It's been a crazy week for the Bash shell, its maintainer, and many Linux distributions that use the shell. A remote code-execution vulnerability that was reported on September 24 has now morphed into ...

While Linux systems install with thousands of commands, bash also supplies a large number of “built-ins”—commands that are not sitting in the file system as separate files, but are part of bash itself ...

Once you’ve gained a solid understanding of Linux and mastered the various commands available, your next big win comes in the form of shell functions. Code wrapped in a function can be reused by your ...

Shell scripts enable every level of system administration and user interaction on Unix and Linux systems. Several system administration tasks can be automated with shell scripts. Disaster recovery ...

If you're just beginning Bash scripting, you may often find yourself repeating the same commands again and again in your scripts, but a better way exists. I will explain what "DRY" means and how you ...

Create PowerShell functions only for reusable code, not unnecessary script fragmentation. Avoid over-engineering small PowerShell scripts that become difficult to read and maintain. Keep PowerShell ...

Last month, I explored exit codes and how decent error correction in your shell scripts always should include testing the value of $? after each meaningful command ...

The first software that I was actually paid to develop was a 2-page shell script that prompted the user for a dozen or so pieces of information, before launching a set of cooperating processes. Those ...

FFmpeg was designed as a cross-platform solution for video and audio recording, conversion, and streaming. Its About page describes the command-line tool as “the leading multimedia framework, able to ...