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 cut

Commands using cut from sorted by
Terminal - Commands using cut - 407 results
tail -f /var/log/messages.log | while read line ; do echo $line | cut -d \ -f5- | sed s/\\[[0-9]*\\]// | espeak ; done
2012-10-27 23:00:53
User: asdfkajsdfh
Functions: cut echo read sed tail
0
Up
Down
Pipe system log to espeak
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
dpkg --list | rgrep ii | cut -d" " -f3 | sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n/ /g' | sed 's/^\(.\)/apt-get install \1/'
2012-10-16 07:51:18
User: pablor44
Functions: cut install sed
0
Up
Down
Extract list of packages installed on one server and generate 'apt' command to install them on a new server

No params

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
curl -s mi-ip.net | grep '"ip"' | cut -f2 -d ">" | egrep -o '[0-9.]+'
2012-10-15 16:48:20
User: dragonauta
Functions: cut egrep grep
Tags: Network device ip address
0
Up
Down
What is my ip?

looks at html for "ip" (it's a CSS class), then a little of cut and egrep to get IPv4 address.

I use this oneliner into conky.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
find . \( -iname '*.cpp' -o -iname '*.h' \) -exec wc -l {} \; | sort -n | cut --delimiter=. -f 1 | awk '{s+=$1} END {print s}'
2012-09-19 15:21:01
User: jecxjoopenid
Functions: awk cut find sort wc
0
Up
Down
Count the number of lines of code, returns total

Searches for *.cpp and *.h in directory structure, counts the number of lines for each matching file and adds the counts together.

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
lpstat -p | cut -d' ' -f2 | xargs -I{} lpadmin -x {}
2012-09-18 02:11:53
User: bmeehan
Functions: cut lpadmin lpstat xargs
0
Up
Down
Removes all existing printers

This is the closest you can get to "reset printing system" from the command line. Giving credit back to J D McIninch from an apple forum back in 2009.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
echo $(find <directory> -name '*.<extension>' -exec du -s {} \; | tee $(tty) | cut -f1 | tr '\n' '+') 0 | bc
2012-09-17 22:46:50
User: ysangkok
Functions: cut du echo find tee tr
Tags: find du tty-dependant
-1
Up
Down
Sum files of certain extension in given directory

Also shows files as they are found. Only works from a tty.

Comments (3) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
getent passwd | cut -d: -f1 | sort
2012-09-12 17:16:54
User: theftf
Functions: cut getent passwd
Tags: sort password users
0
Up
Down
Lists all usernames in alphabetical order
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
lynx -useragent=Opera -dump 'http://www.facebook.com/ajax/typeahead_friends.php?u=521826202&__a=1' |gawk -F'\"t\":\"' -v RS='\",' 'RT{print $NF}' |grep -v '\"n\":\"' |cut -d, -f2
2012-09-10 09:15:10
User: pheloke1
Functions: cut gawk grep
0
Up
Down
fbari
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
lynx -useragent=Opera -dump 'http://www.facebook.com/ajax/typeahead_friends.php?u=4&__a=1' |gawk -F'\"t\":\"' -v RS='\",' 'RT{print $NF}' |grep -v '\"n\":\"' |cut -d, -f2
2012-09-10 08:54:18
User: pheloke1
Functions: cut gawk grep
0
Up
Down
fb1

me

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
lynx -useragent=Opera -dump 'http://www.facebook.com/ajax/typeahead_friends.php?u=100000475200812&__a=1' |gawk -F'\"t\":\"' -v RS='\",' 'RT{print $NF}' |grep -v '\"n\":\"' |cut -d, -f2
2012-09-10 02:22:03
User: pheloke
Functions: cut gawk grep
0
Up
Down
face are
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cut -c23-37 /var/log/squid3/access.log | cut -d' ' -f1 | sort | uniq
2012-09-07 14:57:26
User: dan
Functions: cut sort
Tags: squid webproxy
3
Up
Down
Lists all clients of a Squid proxy

Generates the list of clients (IPs addresses) that have used the Squid webproxy according to the most recent log. Every IP appears only once in the list.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
lsmod | tail -n +2 | cut -d' ' -f1 | xargs modinfo | egrep '^file|^desc|^dep' | sed -e'/^dep/s/$/\n/g'
2012-09-03 17:59:49
User: vlaad
Functions: cut egrep lsmod modinfo sed tail xargs
Tags: xargs lsmod modinfo
0
Up
Down
Short Information about loaded kernel modules
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
asterisk -rx "core show calls" | grep "active" | cut -d' ' -f1
2012-08-15 19:42:30
User: Kouri
Functions: cut grep
Tags: asterisk
0
Up
Down
Watch active calls on an Asterisk PBX

Works on asterisk 1.8.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
buf () { oldname=$1; if [ "$oldname" != "" ]; then datepart="$(date +%Y-%m-%d).bak"; firstpart=`echo $oldname | cut -d "." -f 1`; newname=`echo $oldname | sed s/$firstpart/$firstpart.$datepart/`; cp -iv ${oldname} ${newname}; fi }
2012-08-15 08:31:44
User: juliushibert
Functions: cp cut sed
Tags: backup date function cp
1
Up
Down
Backup a file with a date-time stamp

Appends the input file with the date format YYYY-MM-DD.bak. Also runs silently if you remove the -v on the cp at the end of the function.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
nmap -n -sP -oG - 10.10.10.*/32 | grep ": Up" | cut -d' ' -f2
2012-08-13 15:37:21
User: insaneisnotfree
Functions: cut grep
0
Up
Down
Getting a list of active addresses in your own network.

You can substitute 10.10.10.* by your own network. Or whatever nmap accepts, inlcluding submask.

Show sample output | Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ssh-keygen -l -f [pubkey] | cut -d ' ' -f 2 | tr -ds '\n:' ''
2012-07-24 15:40:51
User: zdouglas
Functions: cut ssh ssh-keygen tr
Tags: openssl ssh-keygen
0
Up
Down
Validate openssh key & print checksum
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
eselect bashcomp enable --global $(eselect bashcomp list | sed -e 's/ //g'| cut -d']' -f2 | sed -e 's/\*//'| xargs)
2012-07-20 22:01:08
User: proteusx
Functions: cut enable sed
Tags: bash Gentoo completion eselect
0
Up
Down
enable all bash completions in gentoo
Comments (1) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
curl -s http://checkrealip.com/ | grep "Current IP Address" | cut -d ' ' -f 4
2012-07-17 23:17:34
User: kjhank
Functions: cut grep
Tags: public
-2
Up
Down
Get your current Public IP
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ip a s eth0 | grep "inet " | head -n 1 | awk '{print $2}' | cut -f1 -d'/'
2012-07-16 07:54:43
User: thelan
Functions: awk cut grep head
Tags: IP
-4
Up
Down
Get the IP address

Get the first IPv4 address of an interface

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
ifconfig | grep "inet addr" | cut -d":" -f2 | cut -d" " -f1
2012-07-13 00:38:38
User: liushuililuo
Functions: cut grep ifconfig
Tags: ifconfig
-3
Up
Down
Get the IP address
Comments (5) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
for user in $(getent passwd|cut -f1 -d:); do echo "### Crontabs for $user ####"; crontab -u $user -l; done
2012-07-11 13:06:17
User: harpo
Functions: crontab cut echo getent
Tags: crontab getent
0
Up
Down
Show crontabs for all users

added echo "### Crontabs for $user ####"; to make clear whose crontab is listed.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
for user in $(cut -f1 -d: /etc/passwd); do echo "### Crontabs for $user ####"; crontab -u $user -l; done
2012-07-11 12:25:56
User: harpo
Functions: crontab cut echo
Tags: crontab
3
Up
Down
Show crontabs for all users

added echo "### Crontabs for $user ####"; to make clear whose crontab is listed.

Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
smbclient -N -gL \\SambaServer 2>&1 | grep -e "Disk|" | cut -d'|' -f2
2012-07-07 04:45:06
User: dynaguy
Functions: cut grep
-2
Up
Down
Get a list of all browsable Samba shares on the target server.
Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
cut -d: -f 1 names.txt
2012-06-26 19:28:25
User: ankush108
Functions: cut
Tags: column cut
0
Up
Down
Select columns in a file

Display the 1st field (employee name) from a colon delimited file

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate
netstat -tn | grep :80 | awk '{print $5}'| grep -v ':80' | cut -f1 -d: |cut -f1,2,3 -d. | sort | uniq -c| sort -n
2012-06-26 08:29:37
User: krishnan
Functions: awk cut grep netstat sort uniq
Tags: sort awk IP grep netstat connection range user
0
Up
Down
Number of connections per IP with range 24

cut -f1,2 - IP range 16

cut -f1,2,3 - IP range 24

cut -f1,2,3,4 - IP range 24

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious | Submit alternative | Report as a duplicate