Use stdbuf to tee without buffering

Do you want to tee the output of a command to a file, but see it in your terminal too, without buffering? The stdbuf command can do this for you:

$ sudo stdbuf --output=L tcpdump -i any -tttt -n 'udp port 5353' | tee -a tcpdump-mdns
tcpdump: data link type LINUX_SLL2
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v[v]... for full protocol decode
listening on any, link-type LINUX_SLL2 (Linux cooked v2), snapshot length 262144 bytes
2023-06-15 11:55:16.637670 eth0 M   IP 10.0.0.23.5353 > 224.0.0.251.5353: 0 A (QM)? winnebago.local. (28)
2023-06-15 11:55:16.744660 eth0 M   IP 10.0.0.42.5353 > 224.0.0.251.5353: 0*- [0q] 1/0/0 (Cache flush) A 10.0.0.42 (38)
...

Scripting DNS lookups

Are you writing a script and some command doesn’t accept hostnames and you don’t want to inline the IP address? dig +short is your friend!

$ dig +short gbenson.net
69.163.152.201

sed trick

I discovered a new sed trick today:

sed -i~

“I” stands for “in place”. It edits the files in place! And makes a backup if you want!