This will perform one of two blocks of code, depending on the condition of the first. Essentially is a bash terniary operator. To tell if a machine is up: ping -c1 machine { echo succes;} || { echo failed; } Because of the bash { } block operators, you can have multiple commands ping -c1 machine && { echo success;log-timestamp.sh }|| { echo failed; email-admin.sh; } Tips: Remember, the { } operators are treated by bash as a reserved word: as such, they need a space on either side. If you have a command that can fail at the end of the true block, consider ending said block with 'false' to prevent accidental execution Show Sample Output

Not so much handy by itself, but very nice in shell scripts. This makes you a handy ncurses based checklist. Much like terminal installers, just use the arrow keys and hit 'Space' to adjust the selections. Returns all selected tags as strings, with no newline at the end. So, your output will be something like: "one" "two" "three" "four" "etc" For those who prefer bash expansion over gratuitious typing: whiptail --checklist "Simple checkbox menu" 12 35 3 $(echo {one,two,three,four}" '' 0"} ) Things to note: The height must includes the outer border and padding: add 7 to however many items you want to show up at the same time. If the status is 1, it will be selected by default. anything else, will be deselected. Show Sample Output

This function runs a program in the background, and logs all output to an automatically created logfile. That way, you can still get at the output without it clogging up your terminal. Tip: Throw fork() and this: for prog in firefox kate konqueror ;do alias $prog="fork $prog";done into your bashrc, so that they'll automatically run out of the way. Show Sample Output

Depending on the network setup, you may not get the hostname. Show Sample Output