Commands

I love the command line and want to help others love it too.  Sometimes remembering the proper syntax just needs a quick glance at an example to jog my memory.  The man pages are best if you need the details.  Searching my blog posts may show other interesting combinations.  Someday, this will be a list of common commands I use with a very short description:

lsb_release Show the Linux/Ubuntu Version that you are using:
lsb_release -a cat /etc/lsb-release

shred Fill a HDD with random data one time, then fill it with zeros:
shred -n1 -v -z /dev/sdi

SSH to a host using a specific user and TCP port:
ssh -p 22 user@10.0.0.1

RSync is a wonderfully flexible way to backup your files:
rsync -vaHxe 'ssh -p 22' --progress --compress-level=9 --numeric-ids --log-file=/your-log-2010-10-22 --delete --delete-excluded sourc-user@your-host.com:/source-path/ /your/destination path/

fdisk will show you about your hard drives and let you change the partitioning:
fdisk -l