functions: tee
Tags: vim sudo tee
317
Up
Down
Save a file you edited in vim without the needed permissions

I often forget to sudo before editing a file I don't have write permissions on. When you come to save that file and get the infamous "E212: Can't open file for writing", just issue that vim command in order to save the file without the need to save it to a temp file and then copy it back again.

Comments (19) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cd -
2009-02-04 22:41:21
User: systemj
Functions: cd
291
Up
Down
change to the previous working directory
Comments (11) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
^foo^bar
2009-01-26 13:25:37
User: root
240
Up
Down
Runs previous command but replacing

Really useful for when you have a typo in a previous command. Also, arguments default to empty so if you accidentally run:

echo "no typozs"

you can correct it with

^z
Comments (4) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cp filename{,.bak}
2009-02-05 17:12:03
User: elofland
Functions: cp
210
Up
Down
quickly backup or copy a file with bash
Comments (10) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
mtr google.com
2009-02-21 07:53:32
User: fryfrog
194
Up
Down
mtr, better than traceroute and ping combined

mtr combines the functionality of the traceroute and ping programs in a single network diagnostic tool.

As mtr starts, it investigates the network connection between the host mtr runs on and HOSTNAME. by sending packets with purposly low TTLs. It continues to send packets with low TTL, noting the response time of the intervening routers. This allows mtr to print the response percentage and response times of the internet route to HOSTNAME. A sudden increase in packetloss or response time is often an indication of a bad (or simply over‐loaded) link.

Show sample output | Comments (9) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
!whatever:p
2009-02-05 21:39:39
User: jonty
178
Up
Down
Check command history, but avoid running it

!whatever will search your command history and execute the first command that matches 'whatever'. If you don't feel safe doing this put :p on the end to print without executing. Recommended when running as superuser.

Comments (15) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ctrl-x e
2009-03-11 09:26:05
User: fool
163
Up
Down
Rapidly invoke an editor to write a long, complex, or tricky command

Next time you are using your shell, try typing ctrl-x e (that is holding control key press x and then e). The shell will take what you've written on the command line thus far and paste it into the editor specified by $EDITOR. Then you can edit at leisure using all the powerful macros and commands of vi, emacs, nano, or whatever.

Show sample output | Comments (13) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
$ssh-copy-id user@host
2009-02-07 04:58:11
User: senthil
160
Up
Down
Copy ssh keys to user@host to enable password-less ssh logins.

To generate the keys use the command ssh-keygen

Comments (12) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ffmpeg -f x11grab -s wxga -r 25 -i :0.0 -sameq /tmp/out.mpg
2009-02-05 17:23:43
User: wwest4
142
Up
Down
Capture video of a linux desktop
Comments (14) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
> file.txt
2009-01-26 10:22:31
User: root
140
Up
Down
Empty a file

For when you want to flush all content from a file without removing it (hat-tip to Marc Kilgus).

Comments (11) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
curl -u user:pass -d status="Tweeting from the shell" http://twitter.com/statuses/update.xml
2009-02-05 18:33:23
User: adamm9
137
Up
Down
Update twitter via curl
Comments (9) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ssh -N -L2001:localhost:80 somemachine
2009-02-05 09:13:23
User: mischamolhoek
Functions: ssh
133
Up
Down
start a tunnel from some machine's port 80 to your local post 2001

now you can acces the website by going to http://localhost:2001/

Comments (7) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
reset
2009-01-28 22:22:01
User: root
Functions: reset
133
Up
Down
Salvage a borked terminal

If you bork your terminal by sending binary data to STDOUT or similar, you can get your terminal back using this command rather than killing and restarting the session. Note that you often won't be able to see the characters as you type them.

Show sample output | Comments (11) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
echo "ls -l" | at midnight
2009-01-25 21:07:42
User: root
Functions: at echo
111
Up
Down
Execute a command at a given time

This is an alternative to cron which allows a one-off task to be scheduled for a certain time.

Comments (11) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
dd if=/dev/dsp | ssh -c arcfour -C username@host dd of=/dev/dsp
2009-02-08 10:10:00
User: morpheus
Functions: dd ssh
105
Up
Down
output your microphone to a remote computer's speaker

This will output the sound from your microphone port to the ssh target computer's speaker port. The sound quality is very bad, so you will hear a lot of hissing.

Comments (12) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
netstat -tlnp
2009-02-15 14:20:25
User: fulat2k
Functions: netstat
99
Up
Down
Lists all listening ports together with the PID of the associated process

The PID will only be printed if you're holding a root equivalent ID.

Comments (8) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /mnt -o size=1024m
2009-02-06 00:33:08
User: ajrobinson
Functions: mount
99
Up
Down
Mount a temporary ram partition

Makes a partition in ram which is useful if you need a temporary working space as read/write access is fast.

Be aware that anything saved in this partition will be gone after your computer is turned off.

Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
dig +short txt <keyword>.wp.dg.cx
2009-07-31 16:08:59
User: drizzt
Functions: dig
Tags: dig txt record wikipedia dns
97
Up
Down
Query Wikipedia via console over DNS

Query Wikipedia by issuing a DNS query for a TXT record. The TXT record will also include a short URL to the complete corresponding Wikipedia entry.You can also write a little shell script like:

$ cat wikisole.sh

#!/bin/sh

dig +short txt ${1}.wp.dg.cx

and run it like

./wikisole.sh unix

were your first option ($1) will be used as search term.

Show sample output | Comments (20) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ssh user@host cat /path/to/remotefile | diff /path/to/localfile -
2009-02-04 11:33:19
User: root
Functions: cat diff ssh
96
Up
Down
Compare a remote file with a local file

Useful for checking if there are differences between local and remote files.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
mount | column -t
2009-03-20 14:18:56
User: thechile
Functions: column mount
Tags: Filesystem mount column
94
Up
Down
currently mounted filesystems in nice layout

Particularly useful if you're mounting different drives, using the following command will allow you to see all the filesystems currently mounted on your computer and their respective specs with the added benefit of nice formatting.

Show sample output | Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
<space>command
2009-03-17 16:25:29
User: eaZy
91
Up
Down
Execute a command without saving it in the history

Prepending one or more spaces to your command won't be saved in history.

Useful for pr0n or passwords on the commandline.

Tested on BASH.

Show sample output | Comments (10) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
!!:gs/foo/bar
2009-02-11 10:20:15
User: Tronks
90
Up
Down
Runs previous command replacing foo by bar every time that foo appears

Very useful for rerunning a long command changing some arguments globally.

As opposed to ^foo^bar, which only replaces the first occurrence of foo, this one changes every occurrence.

Comments (6) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
sshfs name@server:/path/to/folder /path/to/mount/point
2009-02-05 20:17:41
User: ihasn
88
Up
Down
Mount folder/filesystem through SSH

Install SSHFS from http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html

Will allow you to mount a folder security over a network.

Show sample output | Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate