Part 3: Helpful Command-Line Commands (Mac OS X)

By Kyle Reasons

Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

Mac OS X
General

• cat

• Displays the contents of a file to the screen

• Changes to another directory

• Changes the group associated with one or more files to a different group

• Controls file security

• Changes file ownership

• Sets your login shell

• cmp

• Used to compare two files

• Copies a file to another directory

• Shows a report of how the disk space is used

• Backs up files

• Used to edit disk quotas associated with user accounts

• Formats and partitions a disk

• Displays the file type

• find

• Used to find specific files

• Performs a verification of the file system

• Looks for a string of characters in a file

• Stops a process

• Shows the contents of a file with the ability to go back or move ahead in the file

• Creates symbolic file links

• Used to check a print queue

• Prints a file

• Removes print jobs from the queue

• Lists the contents of a directory

• Displays documentation

• Creates a directory

• Displays text in a file one screen at a time

• Lists the disks currently mounted; also mounts file systems and devices

• Moves a file to a different directory

• Creates a new file system

• Used to change a password

• Used to format a file into pages or columns for printing

• Prints environment variables that are already set up

• Shows currently running processes

• Displays the directory you are in

• Displays the disk quota for users

• Verifies the disk quota files, including reporting disk usage

• Enables or disables disk quotas

• Performs a remote copy

• Makes a report of disk quotas

• Restores files (from a dump)

• Removes a file or directory

• Deletes a directory that is empty

• Secure version of ftp or rcp

• Sorts the contents of a text file

• A secure version of ftp

• Forces information in memory to be written to disk

• Used to archive files

• Used to remotely connect to another computer

• Shows a report of the main, current processes engaging the CPU

• Creates an empty file

• Dismounts a file system

• Shows information about the machine and operating system

• Displays a report about virtual memory use

• Locates a specific file

Network Commands

• finger

• Provides information about a user

• Enables file transfers

• Used to set up a network interface

• Shows network connection information

• Shows statistics for NFS file upload and download activity

• Used to query information on Internet DNS servers

• Used to poll another TCP/IP node to verify you can communicate with it

• Displays routing table information and can be used to configure routing

• Shows clients that have mounted volumes on a NFS server

• Shows who is logged on