Commands by StefanLasiewski (6)

  • This command is similar to the above, but is much simpler to remember. Sure, it's isn't as precise as the parent command, but most people aren't going to remember those --flags anyways unless you stick it into your .bashrc on every single system that you manage. Show Sample Output


    0
    info foo |less
    StefanLasiewski · 2013-09-12 16:49:08 7
  • If I type 'man something', I want it to find the manpage in the same order as my PATH. You can add something like this to your .bashrc # # Add my MacPorts, my personal utilities and my company utilities to my PATH. export PATH=$PATH:/opt/local/bin:$HOME/bin:/our_company_utils/bin/ # Now set the manpath based on the PATH, after man(1) parses man.conf # - No need to modify man.conf or manually modify MANPATH_MAP # - Works on Linux, FreeBSD & Darwin, unlike /etc/manpaths.d/ # Must unset MANPATH first. MANPATH is set on some systems automatically (Mac), # which causes manpath to ignore the values of PATH like /opt/local/bin (MacPorts). # Also MANPATH may be deprecated. See "SEARCH PATH FOR MANUAL PAGES" in man(1) unset MANPATH # manpath acts differently on Solaris, FreeBSD, MacOSX & GNU. This works everywhere. manpath >/dev/null # Note that MacOSX, FreeBSD & Linux have fancier ways to do some of this. (e.g. 'man --path' or 'man -q'), but this command is more universal and should work everywhere. Show Sample Output


    0
    unset MANPATH; manpath >/dev/null
    StefanLasiewski · 2010-07-02 19:45:27 3
  • This command will log the output of your simple cronjobs to syslog, and syslog will take it from there. Works great for monitoring scripts which only produce simple output. Advantages: * This can be used by regular users, without modifying system files like /etc/syslog.conf * Reduce cron spam to root@localhost (Please stop spaming the sysadmins) * Uses common tools like syslog (and logrotate) so that you don't need to maintain yet another krufty logfile. * Still ensures that the output is logged somewhere, for posterity. Perhaps it's stored the secure, central syslog server, for example. * Seems to work fine on Ubuntu, CentOS, FreeBSD & MacOSX Show Sample Output


    6
    */5 * * * * root /usr/local/nagios/sbin/nsca_check_disk 2>&1 |/usr/bin/logger -t nsca_check_disk
    StefanLasiewski · 2010-07-02 00:47:05 6
  • This command prints the Date (Not time) from 3 days ago (72 hours ago). This works on systems without GNU date (MacOSX , Solaris, FreeBSD). Show Sample Output


    4
    TZ=PST8PDT+72 date '+%Y_%m_%d'
    StefanLasiewski · 2010-07-02 00:29:27 9
  • I rarely need this, but I have a hard time remembering the command when I need it. Admit it. This has happened to you. Yes this is bad, and you better clean up now. Borrowed from http://thoughtsbyclayg.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-to-delete-last-command-from-bash.html Show Sample Output


    0
    alias histdel='history -d $((HISTCMD-2)) && history -d $((HISTCMD-1))'
    StefanLasiewski · 2010-07-02 00:20:44 9
  • I like man pages, and I like using `less(1)` as my pager. However, most GNU software keeps the manual in the 'GNU Texinfo' format, and I'm not a fan of the info(1) interface. Just give me less. This command will print out the info(1) pages, using the familiar interface of less! Show Sample Output


    1
    info gpg |less
    StefanLasiewski · 2010-07-01 23:44:15 6

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

tail -f a log file over ssh into growl

dump database from postgresql to a file

Lists all usernames in alphabetical order

Keep a copy of the raw Youtube FLV,MP4,etc stored in /tmp/
Certain Flash video players (e.g. Youtube) write their video streams to disk in /tmp/ , but the files are unlinked. i.e. the player creates the file and then immediately deletes the filename (unlinking files in this way makes it hard to find them, and/or ensures their cleanup if the browser or plugin should crash etc.) But as long as the flash plugin's process runs, a file descriptor remains in its /proc/ hierarchy, from which we (and the player) still have access to the file. The method above worked nicely for me when I had 50 tabs open with Youtube videos and didn't want to have to re-download them all with some tool.

Convert seconds to [DD:][HH:]MM:SS
Converts any number of seconds into days, hours, minutes and seconds. sec2dhms() { declare -i SS="$1" D=$(( SS / 86400 )) H=$(( SS % 86400 / 3600 )) M=$(( SS % 3600 / 60 )) S=$(( SS % 60 )) [ "$D" -gt 0 ] && echo -n "${D}:" [ "$H" -gt 0 ] && printf "%02g:" "$H" printf "%02g:%02g\n" "$M" "$S" }

Change the homepage of Firefox
Pros: Works in all Windows computers, most updated and compatible command. Cons: 3 liner Replace fcisolutions.com with your site name.

Copy without overwriting

Fast, built-in pipe-based data sink
This is shorter and actually much faster than >/dev/null (see sample output for timings) Plus, it looks like a disappointed face emoticon.

bash screensaver off

return the latest kernel version from a Satellite / Spacewalk server software channel


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: