Commands using watch sorted by votes

Commands using watch (155)

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watch iptables counters

Watch the number of packets/bytes coming through the firewall. Useful in setting up new iptables rules or chains. Use this output to reorder rules for efficiency. Show Sample Output

watch 'iptables -vL'

alanr723 · 2009-03-20 14:49:12 19

Monitoring wifi connection by watch command (refresh every 3s), displaying iw dump info and iwconfig on wireless interface "wlan0"
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

watch -d -n 3 "iw dev wlan0 station dump; iwconfig wlan0"

Nexus6 · 2009-06-09 12:07:07 4
for all who don't have the watch command

#Usage: watch timeinsecond "command" Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Every 3s: ls 				 Mi 19 Aug 2009 17:27:24 CEST
file1
file2
file3
...
```
4

watch() { while test :; do clear; date=$(date); echo -e "Every "$1"s: $2 \t\t\t\t $date"; $2; sleep $1; done }

peshay · 2009-08-19 15:29:00 3

Monitor memory usage

Monitor with watch command and vmstat, memory usage Show Sample Output

watch vmstat -sSM

servermanaged · 2009-12-04 22:35:45 6

Show simple disk IO table using snmp

Show a simple table with disk IO for the specified host. you monitor a LOT of different thing. Mostly used for MRTG and similar, but this is nice for a quick look, which disk is busy. "public" is your SNMP community ensure that snmpd is running on the host which you intend to monitor Show Sample Output

watch -n1 snmptable -v2c -c public localhost diskIOTable

oernii2 · 2010-03-19 11:31:52 4

Big Countdown Clock with hours, minutes and seconds

Figlet is easy to find for download on the internet, and works for any text. Quite cool. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
  ___   __    ____  _  _    _  _    __        _    __  __
 / _ \ / /_ _| ___|| || | _| || |  / /_      / \  |  \/  |
| | | | '_ (_)___ \| || |(_) || |_| '_ \    / _ \ | |\/| |
| |_| | (_) | ___) |__   _||__   _| (_) |  / ___ \| |  | |
 \___/ \___(_)____/   |_|(_)  |_|  \___/  /_/   \_\_|  |_|
```
4

watch -tn1 'date +%r | figlet'

SuperFly · 2010-06-22 10:59:16 6
continuously check size of files or directories
This is sample output - yours may be different.
4

watch -n <time_interval> "du -s <file_or_directory>"

stbu · 2010-08-24 20:05:08 6

Monitor cpu freq and temperature

This is maybe helpfull from system overheat on your linux box Show Sample Output

watch --interval 1 "cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/*; cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep MHz; cat /proc/acpi/processor/*/throttling"

unixmonkey14859 · 2010-12-09 19:47:25 54

Console clock

A console clock with the current time. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Every 1.0s: date "+%T"                                                                                                                                                                    

11:33:02
```
4

watch -n1 'date "+%T"'

DaveQB · 2011-02-16 00:33:51 6
Create a continuous digital clock in Linux terminal

Source: http://www.my-guides.net/en/guides/linux/364-how-to-create-a-continuous-digital-clock-in-linux-terminal Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
08:10:26
```
4

watch -t -n 1 date +%T

Nicolargo · 2012-09-30 14:10:58 18
Command to keep an SSH connection open

This runs the uptime command every 30 seconds to avoid an SSH connection dropping due to inactivity. Granted there are better ways of solving this problem but this is sometimes the right tool for the job.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

watch -n 30 uptime

root · 2009-01-27 14:49:21 117
Monitor Linux/MD RAID Rebuild
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

watch -n 5 -d cat /proc/mdstat

wwest4 · 2009-03-03 21:38:50 28
whois surfing my web ?
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

watch lsof -i :80

hypnojazz · 2009-07-19 08:24:06 5
for all who don't have the watch command
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

watch() { t=$1; shift; while test :; do clear; date=$(date); echo -e "Every "$t"s: $@ \t\t\t\t $date"; $@; sleep $t; done }

yaccovs · 2009-08-19 19:55:55 3
StopWatch, simple text, hh:mm:ss using Unix Time

Works on real time clock, unix time based, decrementing the actual time from initial time saved in an environment variable exported to child process inside watch Shows elapsed time from start of script in hh:mm:ss format Non afected by system slow down due to the use of date.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

export I=$(date +%s); watch -t -n 1 'T=$(date +%s);E=$(($T-$I));hours=$((E / 3600)) ; seconds=$((E % 3600)) ; minutes=$((seconds / 60)) ; seconds=$((seconds % 60)) ; echo $(printf "%02d:%02d:%02d" $hours $minutes $seconds)'

m33600 · 2009-10-23 07:31:44 8
Watch the size of a directory using figlet

You can substitute /home/$USER with any path you like.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

watch -n1 "du -hs /home/$USER | cut -f1 -d'/' | figlet -k"

cviorel · 2010-01-07 07:30:59 6
Watch command

Repeat command after every 2 secs
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

watch -n 2 command

pranavkn · 2012-03-20 19:55:52 3
Debug redirects between production reloads

Watches the headers of a curl, following any redirects and printing only the HTTP status and the location of the possible redirects. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Every 2,0s: curl -s ...

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://fooo.bar/
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: http://fooo.bar/ho
HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
```
3

watch 'curl -s --location -I http://any.site.or.url | grep -e "$HTTP\|Location$"'

theist · 2012-04-23 17:05:29 4
keep an eye on system load changes

helps you keep watch on the load of a system, without having to stare constantly at the terminal. The -d argument to watch highlights the difference from the last run, making it easier to note how the load is fluctuating. The sed command just strips off the information about how long the box has been up, and how many users are logged in. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
load average: 0.65, 0.88, 1.00
```
2

watch -n 7 -d 'uptime | sed s/.*users,//'

detert · 2009-03-25 02:52:36 5
Watch the National Debt clock

The idea was originally stolen from Linux Journal. 'wget' pulls the debt clock and 'sed' reformats it for general consumption. Prefacing the command with 'watch' simply sets an interval - in this case every 10 seconds. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Every 10.0s: wget -q http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock -O - | grep debt...  Thu Mar 26 15:28:51 2009

$11,054,045,193,869.78
```
2

watch -n 10 "wget -q http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock -O - | grep debtiv.gif | sed -e 's/.*ALT=\"//' -e 's/\".*//' -e 's/ //g'"

matrtsmiller · 2009-03-26 19:32:57 7

Monitor RX/TX packets and any subsquent errors

www.fir3net.com Show Sample Output

watch 'netstat -aniv'

felix001 · 2009-06-26 11:16:42 8

Lists the size of certain file in every 10 seconds

watch is a command especially designed for doing this job
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

watch -n 10 'du -sk testfile'

ianux · 2009-08-14 12:35:21 3
Expedient hard disk temprature and load cycle stats

This command is a great way to check to see if acpi is doing damage to your disks by agressivly parking the read arm and wearing down it's life. As you can see, mine has lost half its life. I'm sure this could be shortened though somehow. It will use smartctl to dump the stats and then grep out just the temperature and load cycles for the disk (a load cycle is when a the read arm comes out of park and wears on the drive). Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Every 2.0s: sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count ; sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Temp             Mon Dec 14 19:09:56 2009

193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   163   163   000    Old_age   Always       -       113991
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   098   083   000    Old_age   Always       -       49
```
2

watch -d 'sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Load_Cycle_Count ; sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | grep Temp'

vxbinaca · 2009-12-15 00:15:24 5
output stats from a running dd command to see its progress

if you start a large dd and forgot about statistics, but you still wonder what the progress is this command in an OTHER terminal will show you the way. NOTE: the watch command by itself will not output anything NOTE: the kill command will not kill the process Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
It will let the running dd command outputting stats like this:

5745+20519787 records in
5745+20519787 records out
38845006016 bytes (39 GB) copied, 3389.22 s, 11.5 MB/s
```
2

watch -n60 --kill -USR1 $(pgrep dd)

bw · 2009-12-16 10:35:28 4
watch your network load on specific network interface

-n means refresh frequency you could change eth0 to any interface you want, like wlan0 Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
Every 1.0s: ifconfig eth0|grep bytes                    Sat Mar 20 11:21:15 2010

          RX bytes:3310367 (3.1 MiB)  TX bytes:528391 (516.0 KiB)
```
2

watch -n1 'ifconfig eth0|grep bytes'

qiaomuf · 2010-03-20 03:24:26 4
< 1 2 3 4 > Last ›

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Generate diff of first 500 lines of two files

Useful for massive files where doing a full diff would take too long. This just runs diff on the first 500 lines of each. The use of subshells to feed STDIN is quite a useful construct.

Get the 10 biggest files/folders for the current direcotry

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"

Downmix from stereo to mono and play radio stream with mplayer

The solution to a year long (and extremely frustrating) problem I've had, caused by the fact that I only have one speaker; this command downmixes the stream to monophonic output, making sure I don't miss any of the music. NOTE: When stream is in .m3u format, a -playlist option is required, as shown below: $ mplayer -af pan=1:0.5:0.5 -channels 1 -playlist radiostream.m3u This command works great with aliases for various channels in .bashrc. Sample below: $ alias radio1='mplayer -af pan=1:0.5:0.5 -channels 1 radio1stream.pls'

for ssh uptime

This will run them at the same time and timeout for each host in ten seconds. Also, mussh will append the ip addres to the beginning of the output so you know which host resonded with which time. The use of the sequence expression {1..50} is not specific to mussh. The `seq ...` works, but is less efficient.

geoip information

geoip from maxmind try to get the small utility via: apt-get install geoip

Check if *hardware* is 32bit or 64bit

This command tell you if your hardware is 32 or 64 bits even if you install a 32bits OS on a 64 bits hardware. If your distro don't support the -q switch, try doing : $ grep &>/dev/null '\' /proc/cpuinfo && echo 64 bits || echo 32 bits

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" }

Prettify an XML file

Like `tidy`, `xmllint` can be used to prettify XML files. The --nsclean option is also useful to remove redundant namespaces.

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"

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Commands using watch (155)

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