terminal commands for checking internet mac

So if youre in your home folder, and type cd., youll go to your Macs Users folder.

Beneath the surface of the operating system is an entire world that you can access only from the command line.

Terminal (in your ApplicationsUtilities folder) is the default gateway to that command line on a Mac.

With it, instead of pointing and clicking, you type your commands and your Mac does your bidding.

Why would you want to do that For almost all of your computing needs, the regular graphical user interface is enough.

But the command line can be handy when it comes to troubleshooting your Mac, to turn on hidden settings, and other advanced chores.

Its a good idea for anyone who isnt an utter beginner to be familiar with it.

If you arent already familiar with your Macs command-line interface.

The second line is the prompt, and while it can change from system to system depending on configuration, by default it contains several bits of information.

In my prompt, walden is the name of my Mac (same as the name in the Sharing pane of System Preferences), and kirk is my user name.

The shows where I am in the file system of my Mac; is a shortcut that means the current users home folder.

In the Finder, thats the folder with your user name and the house icon.) Finally, the is a character that the bash shell (the default interface that Terminal uses) displays to indicate that its ready to accept a command.

Whats in a folder When you first get to the command line, youre in your home folder.

While youre thereor when youre in any folder ( directory in Unix-speak)you might want to know whats in it.

Fortunately, you can add a number of optional switches to the ls command that allow you to see more information.

So, for example, try typing ls -l (thats a lower-case L), then pressing Return.

The point is that ls can provide additional information about files and folders, depending on the options you specify.

In this case, that additional information includes the name of the user who owns each item in the directory.

That ownership is part of the Unix systems file-permissions regime.) The kirk kirk next to most of those items above means that each one is owned by the user kirk, who is in the group kirk.

The other understandable bit of information next to each file and folder is the date and time each one was last modified.

One other handy option: You can view invisible filesones that the Finder doesnt normally show youby typing ls -a.

These hidden files all have dots (.) in front of their names.).

From the command line, you use the cd (or change directory ) command instead.

So lets say youre in your Home folder and want to peek inside the Downloads folder.

To do that, youd type cd Downloads.

Remember to always type a space after any command that has an additional argument, such as the name of a directory in the previous example.) Once youve done that, ls will show you the contents of your Downloads folder.

Here are a couple of quick tricks for moving around in your Macs file system.

Terminal Commands For Checking Internet Mac