Command Line

You can run multiple instances of any application in Mac OS X with a little command line magic. Using the ‘open’ command to launch GUI apps from the Terminal, we can run a new instance of any app, even if it is already running.

Some of the most secure passwords you can use are those that are randomly generated. From the command line, you can randomize potential passwords in a multitude of ways, which can be used as secure passwords of generated characters. We’ll cover several primary methods of generating random sequences and then show you how to combine … Read More

If you like to keep an eye on system resources and you want to branch out from the GUI Activity Monitor, check out htop for Mac. htop is basically a significantly improved version of top, which lets you monitor system resources, CPU core load, memory use, load averages, and view and manage individual running processes. … Read More

Do you have some source code, text, or a command string that you want to securely transfer from one Mac to another? Combining the command line clipboard tools pbcopy and pbpaste with SSH we can do exactly that, and it doesn’t matter where the other Mac is located: be it LAN, WAN, or anywhere. Here … Read More

You can quickly change the appearance of any Terminal window by using the Inspector tool in the Terminal app for Mac, which can be summoned at any time for any specific Terminal window or tab. Inspector is very easy to use, so here is how to change the appearance quickly using it:

Much like you can monitor Mac OS X filesystem usage through the command line, you can also discover what apps and individual processes are currently using your Macs internet connection. This is a really handy trick if you know your bandwidth is being used by something, or if you’re just trying to track down what … Read More

If you don’t want your MacBook Pro to wake from sleep when you open the lid of the machine, all you need to do is launch the Terminal and type the following command:

You can quickly retrieve any Macs serial number via the command line by using the ioreg or system_profiler command and grep for the serial string. Getting the serial number from the command line like this can be helpful for troubleshooting, Single User Mode, remote management with SSH, or for many other reasons, though most users … Read More

The opensnoop utility is an amazing tool for tracking down specifics like what files specific applications are accessing, but you can also use opensnoop to monitor all filesystem access in Mac OS X. To do this, run the utility with no flags attached: sudo opensnoop You’ll be asked for your root password, and then you’ll … Read More

If you’re troubleshooting some of the more difficult problems that you can have on a Mac, a good place to look are the System & Kernel Logs contained within Console app. But you can access the same OS X logs from the Terminal too.

If you’re coming to Mac OS X from elsewhere in the unix & x11 world, you might be used to the focus of Terminal windows following your mouse cursor. With a little command line magic, we can enable this hidden feature in the Mac OS X Terminal.app too.

If you’ve been looking for a great SSH client for iPad or iPhone, Prompt is probably exactly what you’ve been searching for. Released by Panic software, Prompt is a great looking SSH app that includes a bunch of features to improve the SSH experience from an iOS device. Notable features are: autocompletion of frequently used … Read More

Using the powerful ‘networksetup’ utility, we can connect to wireless networks directly from the command line of Mac OS X. The syntax you’ll want to use to accomplish joining a network is as follows: networksetup -setairportnetwork [interface] [router SSID] [password]

More fun with SSH! We showed you how to setup SSH config files and use tab completion for SSH aliases, but setting up bash aliases is even easier if you are connecting to the same server over and over again.

You can quickly launch a new styled Terminal window through the apps Mac OS X Dock icon. Just right-click (two-finger click for trackpad users) on the Terminal app, navigate to “New Window” select a preconfigured style.

Using curl and pbcopy, we can quickly grab and copy HTML and CSS code from any URL via the command line. This should be a helpful tip for the web developers out there, but for anyone looking to check the source of a web page through this can be an invaluable little trick.

Yesterday we showed you how to setup a basic SSH Config file, and here’s how to make that even more useful: enable tab completion for those SSH aliases. Throw this into ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc # Add Tab-completion for SSH host aliases complete -o default -o nospace -W "$(/usr/bin/env ruby -ne ‘puts $_.split(/[,s]+/)[1..-1].reject{|host| host.match(/*|?/)} if $_.match(/^s*Hosts+/);’ … Read More

If you use SSH even somewhat often, it would benefit you to setup a basic SSH config file. If you’re curious why, would you rather type something like this: ssh -p 6851 user@servername.domain.com Or just type: ssh name I know what I’d rather do, so let’s get this working. I’m going to use nano editor … Read More