7 Linux command line tools you may never have heard of but are extremely useful

[51CTO.com Quick Translation] These commands will make your Linux experience easier... or, at least more fun.

It's time to go to work

The Linux world is packed with an impressive array of free and open source tools that can do things you never even thought of. In today's article, we'll share seven great tools you may not have heard of, from file system monitoring to running reconnectable ssh sessions.

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asciiview, view any image in ASCII form

I'm not sure if this command actually does anything, but it's certainly interesting; asciiview is a tool that converts images to ASCII style. You can find asciiview in the aview package, which requires the imagemagik package to run.

tmux, a comprehensive upgrade of ssh

If you connect to a Linux host via ssh and need to perform operations for a long time, such as software programming, you may lose the connection and be logged out. In this case, tmux can help a lot - tmux is a terminal multiplexer that allows you to easily switch between programs in the same terminal, detach it (the program is still running in the background) and reattach it to other terminals. Because of this, tmux has become a must-have tool for many Linux system administrators.

chrootkit, have you ever been rooted?

See the complex list above? This is the real manifestation of a system administrator's nightmare. Here are all the root kits, worms, and loadable kernel modules (LKMs) that, once they get into your computer, will completely destroy your security. In such a situation, chrootkit, which was selected as one of the top 100 network security tools, can help everyone keep their system clean and issue a warning when abnormal code is involved.

figlet, a simple banner making tool

For years, the Internet has been using ASCII code to generate banner fonts. Do you know how they are generated? The answer is figlet. You can use a variety of different fonts for banner rendering; in addition, if you don't plan to run figlet on your own device, you can also use online Figlet servers and services.

locate, where did I put it...?

Many of you may have encountered a situation where you remember the file name clearly but forget where you put it. This is when the locate command comes in handy. As a built-in tool in almost all *nix systems (although certain Linux systems such as Red Hat will not list all file contents to unauthorized users for security reasons), locate can help you easily find any file, no matter where it is stored.

calcurse - CLI calendar and task scheduling

Calcurse is a calendar and planning application for the command line interface. It helps users keep track of events, appointments, and other daily tasks. Users can configure the notification system to send reminders when deadlines are approaching, and the curses-based interface can also be customized and use powerful command line options to filter transaction content and format adjustments, which means it is very suitable for introduction into scripts.

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inotify-tools, Track file system events

Suppose you have a shell script and want to track when a file is closed or modified - then inotify-tools is born for this. It contains a C library and a set of Linux command-line programs to provide a simple interface for inotify. According to Wikipedia, inotify is "a Linux kernel subsystem that can act as an extended file system to notify all changes to the file system and report the changes to other applications." If you need to operate files asynchronously and want to track file creation, modification or deletion events, then this package is worth a try.

Original title: 7 Linux command line tools you didn't know you needed , original author: Mark Gibbs

[Translated by 51CTO. Please indicate the original translator and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]