PING parameters c 1 limits to 1 pinging attempt q makes the command quiet (or silent mode) /dev/null 2>&1 is to remove the display && echo ONLINE is executed if previous command is successful (return value 0) || echo OFFLINE is executed otherwise (return value of 1 if unreachable or 2 if you're offline yourself). I personally use this command as an alias with a predefined machine name but there are at least 2 improvements that may be done. Asking for the machine name or IP Escaping the output so that it displays ONLINE in green and OFFLINE in red (for instance).

Extracting .gz files and placing the output in another directory in one command line is convenient thing. I just followed some how-to to install Nagios on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx but they give the method to install from archives. I wished to install from the repository. If you do so some files are missing. I've not tested yet but this is an example command line I did to extract sudo sh -c 'gunzip -c /usr/share/doc/nagios3-common/examples/template-object/templates.cfg.gz > /etc/nagios3/objects/templates.cfg' We need privilege to write the destination file. Show Sample Output

Can be useful to rip a CD. Show Sample Output

I have some problems with gnome panel which does not load completely leaving me without the actual GUI. This commands helps to kill the gnome-panel process then it should be relaunch automatically.