The command line interface is an alternate method of interacting with macOS and Mac OS X, relying on text based command entry to execute commands and perform tasks. It is accessed on the Mac by using the Terminal application. Generally, the command line is considered advanced, and thus it’s usage tends to be more complex than many standard procedures on a Mac.
Want to run a simple web server off of an iPad or iPhone? If you have iSH linux shell running in iOS then you can easily start and run a simple web server directly from an iPhone or iPad. By running iSH and starting a web server with python 3 you can then serve either … Read More
Zsh, or z shell, is a popular shell alternative to bash and tcsh, complete with many improvements and customization options offered through the Oh-My-ZSH project. If you’d like to use zsh as the default shell in Terminal for Mac OS rather than bash, you can do so rather easily with taking the following steps:
Have you ever wished you had a Linux command line on an iPad or iPhone? With iSH you can get pretty close to accomplishing that goal. iSH Shell is a Linux shell for iOS that uses an x86 emulator to run a simplified version of Alpine Linux on an iPad or iPhone. You can even … Read More
Advanced Mac users can boot into Single User Mode, which loads directly into the command line of Mac OS and skips the familiar friendly user interface. Booting into Single User Mode on a Mac can be helpful for some troubleshooting purposes and administrative tasks, but is generally best reserved for use by advanced Mac users … Read More
Want to quickly see all Homebrew packages installed on a Mac? You may already know the path where Homebrew packages are installed to, but you don’t need to list a directory structure to get a list of Homebrew packages that have been installed in Mac OS. Instead, you can issue a simple command to show … Read More
If you’re a Mac command line user you may have noticed that many frequently used commands entered into the Terminal (or iTerm) result in an “Operation not permitted” error message since updating to MacOS Mojave 10.14 or later. The “Operation not permitted” error in the Terminal can be seen after issuing even simple commands like … Read More
Command line users are likely familiar with using chmod to set file permissions in numerical or octal format, for example running a command like ‘chmod 755 filename’, but have you ever wondered how you can get file permissions in octal format? If you want to see or view the octal numerical value of permissions of … Read More
Some versions of Mac OS support the ability to login any user account directly to the command line right from the traditional login screen, thereby bypassing the familiar Mac user interface. Instead you’re essentially signing a user directly into the Terminal (a bit like using the ssh client to connect to an SSH server), without … Read More
The Mac operating system has several system level temporary folders which contain temp files used by MacOS itself along with various Mac apps. This temp folders are not intended to be user facing, but in some rare situations an advanced Mac user may find themselves requiring to locate the temp folder and maybe even to … Read More
If you have previously installed Homebrew to a Mac and have now decided that you no longer need or want the command line package manager, you can uninstall Homebrew from MacOS and completely remove Homebrew and all installed packages and formula from the Mac. This tutorial will walk through how to completely uninstall Homebrew from … Read More
Mac command line users may have noticed that FTP is missing from the latest versions of MacOS system software, but despite ftp not being included in newer versions of system software by default, you can still install ftp on Mac OS if you need to use an ftp client or run an ftpd server for … Read More
Every once in a while you may encounter .bin and .cue files, or a cue/bin cue sheet, of a disk image, often when downloading old Mac software (or even DOS, Windows, Linux) for a retro machine, for an audio or video disc, or just as a disk image of something. Mac users therefore may need … Read More
System Integrity Protection (SIP) locks down certain Mac OS system folders to prevent modification, execution, and deletion of critical system-level files on the Mac, even with a root user account. While the SIP security feature is enabled by default on all modern Mac OS releases, you may find yourself in various situations where you need … Read More
If you’re a Python user you may already be familiar with the handy trick that allows you to instantly create a simple web server using an easy command string entered in the command line of Mac OS. But if you’re a Mac Python user who has installed or updated to Python 3, then you will … Read More
If you have installed Homebrew on a Mac to use as a package manager for various unix and command line utilities, you’ve probably also installed a handful of packages deemed useful to you. But what if you no longer need one, and you want to remove a particular Homebrew package? It turns out that uninstalling … Read More
Many advanced users often need to find and list all hosts on a network, often for IP discovery, connecting to a remote machine, or some other system administration or network admin purpose. One of the easiest ways to find all hosts and the host IP addresses on a network is by using the nmap command … Read More
Need to use Telnet in MacOS? Well, many Mac users have discovered that Telnet has been removed from modern versions of system software, including macOS Monterey, macOS Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave and macOS High Sierra. Presumably this is to encourage using the ssh client instead, but there are many Mac users who need Telnet for … Read More
Have you ever wondered where Homebrew puts the binaries from brew packages that are installed on a Mac? If you’re a Homebrew user, you may be interested in knowing where Homebrew puts everything and where to find the installed brew packages in Mac OS. We’ll show you the directory path where Homebrew keeps packages, and … Read More
