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Execute a command with a timeout
I like much more the perl solution, but without using perl. It launches a backgroup process that will kill the command if it lasts too much. A bigger function: check_with_timeout() { [ "$DEBUG" ] && set -x COMMAND=$1 TIMEOUT=$2 RET=0 # Launch command in backgroup [ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 6>&2 # Link file descriptor #6 with stderr. [ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 2> /dev/null # Send stderr to null (avoid the Terminated messages) $COMMAND 2>&1 >/dev/null & COMMAND_PID=$! [ "$DEBUG" ] && echo "Background command pid $COMMAND_PID, parent pid $$" # Timer that will kill the command if timesout sleep $TIMEOUT && ps -p $COMMAND_PID -o pid,ppid |grep $$ | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill & KILLER_PID=$! [ "$DEBUG" ] && echo "Killer command pid $KILLER_PID, parent pid $$" wait $COMMAND_PID RET=$? # Kill the killer timer [ "$DEBUG" ] && ps -e -o pid,ppid |grep $KILLER_PID | awk '{print $1}' | xargs echo "Killing processes: " ps -e -o pid,ppid |grep -v PID | grep $KILLER_PID | awk '{print $1}' | xargs kill wait sleep 1 [ ! "$DEBUG" ] && exec 2>&6 6>&- # Restore stderr and close file descriptor #6. return $RET }

Day of the week of your birthday over the years.
Do you ever want to know which day of week was your birhday! Now you can check that with this command, just set your birh date at the beginning (My bday in the example) and the dates will be revealed. ;)

The fastest remote directory rsync over ssh archival I can muster (40MB/s over 1gb NICs)
This creates an archive that does the following: rsync:: (Everyone seems to like -z, but it is much slower for me) -a: archive mode - rescursive, preserves owner, preserves permissions, preserves modification times, preserves group, copies symlinks as symlinks, preserves device files. -H: preserves hard-links -A: preserves ACLs -X: preserves extended attributes -x: don't cross file-system boundaries -v: increase verbosity --numeric-ds: don't map uid/gid values by user/group name --delete: delete extraneous files from dest dirs (differential clean-up during sync) --progress: show progress during transfer ssh:: -T: turn off pseudo-tty to decrease cpu load on destination. -c arcfour: use the weakest but fastest SSH encryption. Must specify "Ciphers arcfour" in sshd_config on destination. -o Compression=no: Turn off SSH compression. -x: turn off X forwarding if it is on by default. Flip: rsync -aHAXxv --numeric-ids --delete --progress -e "ssh -T -c arcfour -o Compression=no -x" [source_dir] [dest_host:/dest_dir]

Send keypresses to an X application
This is a (last resort) way to automate applications that provide no other ways for automation, it would send 'Hello world' to the currently active window. See the manpage (and the -text and -window entries) for how to send special characters and target specific windows. An example: Using xwininfo, I get the id of my XPlanet background window: alanceil@kvirasim:19:51:0:~> xwininfo xwininfo: Please select the window about which you would like information by clicking the mouse in that window. xwininfo: Window id: 0x3600001 "Xplanet 1.2.0" Absolute upper-left X: 0 (..etc..) Now I use xvkbd to tell it to close itself: xvkbd -xsendevent -window 0x3600001 -text "Q" Obviously, the best way is to put these commands in a shellscript - just make sure to include a short sleep (sleep .1 should suffice) after each xvkbd call, or some programs will become confused.

Determining the excat memory usages by certain PID
this command gives you the total number of memory usuage and open files by the perticuler PID.

Remove ( color / special / escape / ANSI ) codes, from text, with sed
Remove ( color / special / escape / ANSI ) codes, from text, with sed Credit to the original folks who I've copied this command from. The diff here is: Theirs: [m|K] Theirs is supposed to remove \E[NUMBERS;NUMBERS[m OR K] This statement is incorrect in 2 ways. 1. The letters m and K are two of more than 20+ possible letters that can end these sequences. 2. Inside []'s , OR is already assumed, so they are also looking for sequences ending with | which is not correct. This : [a-zA-Z] This resolves the "OR" issue noted above, and takes care of all sequences, as they all end with a lower or upper cased letter. This ensures 100% of any escape code 'mess' is removed.

archive all files containing local changes (svn)
This works more reliable for me ("cut -c 8-" had one more space, so it did not work)

Check the status of a network interface

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"

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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