Disk Space Warning Script
Copy a disk space warning bash script using df, thresholds, cron, and email alerts. Monitor Linux servers and prevent full drives.
monitor · cron-ready · df
Full guide →
$bashsnippets.xyz
Stop Googling the Same Bash Commands
I got tired of re-searching the same bash one-liners every time I sat down at a terminal. So I started collecting them. This is that collection — real scripts, explained like a human wrote them, with the edge cases documented so you don't hit the same problems I did.
45 Working Scripts
100% Tested on Linux
0 Logins Required
Free Always
What is BashSnippets?
BashSnippets is a free bash script library for Linux developers, sysadmins, and DevOps engineers. Every script solves a specific operational problem — disk space monitoring, automated backups, service watchdogs, log cleanup — and comes with a plain-English explanation of what each line does and why.
Bash runs on every Linux server without installing anything. That means these scripts work on Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and macOS without a dependency manager, a runtime, or a package.json. Copy the script, set a threshold or path, make it executable, and you're done. The 12 browser tools — cron builder, chmod calculator, exit code lookup — work the same way: open in a browser, get the answer, no account required.
Copy-Paste Scripts That Work
Every snippet runs on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Debian 12, Fedora 39, and macOS Ventura. Tested personally — including the failure cases.
Automated File Backup
Accidental deletion or disk failure permanently destroys data with no undo on Linux. Timestamps each cp -r run with a date string so backups never overwrite each other.
backup · cron-ready · rsync
Full guide →Delete Old Log Files
Unmanaged log files silently fill /var/log until disk writes fail and services crash. find -mtime deletes .log files older than N days — preview with -print before removing from production.
cleanup · find · cron-ready
Full guide →Quick System Info Report
Guessing server state during an outage costs response time. One bash script snapshots hostname, uptime, CPU load, RAM, disk usage, and IP address in one run — no extra packages.
monitor · reporting · system
Full guide →Search Files for Text with grep
Opening files manually to find a pattern across a codebase wastes time. grep -rn searches every file recursively and returns every match with filename and line number.
grep · search · text
Full guide →Check If Website Is Up
Discovering a site is down from a user complaint means hours of lost traffic already gone. curl -s alerts on any non-200 HTTP status code — cron-schedulable for five-minute checks.
monitor · curl · uptime
Full guide →Bash Error Handling with set -euo pipefail
Bash silently continues after failed commands by default — a broken cd followed by rm -rf destroys the wrong directory. set -euo pipefail exits on first failure before damage spreads.
error-handling · best-practices · set
Full guide →Bash If/Else Examples
Comparison operator mistakes in bash scripts cause silent logic failures on unexpected input. Covers if/else, elif, integer and string test operators, file condition checks, and quoting safety.
conditionals · basics · if
Full guide →Create a Dated Folder
Backup directories without timestamps overwrite previous runs and sort unpredictably. date +%Y-%m-%d auto-names folders so ls sorts them chronologically — no packages needed.
files · date · mkdir
Full guide →New & Popular
The latest additions and the pages readers use most.
Free Browser Tools for Bash
No install required. Open in your browser, get the answer.
The cron builder generates expressions visually and shows the human-readable schedule. The chmod calculator outputs octal, symbolic, and the exact chmod command. The exit code lookup explains what any exit code 0–255 means and which command typically produces it. All 12 tools run entirely in your browser — no server round-trips, no data collected.
$PATH Debugger
Paste your $PATH to surface duplicate entries, dead directories, and ordering problems that cause command-not-found errors.
Exit Code Lookup
Look up any exit code 0–255 and get a plain-English explanation.
Cron Builder
Build cron expressions visually with human-readable output.
Cron Wrapper Generator
Wrap a cron command with flock, timeout, and exponential-backoff retry so overlapping runs and hung jobs stop silently breaking your cron slot.
Boilerplate Generator
Generate a production-ready script header with set -euo pipefail, cleanup traps, and argument parsing before writing a single line of logic.
Chmod Builder
Permission matrix that outputs octal, symbolic, and chmod commands.
grep Builder
Build the exact grep command you need — recursive, case-insensitive, with context lines — and get a plain-English explanation for every flag.
ShellCheck Decoder
Enter any SC code to get the rule name, why it causes production failures, and a before/after fix example.
Long-Form Bash Guides
When a copy-paste script isn't enough — deep dives into the failure modes behind cron jobs, CI/CD pipelines, text processing, and server maintenance.
guide
See all guides →25 Bash Scripts Every Linux Sysadmin Needs
Disk-full outages, silent SSL expiry, dead services, permission holes — the scripts that prevent each failure, organized by failure mode.
guideBash Scripts That Survive Cron: Locking, Timeouts, and Retries
Overlapping runs, hung jobs, and silent 2am failures — the flock, timeout, and retry patterns that stop them.
guideBash Text Processing: find, grep, sed, and awk
The four commands that answer "what broke and where" — patterns for logs and config files you can paste into a shell.
guideBash Scripting for CI/CD Pipelines
GitHub Actions steps, deploy scripts, and Docker entrypoints that fail loudly in CI instead of silently in production.
guideThe Safe Bash Script Template: What set -euo pipefail Actually Changes
Strict mode is three flags, not one incantation — where errexit is silently switched off, why the ERR trap needs set -E, and the assembled template.
guideDiagnosing a Hung Process: The Commands to Run Before You Kill It
S answers signals, D cannot be killed at all — read wchan and the syscall without root, check the socket queues, and capture the evidence before kill -9 destroys it.
guideList Open Ports on Linux
What is listening, who owns it, and is it reachable — ss filters, the -e trick that names the owner without root, /proc/net/tcp by hand, docker-proxy, and a CSV audit that alerts on new listeners.
guideAuto-Restart a Stopped Service on Linux
Crashed, stopped on purpose, or running but not answering — three kinds of "down", and the systemd Restart=, reset-failed, and probe-based watchdog that handles each without a restart loop.
guideShell Scripts That Talk to APIs
curl that fails when the API fails, jq instead of regex, and a Slack alert when it breaks — the pattern for calling HTTP from bash without silent poison downstream.
Common Questions
What is a bash script?
A text file of terminal commands that runs automatically in sequence. Saved with a .sh extension, starting with #!/bin/bash.
How do I run a bash script?
Make it executable: chmod +x script.sh — then run: ./script.sh. Or skip chmod and type: bash script.sh
How do I schedule a bash script?
Use cron. Run crontab -e and add a line like: 0 2 * * * /path/to/script.sh to run daily at 2am.
How do I stop my script on errors?
Add set -euo pipefail near the top. This exits on error, catches undefined variables, and handles pipe failures.
PAID RESOURCE — $9
The Production Bash Toolkit
An operational script system + a 31-function shared library + a 52-page field guide. The production layer the free snippets don't cover.
Get the Toolkit →