[Dex13]

Today I had a problem with moving a printer driver into the system folder, which w/ out knowing a simple command would have ruined my day. But thx to the guys at macnn irc channel they were able to give me this simple command : sudo mv <file> <target>.
This saved me alot of grief.
So to save time for both newbies at terminal, and forgetful veterans post your 10 most essential (but simple plz) Terminal Commands.

-NeXtJeStEr

[xtal]

Hmmm...

ls
cd
cp
mv
more
head
tail
rm

and of course...

man

I recently read the man pages for some common commands, and it's incredible what switches are available for them. Worth checking out.

[MacGorilla]

curl -O for easy downloading.

[Dex13]

Originally posted by MacGorilla:
curl -O for easy downloading.

? What does that do?

[Avon]

Originally posted by Dex13:
? What does that do?

Downloads a URL.

I like wget, I usualy forget what switch to use.

[Arkham_c]

On OSX, 'open' and 'osascript' are nice tools.

Outside of that and those listed earlier, here are some good ones:

Code:
man
uptime
top
echo
who
last
grep
awk
sed
less
pico
vi
alias

[mmurray]

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
On OSX, 'open' and 'osascript' are nice tools.

Yep if its OSX my vote is for open.

open . <- opens the directory you are in in the Finder.

open http://www.macnn.com <- opens the URL in your browser

open file <- opens the file in whatever is the appropriate application. Like double clicking the file.

see `man open' for more

The other useful thing - although its not a command line command - is to know that dragging a file/folder onto the open terminal window pastes the full path to it into where ever the cursor is. So

cd <drag folder to terminal window and let go> return

will result in you changing directory to the folder you dragged.

Finally if you have the money get the full BBEdit and you can do

bbedit file

to open the file in bbedit and edit it. BBEdit also deals with permissions. You can authenticate as admin and then edit files owned by root. As the man page says

BBEDIT(1) BBEdit Command Line Reference BBEDIT(1)

NAME
bbedit - It doesn't suck.


Michael

[MacGorilla]

Originally posted by Avon:
Downloads a URL.

I like wget, I usualy forget what switch to use.

I prefer wget too, though it doesn't come installed anymore.

You can use curl to download a file, say for sample curl -O http://thefile.sit
and it will save it in your home directory, compress.

[Gene Jockey]

Well, for me anyway...

ls
mv
cp -R
SystemStarter
apachectl
ssh
ps -ax
grep
kill -HUP
nano

At least recently. Yes, I know how to use vi, I just choose not to

--Josh

[pimephalis]

Originally posted by Gene Jockey:
Well, for me anyway...

ls
mv
cp -R
SystemStarter
apachectl
ssh
ps -ax
grep
kill -HUP
nano

At least recently. Yes, I know how to use vi, I just choose not to

--Josh

What, you have trouble remembering the 4000 or more commands in vi, none of which really map to any logical clue?

Some of my favourite terminal commands:

sed
grep (as in less foo.txt | grep 'bite me')
strings
ssh, scp, sftp
touch

... and best of all: | (pipe)

A little explanation about the pipe. All of the commands available to you through the terminal are wonderful, but when you realize you can start stringing them together life can't get much better. Take the following example:

find ~/Documents -name "*.doc" -print | cpio -o > ~/Desktop/backup

This tells the computer to find all the files with the .doc extension in your ~/Documents folder and to create a backup archive on the desktop of this archive. You can make these fancier and fancier if you so desire by piping and redirecting to your heart's content.

[clarkgoble]

Don't forget ditto for copying files that may have a resource fork.

[Gene Jockey]

Originally posted by pimephalis:
What, you have trouble remembering the 4000 or more commands in vi, none of which really map to any logical clue?

Hmm, I want to save my file... :w is very intuitive!

... and best of all: | (pipe)

True. Pipes rule. Great for grabbing process numbers.

--Josh

[pimephalis]

Originally posted by Gene Jockey:
Hmm, I want to save my file... :w is very intuitive!

Yep. And god help you if you forget that you're not in 'editing' mode when you hit command-v to paste some text in. When pasting in a large URL the other day I managed to delete a paragraph, go up two pages, jump all over the place and save. Whee!!!!

True. Pipes rule. Great for grabbing process numbers.

--Josh

I totally forgot about that; probably one of the commands I issue the most: ps auxw | grep 'foo'

[daSilVetZ]

don't forget top (Same as Process viewer), kill (to 'force quit' a process), and xkill (if you are using Xwindows to kill any window)

[Simon]

Many very useful commands here.

One of my favorites is awk. awk is used to display and manipulate data in column format and I mean any data.

For example when you write a shell script that needs to kill a certain process you could do a

Code:
ps | grep some_process | awk '{print $1}'

to get the PID and give to a kill -9 command.

Or if you want to re-arrange data columns of a file it's as simple as

Code:
awk '{print $3, $2, $1}' file1.dat > file2.dat

awk is very powerful. The only problem is that it is so powerful that everytime I want to use it I have to get my Unix book to check the syntax - no chance I could know all the commands and flags properly by heart.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by pimephalis:
I totally forgot about that; probably one of the commands I issue the most: ps auxw | grep 'foo'

I love that command. It's almost as cool as top. I'd have to say that ssh is the most fun though, I like logging into my friend's machine through ssh, then using his machine to log into mine.

[DevNine]

ls
mv
cp
ps -auxw
kill

more
ftp
ssh
top
|

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by Dex13:

So to save time for both newbies at terminal, and forgetful veterans post your 10 most essential (but simple plz) Terminal Commands.

I don't have 10, but I have two commands:

du -ks

That tells you the size of the current directory (including all sub-directories within it) in kb.

who am i (and yes, it does work! Try it)

Very handy after you sit in front the terminal 12 hours straight , or you are using multiple accounts.

[Avon]

Originally posted by veryniceguy2002:
I don't have 10, but I have two commands:

du -ks

Oh nice. I always wanted to know that. Now how would I take this number output and divide it by 1024 in a shell script?

Thanks...

[Detrius]

Originally posted by Avon:
Oh nice. I always wanted to know that. Now how would I take this number output and divide it by 1024 in a shell script?

Thanks...

fink install fileutils
du -hxsc
df -h
ls -alhF --color=always

Fink's version of fileutils adds -h (human readable) flags to several useful file commands.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by daSilVetZ:
don't forget top (Same as Process viewer), kill (to 'force quit' a process), and xkill (if you are using Xwindows to kill any window)

Top and kill are my two most used as well.

[Samanoske]

Originally posted by Avon:
Oh nice. I always wanted to know that. Now how would I take this number output and divide it by 1024 in a shell script?

Thanks...

du -ks | awk '{print $1/1024}'

I can believe I posted in the Unix forum a solution .. damn I am becomin a geek

[Bluebomber21XX]

Okay, I've never posted here before, and I only have some knowledge of the CLI, so I'm sure others might like to know as well.

When you post your useful commands, how about an explanation of what they do? You guys post all these letters like the average person is supposed to know what they do

[Zim]

Adding to the list

- locate

[7Macfreak]

the psychotherapist in emacs!
(here's how to get to it:
type emacs <enter>
<shift-esc> then type
xdoctor <enter>)

[ShotgunEd]

Originally posted by clarkgoble:
Don't forget ditto for copying files that may have a resource fork.

You mean "ditto -rsrcFork"

A life saver for backing up.

bless is a good one for blessing a system folder after restoring from backup.

[Scarpa]

Originally posted by Bluebomber21XX:
When you post your useful commands, how about an explanation of what they do? You guys post all these letters like the average person is supposed to know what they do

Well, for the majority of the recommended commands, just try them and see what happens. Most commands that require parameters will respond with a usage example if you type the command by itself.

That said I'll run down the common ones:

ls - list the contents of a directory
cd - change directory
cp - copy, usage: cp <source> <destination>
mv - move, also how you rename stuff in Unix
more - displays the contents of a file, one screen at a time. useful with ls and the pipe like so: "ls | more"
head - display the beginning of a file
tail - display the end of a file
rm - delete a file
ssh - secure shell, meaning open up a prompt on someone elses machine
ps - display running processes
grep - search for a string
kill - kill a process
man - VERY IMPORTANT COMMAND, displays information about a command. usage: "man ps" <- displays info about "ps"
uptime - geeky command, tells you how long your machine has been running
top - live display of running processes, sorted by cpu usage
less - like more, but better
pico - user friendly text editor
vi - user unfriendly text editor, but very powerful

Now, I've told you what they do, use man to find out how to use them. Have fun.

[javadesigner]

The other useful thing - although its not a command line command - is to know that dragging a file/folder onto the open terminal window pastes the full path to it into where ever the cursor is. So

cd <drag folder to terminal window and let go> return

will result in you changing directory to the folder you dragged.

Is there any way to add a context menu
so if I right click on a folder, a
command prompt automatically opens rooted at that folder's directory ?

--j

[Paul McCann]

Originally posted by javadesigner:
Is there any way to add a context menu
so if I right click on a folder, a
command prompt automatically opens rooted at that folder's directory ?

--j

Have a good look at OnMyCommand

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16242

which includes this functionality amongst its many examples.

Well worth it, even for this alone. (There are several other little utilities that do similar things: OpenTerminalHere etc etc).

Cheers,
Paul

[vsurfer]

ftp

Nice to have around . . . and saves a couple of bucks,
has saved me a few times when dreamweaver ftp acts up.

usually followed by

user
password
ls
cd
put
get

and finally

exit

bye!

[Cipher13]

I can't believe nobody has mentioned 'clear'.

Seeing as so many have been mentioned, I won't list my top most used commands, just 'others' that I use frequently...

clear - clears the screen
scp - secure copy; copy files from computer to computer, securely, in either direction
uniq - reads a file, and outputs unique lines only. Great for viewing logs.
diff - compare two files, and output the differences therebetween.
banner - useless but cool. I liked the old banner better than the one in 10.2...
pwd - return current path. Great when you're on a foreign machine, and the shell doesn't tell you where you are; or even if it only tells you relative to ~/
mkdir - not mentioned yet, also. Create directory...
ln - link
cat - catenate. Output a files contents.
chown - change file/dir owner
chmod - change file/dir mode (permissions)

[Gene Jockey]

Ah, yes. Clear. For the terminal neat freaks like me

--Josh

[xtal]

Originally posted by Gene Jockey:
Ah, yes. Clear. For the terminal neat freaks like me

I wish my kitchen sink had a 'clear' button...

[clarkgoble]

One very useful command I don't see listed is nice. I use it for running complex shell scripts or python programs in the background without affecting the system responsiveness.

[mosch]

Originally posted by Simon:

Code:
ps | grep some_process | awk '{print $1}'

to get the PID and give to a kill -9 command.

Personally I'd recommend just using

Code:
killall -m 'some_process'

killall is a very poorly named and convenient way to kill processes. 'man killall' for details on it's usage.

[mosch]

well, a lot of other people have weighed in with excellent suggestions, but here's my addition to the pile:

mv: move/rename files
cp: copy files
ls: list files
pwd: returns your present working directory
chmod: change permissions
chown: change ownership
sudo: switch user and do something
xargs: needed for handling long argument lists
find: finds files by a large number of possible criteria
egrep: like grep, but with regular expressions
diff: find out what's different, or if there are differences
file: gives information about the type of file
vi: yes, it's hard to use at first, but it's really, really useful once you know how to use it.
echo *: lists files during those times when you've somehow managed to render /bin/ls useless
fsck: basic filesystem checker
open: opens stuff like clicking
niutil and friends: all sorts of netinfo stuff
scp: ssh based copying
ssh: ssh

[Simon]

Originally posted by mosch:
Personally I'd recommend just using

Code:
killall -m 'some_process'

killall is a very poorly named and convenient way to kill processes. 'man killall' for details on it's usage.

That's fine if you're sure there is only one process around with that name. If you have multiple instances of the same process spawned (like httpd does for example), you'll lose all of them and not just the desired one... That can be rather dangerous.

[calimehtar]

my personal fave -- command-f seems to have some arbitrary restrictions I can't be bothered to figure out:

find --name / *.txt | xargs grep [some reg ex here]

[mosch]

Originally posted by Simon:
That's fine if you're sure there is only one process around with that name. If you have multiple instances of the same process spawned (like httpd does for example), you'll lose all of them and not just the desired one... That can be rather dangerous.

this is absolutely true, though for httpd I prefer to use apachectl anyway, rendering that problem moot.

[theory]

man
whatis
apropos
help (if using) bash
pressing tab to auto complete
command names and path names
(not really a command but really useful,
you would be supprised at the number
of people who don't know it ).

Any body who starts using Unix has to
know what these commands do and use them
all the time i think

[Colonel_Panic]

oo oo I only skimmed through so forgive me if someone posted this already:

cd ../

That will move you back a directory

[suthercd]

man
ls -al
ps -auwx
kill -9
cp
mv
rm
locate
cd
top
chown
chmod
niutil
ifconfig


I use the CLI more and more. X11 and alternate window managers along with access to all thte sourceforge stuff has been great. PHP, MySQL, Applescript and Shell commands are new tools in the last year.

Craig

[Cipher13]

Another I use as much as ls:

ls -asF, aliased to 'lss'.

List - all files, show size, show kind.

ls -F on its own is handy. If I could be bothered, I'd probably make ls do ls -F.

[jzaw]

the cli vers of asr is a life saver

for instance ... duplicating a multipartition hd to a bigger hd with bigger partitions

install new hd as slave
repair permissions
asr each partition in turn


asr / /Volumes/newdrive_part1 -erase
asr /Volumes/Files /Volumes/newdrive_part2 -erase

remove old hd
make new hd master
reboot
repair permissions

bingo

NAME
asr - Apple Software Restore

SYNOPSIS
asr -source source -target target [options]
asr -imagescan [-blockonly] image
asr -h | -v

DESCRIPTION
asr efficiently copies disk images onto volumes. asr can also accurately
clone volumes.


another very very useful command is wc eg

ls -R /etc | wc -l

counts all the files and files in sub dirs in /etc

[shmerek]

Originally posted by Scarpa:
Well, for the majority of the recommended commands, just try them and see what happens. Most commands that require parameters will respond with a usage example if you type the command by itself.

That said I'll run down the common ones:

ls - list the contents of a directory
cd - change directory
cp - copy, usage: cp <source> <destination>
mv - move, also how you rename stuff in Unix
more - displays the contents of a file, one screen at a time. useful with ls and the pipe like so: "ls | more"
head - display the beginning of a file
tail - display the end of a file
rm - delete a file
ssh - secure shell, meaning open up a prompt on someone elses machine
ps - display running processes
grep - search for a string
kill - kill a process
man - VERY IMPORTANT COMMAND, displays information about a command. usage: "man ps" <- displays info about "ps"
uptime - geeky command, tells you how long your machine has been running
top - live display of running processes, sorted by cpu usage
less - like more, but better
pico - user friendly text editor
vi - user unfriendly text editor, but very powerful

Now, I've told you what they do, use man to find out how to use them. Have fun.

Call me an idiot but half of these commands to nothing but say command not found. What an I doing wrong here:

[sh:~] sh% man
man: Command not found.

[sh:~] sh% uptime
uptime: Command not found.

[sh:~] sh% top
top: Command not found.

[sh:~] sh% pico
pico: Command not found.


curl doesn't work either

[suthercd]

shmerek-

Sounds like your $path variable is out to lunch. What do you get when you enter:

echo $path

Craig

[shmerek]

Originally posted by suthercd:
shmerek-

Sounds like your $path variable is out to lunch. What do you get when you enter:

echo $path

Craig

Somebody figured this out for me in another thread, I hadn't installed the BSD subsystems when I installed the OS. I grabbed it from disk 1 and now everything is groovy.

[m@]

open -e <file>

opens the file in TextEdit, great for messing with the unix innards, in a civilised GUI way :-)

[Gavin]

Commands get more powerful if you add an option or two, or if you string them together.

ls -l - list directory with file permissions and more
cat - show the contents of a file
cat filename | grep 'searchstring' - run through a file and show all lines that have the search string
cat filename | grep 'searchstring' > file - great for pulling relevant data from a log file
cat mylogfile.log | grep 'apage.html' > smallerfile.log
cat mylogfile.log | grep 'apage.html' >> smallerfile.log - >> adds the text to the end of an existing file

echo 'string' >> file

* --help - most commands have help, a quick summary of how to use them
* -v - most commands have a way to display the version

#httpd -V
Server version: Apache/1.3.27 (Darwin)
Server built: 01/15/03 19:22:17

rm -rf filename (or path to a folder) - Remove with recursive and force, deletes files and folders with no questions asked, careful with this one (rm -rf / as root will wipe out your whole system)

tar -xzf file.tgz - untar and ungzip a .tgz file - typing this can be faster than looking for stuffit expander in the finder
tar -czf file.tgz folder - make a new .tgz file called file.tgz from folder

./configure
make - for compiling software, do this on linux all the time, not so much with OSX

here are some network related commands:

ping bob.com - see if I can connect to bob.com
dig bob.com - get DNS info on a domain
nslookup bob.com - get a domain's ipaddress
whois bob.com - lookup info on a domain name - who owns it, etc
ssh - log into a remote computer - encrypted
ifconfig - get and set interface params, useful for adding a second ipaddress to your ethernet card, etc.


stuff I use all the time:

[control]-c - stop a command in it's tracks
ls -l
cd
cp
mv
chmod
chown
locate
ln -s
cat
tail
man
vi
tar


Everybodys list has a lot of overlap. that should give you a pretty good idea of the ones to memorize.

[dcsmrgun]

Originally posted by mosch:
Personally I'd recommend just using

Code:
killall -m 'some_process'

killall is a very poorly named and convenient way to kill processes. 'man killall' for details on it's usage.

Of course, the following is a true story:

osx$ ssh -l guy solaris-production-box.domain.com
solaris$ su -
solaris# vi /usr/local/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
solaris# killall -HUP httpd
Connection closed.
osx$ OH NO!

The moral of this story is that I'm a stupid unix admin. Also, a Sun E3500 with a giant array takes 8 hours to boot up.