Over at Hacker News there are often threads about less-traveled UNIX and Linux commands. One particular comment collected a few of the posts, and I decided to parse all of those threads’ commands, plus my own favorite list of obscure entries, and put them in one place.
Somewhat obscure UNIX commands
- column: create columns from text input
- tr: translate/substitute/delete input
- join: like a database join but for text
- comm: file comparison like a db join
- paste: put lines in a file next to each other
- rs: reshape arrays
- jot: generate data
- expand: replace spaces and/or tabs
- time: track time and resourcing
- watch: execute something on a schedule in realtime
- xargs: execute something on all inputs
- iftop: visually show network traffic
- jnettop a more detailed iftop
- htop: show system stats more powerfully
- xxd: manipulate files in hex
- mtr: powerful traceroute replacement
- mdfind: osx find replacement that uses spotlight
- brew: osx package manager
- df: disk free
- du: disk usage
- iotop: i/o stats
- dig: dns queries
- host: dns queries
- man ascii: lookup your ascii
- sshfs: mount a directory through ssh
- wget: get w’s
- dstat: powerful system statistics
- tmux: a better screen
- jq: command line JSON parsing
- pushd: push your pwd to a stack
- popd: pop pwd off your stack
- lsof: godlike system information [*]
- ncat: nmap-based replacement for nc
- fuser: kills locking processes
- vim: attack yourself
- tac: cat in reverse
- slurm: network interface stats
- rename: change spaces to underscores in names
- bmon: a simple bandwidth monitor
- open .: in osx, open finder in the current dir
- lsmod: show kernel modules
- printf: change the format of output
- timeout: execute something and kill it soon after
- disown: protect a job from disconnect
- fc: edit your last command in your editor and execute it
- sudo !!: repeat last command with sudo
- tee: send output to stdout as well
- pgrep: greps through processes
- pkill: kills processes based on search
- fmt: text formatter
- multitail: see logs in separate views
- bc: an interactive calculator language
- apropos: info on commands
- strace: the uber debug tool
- man units: interesting
- pstree: shows processes in a…well…tree
- pv: a progress bar for piped commands
- ddate: wtf
- zgrep: grep within compressed files
- zless: look at compressed files
- nping: nmap-based custom packet creation
- readlink: read values of links
- iostate: look at your disk i/o
- atop: another top
- split: break a file into pieces
- dd: disk writing
- ndiff: show differences in nmap scans
- ss: socket statistics (show apps using the Internet)
Many thanks to those who have shared commands to add to the list.
Notes
- A few of these (tr, lsof, etc) aren’t exceedingly rare, but enough people either have never heard of them or have forgotten about them that it made sense to include them.
- Some of these are OS X only. Apologies for that, but I wanted to highlight them while still keeping the simple structure of the list.
- Some of the “commands” or “applications” are actually shell-based. Thanks to @gonzih for his great comments.
