All commands (14,187)

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

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)

Place the argument of the most recent command on the shell
When typing out long arguments, such as: $ cp file.txt /var/www/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ You can put that argument on your command line by holding down the ALT key and pressing the period '.' or by pressing <ESC> then the period '.'. For example: $ cd 'ALT+.' would put '/var/www/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ as my argument. Keeping pressing 'ALT+.' to cycle through arguments of your commands starting from most recent to oldest. This can save a ton of typing.

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"

Display GCC Predefined Macros

Matrix Style
Same as the cool matrix style command ( http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/3652/matrix-style ), except replacing the printed character with randomness. The command mentioned is much faster and thus more true to the matrix. However, mine can be optimized, but I wasted ... i mean spent enough time on it already

Retrofit a shebang to an existing script
Function to add a shebang to an existing script, handy if you forgot to add it in the first place.

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"

In place line numbering
Add permanent line numbers to a file without creating a temp file. The rm command deletes file10 while the nl command works on the open file descriptor of file10 which it outputs into a new file again named file10. The new file10 will now be numbered in the same directory with the same file name and content as before, but it will in fact be a new file, using (ls -i) to show its inode number will prove this.

Generate a list of items from a couple of items lists A and B, getting (B - A ) set
ItemsListtoAvoid (A) could be a list of files with a special characteristic to exclude. It can be a result of previous processing list, ex. a list of files containing a special string. AlItemsList.txt (B) Is a complete list of items including some or all items in A. $Difference is saved in ItemsDifference.txt

list block devices
Shows all block devices in a tree with descruptions of what they are.


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: