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.

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

2011-03-12 - Confoo 2011 presentation
Slides are available from the commandlinefu presentation at Confoo 2011: http://presentations.codeinthehole.com/confoo2011/
2011-01-04 - Moderation now required for new commands
To try and put and end to the spamming, new commands require moderation before they will appear on the site.
2010-12-27 - Apologies for not banning the trolls sooner
Have been away from the interwebs over Christmas. Will be more vigilant henceforth.
2010-09-24 - OAuth and pagination problems fixed
Apologies for the delay in getting Twitter's OAuth supported. Annoying pagination gremlin also fixed.
Hide

Tags

Hide

Functions

Hide

Credits

Site by David Winterbottom (user root).

Commands using apt

Commands using apt from sorted by
Terminal - Commands using apt - 38 results
apt-get install phpmyadmin; echo "Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf" >> /etc/apache2/apache2.conf; service apache2 restart
2013-04-06 16:20:55
User: ZEROF
Functions: apt echo install
0
Up
Down
Install phpmyadmin in Debian 6

This command will install phpmyadmin, set apache2 server and restart apache2. After running this command you can open phpmyadmin on http://yoursite.com/phpmyadmin

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get -s upgrade | awk '/Inst.+/ {print $2}'
2013-03-25 21:23:11
User: lpanebr
Functions: apt awk
Tags: awk apt-get
1
Up
Down
List available upgrades from apt (package names only)

Usefull if you only want to see the package names, or if you want to use them in a script.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get --ignore-hold --allow-unauthenticated -s dist-upgrade | grep ^Inst | cut -d ' ' -f2
2013-01-07 11:21:58
User: phunehehe
Functions: apt cut grep
Tags: Ubuntu upgrade package
1
Up
Down
List upgrade-able packages on Ubuntu

Taken from apticron and modified.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-cache search php5
2012-09-20 21:14:50
User: sudopeople
Functions: apt
-9
Up
Down
Search for APT Packages

Can't remember what that one package was called? Search for it!

It's also a good idea to run

apt-get update

first.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get purge <app>
2012-09-20 06:28:55
User: huazhihao
Functions: apt
-2
Up
Down
clean installed apps
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-popcon() { (echo \#rank; apt-cache search "$@" |awk '$1 !~ /^lib/ {print " "$1" "}') |grep -Ff- <(wget -qqO- http://popcon.debian.org/by_inst.gz |gunzip); }
2012-09-08 00:29:31
User: khopesh
Functions: apt awk echo grep wget
Tags: Debian Ubuntu apt-cache
4
Up
Down
Search for packages, ranked by popularity

This will take the packages matching a given `apt-cache search` query (a collection of AND'd words or regexps) and tell you how popular they are. This is particularly nice for those times you have to figure out which solution to use for e.g. a PDF reader or a VNC client.

Substitute "ubuntu.com" for "debian.org" if you want this to use Ubuntu's data instead. Everything else will work perfectly.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-file --package-only search /lib/firmware
2012-09-04 15:14:46
User: gnugr
Functions: apt
0
Up
Down
Displays all available firmware you can get (non-free) in a Debian system
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get -y install/remove app
2012-08-29 06:08:19
User: huazhihao
Functions: apt
-6
Up
Down
automatic yes to apt-get install/remove
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get -s upgrade | awk '/[0-9]+ upgraded,/ {print $1 " package updates are available"}'
2012-03-29 17:04:32
User: lpanebr
Functions: apt awk
Tags: apt-get upgrade
2
Up
Down
List total available upgrades from apt without upgrading the system

This let's you find out the total packages that have available upgrades. Usefull if you want to check or show the total available upgrades on your system.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-config dump
2011-12-13 19:11:02
User: LinuxMan
Functions: apt
Tags: Debian Ubuntu apt Linux dpkg apt-config
5
Up
Down
Show Apt/Dpkg configuration

Shows all configurations to apt and dpkg, rarely changed, you probably still have the default configuration. Go ahead and explore your configuration if you dare, perhaps change your apt-cache directory, Dir::Cache "var/cache/apt/"; or the names of the log files.

Show sample output | Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get remove $(dpkg -l | awk "/^ii linux-(image|headers)/ && ! /`uname -r`/ {print \$2}")
2011-10-09 13:58:47
User: _john
Functions: apt awk
Tags: Debian Linux awk grep kernel dpkg aptitude
0
Up
Down
Remove all unused kernels with apt-get

since awk was already there one can use it instead of the 2 greps. might not be faster, but fast enough

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-cache policy mythtv
2011-08-05 17:34:41
User: PLA
Functions: apt
Tags: Debian mythtv mythbuntu
-2
Up
Down
Determine MythTV Version on a Debian System

Use this command to determine what version of MythTV you are running on a Debian system. Tested on a Mythbuntu installation.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-file search iostat
2011-07-24 11:56:31
User: tersmitten
Functions: apt
Tags: dpkg readlink
5
Up
Down
Find the package a command belongs to on debian-based distros
Comments (3) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-cache rdepends <packagename>
2011-07-18 15:17:02
User: piccobello
Functions: apt
Tags: apt package apt-cache
0
Up
Down
Show package reverse dependencies with apt
Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-cache depends <packagename>
2011-07-18 15:15:28
User: piccobello
Functions: apt
Tags: apt package apt-cache
0
Up
Down
Show package dependencies with apt
Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get install `ssh root@host_you_want_to_clone "dpkg -l | grep ii" | awk '{print $2}'`
2011-05-10 13:33:51
User: TuxOtaku
Functions: apt awk install
Tags: ssh apt awk apt-get grep dpkg
12
Up
Down
"Clone" a list of installed packages from one Debian/Ubuntu Server to another
Comments (3) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-cache search pidgin* | awk '{print$ 1}' | tr '\n' ' ' | xargs aptitude -y install
2011-04-13 08:01:22
User: insaneisnotfree
Functions: apt awk tr xargs
0
Up
Down
Install evertything with the prefix pidgin or wathever

Command to install everything on a debian based system with the prefix you indicate.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-show-versions | grep '\bpython\b'
2011-01-04 23:10:20
User: moonsilex
Functions: apt grep
Tags: grep dpkg
0
Up
Down
Check the package is installed or not. There will show the package name which is installed.
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get -y install git-core gitosis; adduser --home /home/git --gecos "git user" git; su git -c "ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /home/git/.ssh/id_rsa; gitosis-init < ~/.ssh/id_rsa"
2010-12-19 20:37:12
User: strzel_a
Functions: apt install su
2
Up
Down
Deploy git server repo

After, check if working by executing this command locally :

git clone git@192.168.0.18:repositories/gitosis-admin.git

Tutorial :

http://blog.hemca.com/?p=560

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-cache search perl | grep module | awk '{print $1;}' | xargs sudo apt-get install -y
2010-11-26 14:00:39
User: captwheeto
Functions: apt awk grep install perl sudo xargs
Tags: ubuntu linux bash cli apt aptitude apt-cache
-2
Up
Down
Bulk install

I used this to mass install a lot of perl stuff. Threw it together because I was feeling *especially* lazy. The 'perl' and the 'module' can be replaced with whatever you like.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get remove `deborphan`
2010-11-15 15:15:39
User: ironmarc
Functions: apt
Tags: apt-get aptitude deborphan
-3
Up
Down
Remove unused libs/packages in debian-based distros
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get search something | grep specific
2010-09-27 07:10:39
User: ProfOak
Functions: apt grep
-6
Up
Down
Refined repository search

replace apt-get with your distro's package manager.

Where 'something' is the package name, and 'specific' is what you're specifically looking for.

This helps if your query is 2+ words long.

Show sample output | Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-show-versions <packagename>
2010-06-03 15:52:11
User: Vasudev
Functions: apt
Tags: Debian
-1
Up
Down
Show a Package Version on Debian based distribution

If there is update available for the package you can see upgrade is from which version to which version. Also you will get detail about which release the package belongs to (stable/testing/sid).

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-cache show pkgname | grep -i "version:"
2010-06-03 00:48:39
User: emacs
Functions: apt grep
Tags: Debian
3
Up
Down
Show a Package Version on Debian based distribution

if you don't want to show string "version?, then use awk or cut filter it: apt-cache show pkgname | grep -i "version:" | awk '{ print $2 }'

we can also use regex to search many packages and show their versions:

apt-cache search pkgregex | grep -i "version:"

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
apt-get --just-print upgrade
2010-02-18 11:19:05
User: noqqe
Functions: apt
Tags: apt apt-get list updates upgrade without
1
Up
Down
List available upgrades from apt without upgrading the system
Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate