Commands using head (314)

  • Get an approximation of who the workstation is assigned to. You can wrap it in su - "$()" if you want to log into a shell as that user. Show Sample Output


    0
    last | grep -i console | grep -iv 'root' | cut -f 1 -d ' ' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | awk '{print $2}' | head -1
    phyxia · 2015-07-20 18:07:40 10
  • Useful when you need to generate password or random hash string. If you need longer string adjust parameter for "head -c 20" Show Sample Output


    0
    dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1k count=1 2>/dev/null|LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789!@#%^&*(-_=+)'|head -c 20
    nitrogear · 2015-07-25 21:24:28 9

  • 0
    ls -1 /proc/$(ps ax | grep <Process Name> | head -n 1 | awk '{print $1;}')/task | tail -n +2
    happymarmoset · 2015-10-06 07:44:48 10

  • 0
    cut -f1 -d" " ~/.bash_history | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -n 30
    kenorb · 2015-10-09 16:11:37 10
  • Quick way to get the URL of the most recent audio file out of a podcast xml feed without any fancy xml parsing tools. Just curl, grep and head


    0
    mpc add `curl -s http://link.to/podcast/feed.xml | grep -o 'https*://[^"]*mp3' | head -1`
    tbon3r · 2015-10-11 09:17:35 9
  • this one includes special characters. note some some chars may be disallowed on windows systems. *nix will allow pretty much any character in a password except a carriage return. you do not want non printing characters in your password, so this is limited to the printable chars displayed on a keyboard , less space and return. edited to fix minor typo Show Sample Output


    0
    tr -dc '[:print:]' < /dev/urandom | fold -w10 |head -n1 |sed 's/ //g'
    wr250 · 2016-01-09 13:43:16 12
  • Returns a list, with attributes (think `ls -l`), in reverse chronological order. N is a single numeric parameter. Robust against unfriendly filenames and directory structures. Show Sample Output


    0
    nmf() { find . -type f -printf '%T@ ' -print0 -printf '\n' | sort -rn | head -"$1" | cut -f2- -d" " | tr -d "\0" | tr "\n" "\0" | xargs -0 ls -Ulh; }
    incidentnormal · 2016-03-04 14:53:14 12
  • Display the top processes sorted by memory usage. This is mostly useful because it's easy to remember and can give me a quick 'top' view of a group of servers when used over pssh. (Though I'd recommend |head -10 to minimize the output). Show Sample Output


    0
    top -b -o +%MEM |head -17
    dak1n1 · 2016-03-16 22:14:34 12
  • Grabs the first JSON file in the directory, reads its keys, prints TSV, then prints all the json files' values as TSV. Nested objects appear as json. Unhappy times if your json has literal tabs in it. Show Sample Output


    0
    jq -r 'keys | join("\t")' $(ls -f *.json | head -1) && jq -Sr 'to_entries | [ .[] | .value | tostring ] | join("\t")' *.json
    drjeats · 2016-04-08 23:30:30 12
  • This command will find any named file types in / between two dates then will list all the metadata of those files in long format and human readable form. Adding a 't' flag to the ls command sorts the files by modified time. After all that the head -5 lists the first 5 which can be changed.


    0
    ls -laht `find / -name "*.*" -type f -newermt "2016-04-05" ! -newermt "2016-04-10"`|head -5
    ubercoo · 2016-04-19 14:26:23 10
  • by determining most popular use in history using percentage . Show Sample Output


    0
    history | awk '{CMD[$2]++;count++;}END { for (a in CMD)print CMD[a] " " CMD[a]/count*100 "% " a;}' | grep -v "./" | column -c3 -s " " -t | sort -nr | nl | head -n10
    turrtle13 · 2016-04-24 17:21:35 9
  • This server can be access by a browser or other remote terminal with ncat. I have to use de test && break to allow ctrl-c to close. Show Sample Output


    0
    while [ 1 ]; do cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc ' -~' | head -c 10 | ncat -l 8080 &> /dev/null; test $? -gt 128 && break; done
    xxjcaxx · 2016-05-04 14:36:47 10

  • 0
    cat access.log | awk '{print $1}' | sort -n | uniq -c | sort -nr | head -20
    prees · 2016-05-05 20:52:03 13
  • This is a alternate command I like to use instead of TOP or HTOP to see what are the processes which are taking up the most memory on a system. It shows the username, process ID, CPU usage, Memory usage, thread ID, Number of threads associated with parent process, Resident Set Size, Virtual Memory Size, start time of the process, and command arguments. Then it's sorted by memory and showing the top 10 with head. This of course can be changed to suit you needs. I have a small system which is why Firefox is taking so much resources. Show Sample Output


    0
    watch -n .8 'ps -eaLo uname,pid,pcpu,pmem,lwp,nlwp,rss,vsz,start_time,args --sort -pmem| head -10'
    ubercoo · 2016-05-11 01:05:53 11

  • 0
    find /var -type f -exec du -h {} \; | sort -rh | head -10
    jiananmail · 2016-05-31 00:21:32 10
  • Finds the login id of the user that owns the console. I use it to reset my touchpad after resume from suspend in /etc/pm/sleep.d/s99local


    0
    who | grep :0 | head -1 | cut -d " " -f 1
    mikef5410 · 2016-06-22 17:33:38 12

  • 0
    tr "\|\;" "\n" < ~/.bash_history | sed -e "s/^ //g" | cut -d " " -f 1 | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20
    turrtle13 · 2016-07-01 19:27:12 10

  • 0
    ps aux | awk '{if ($5 != 0 ) print $2,$5,$6,$11}' | sort -k2rn | head -10 | column -t
    turrtle13 · 2016-07-01 19:40:56 12
  • When bundle install sucks ...This runs isuckat_ruby.rb and when stderror matches find gem ' it will gem install what ever is missing ... Show Sample Output


    0
    gem install `ruby ./isuckat_ruby.rb 2>&1 | sed -e 's/.*find gem .//g' -e 's/ .*//g' | head -n 1`
    operat0r · 2016-08-03 19:41:27 13

  • 0
    last -x | grep shutdown | head -1
    creepyjones · 2016-08-10 21:51:48 12
  • to simulating connections Simultaneous to specific server adress to test penetrations Show Sample Output


    0
    for i in {0..60}; do (curl -Is http://46.101.214.181:10101 | head -n1 &) 2>/dev/null; sleep 1; done;
    aysadk · 2017-01-15 14:32:02 16

  • 0
    for i in {0..60}; do (curl -Is http://<domain/ip> | head -n1 &) 2>/dev/null; sleep 1; done;
    aysadk · 2017-01-24 02:47:13 13
  • To allow recursivity : find -type f -exec md5sum '{}' ';' | sort | uniq -c -w 33 | sort -gr | head -n 5 | cut -c1-7,41- Display only filenames : find -maxdepth 1 -type f -exec md5sum '{}' ';' | sort | uniq -c -w 33 | sort -gr | head -n 5 | cut -c43- Show Sample Output


    0
    find -maxdepth 1 -type f -exec md5sum '{}' ';' | sort | uniq -c -w 33 | sort -gr | head -n 5 | cut -c1-7,41-
    MaDCOw · 2017-02-09 11:36:31 18

  • 0
    head filename.txt | column -t -s $'\t'
    NLKNguyen · 2017-02-10 23:26:10 20
  • alex@alex-box:~$ sl The program 'sl' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: sudo apt-get install sl alex@alex-box:~$ dolast Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: sl 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.


    0
    alias dolast='$( $(history 2| head -n 1| sed "s/.* //") 2>&1 | tail -n 1)'
    aheinous · 2017-02-25 01:26:49 19
  • ‹ First  < 8 9 10 11 12 >  Last ›

What's this?

commandlinefu.com is the place to record those command-line gems that you return to again and again. 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.

Share Your Commands


Check These Out

set wallpaper on windowmaker in one line
set directly the wallpaper on windowmaker , use this command with display of imagemagick :)

Give to anyone a command to immediatly find a particular part of a man.
Example : $ LC_ALL=C man less | less +/ppattern

Unlock your KDE4 session remotely (for boxes locked by KDE lock utility)
Do the unlock KDE screen saver locked session with lightdm display manager used in Kubuntu 12.10 +

Decrypt passwords from Google Chrome and Chromium.
Read this before you down voting and comment that it is not working -> Wont work on latest versions ~75> since database file is locked and has to be decrypted. This is useful if you have an old hdd with a chrome installation and want to decrypt your old passwords fast.

Simultaneously running different Firefox profiles
After running $ firefox -ProfileManager and creating several different profiles, use this command to run multiple Firefox profiles simultaneously.

Prints new content of files
Useful to e.g. keep an eye on several logfiles.

Shorten any Url using bit.ly API, using your API Key which enables you to Track Clicks
Shorten any Url using bit.ly API, using your API Key which enables you to Track Clicks I have it as a Function in my .bash_aliases [code] shorten () { longUrl=$1; curl "http://api.bit.ly/shorten?version=2.0.1&longUrl=LONG_URL_YOU_WANT_SHORTENED&login=rungss&apiKey=" } [/code] Here is an Output showing the Function Detail.. [konsole] bijay@bijay:$ type shorten shorten is a function shorten () { longUrl=$1; curl "http://api.bit.ly/shorten?version=2.0.1&longUrl=$longUrl&login=rungss&apiKey=R_48d7e0b40835b09e3861bd455f7abec7" } [/konsole]

scping files with streamlines compression (tar gzip)
it compresses the files and folders to stdout, secure copies it to the server's stdin and runs tar there to extract the input and output to whatever destination using -C. if you emit "-C /destination", it will extract it to the home folder of the user, much like `scp file user@server:`. the "v" in the tar command can be removed for no verbosity.

cd up a number of levels
Instead of typing "cd ../../.." you can type ".. 3". For extremely lazy typists, you can add this alias: alias ...=".. 2" ....=".. 3" - so now you can write just .... !!! NB the .. function needs to be "source"d or included in your startup scripts, perhaps .bashrc.

Get your external IP address ( 10 characters long )
Shortest url to a external IP-service, 10 characters.


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: