Communicating with the clipboard at the command line

[blb]

Just found you can communicate (copy/paste) with the clipboard (or pasteboard) from the command line; most likely to be found useful in shell scripts...

The commands are pbcopy and pbpaste:

echo -n "copy this" | pbcopy

copies the string 'copy this' to the clipboard (the -n is to keep echo from adding a newline).

Simply running pbpaste will output what's in the clipboard.

[marmoset]

Originally posted by blb
Just found you can communicate (copy/paste) with the clipboard (or pasteboard) from the command line; most likely to be found useful in shell scripts...

Cool! Sounds like that could be very useful
in conjunction with AEShell OSAX from
within Applescript as well...

[deev]

As useful as this command can be, I seem to be stuck with it. Whenever I start a new shell, it runs "pbpaste | sh" and if there happens to be some text in the clipboard, this will get pasted and executed, which generally generates a "command not found".

I have looked in (some of these files didn't exist for me):
/etc/csh.cshrc
/etc/csh.login
~/.tcshrc & ~/.tcshistory
~/.cshrc
~/.history
~/.login
~/.cshdirs

This particular command isn't in any of these files. Is there some way I can reset my Terminal back to "vanilla" or the likes? My apologies if this is the wrong place to post such a question!

Please help, this is very annoying.

deev

[symphonix]

Deev: Have you checked the Terminal Preferences dialog? it is possible to set a command to be executed each time a term window opens by putting it here.
You might also delete the com.apple.Terminal.plist file from ~/Library/Preferences.

BLB: Thanks for the tip! That could make some really nifty shell script tricks that would be the envy of any Linux geek.

[deev]

Originally posted by symphonix
Deev: Have you checked the Terminal Preferences dialog? it is possible to set a command to be executed each time a term window opens by putting it here.
You might also delete the com.apple.Terminal.plist file from ~/Library/Preferences.

Cheers symphonix!! I checked the Preferences, but it was just set to the default. However, after deleting my .plist file the mysterious command was gone. Yay! All I had to do was reset my window settings (am a big fan of white on deep blue) and away I go!

I shoulda known it would be something simple (relatively!).

Thanks again,
deev

[michaelsanford]

blb, that is way .

What happens, though, if someone logs in over SSH, who is not the same user as the one at the con, and tries pbpaste? Will it display the console's clipboard ?!

[TommyWillB]

Picking up on what michaelsanford asked... I presume command line pbcopy & pbpaste are users specific?

So if I'm loggend in as me vs another user, will that will only affect that particular user?

If I login vi ssh and do this at the same time someone is on the Machine GUI could I screw with their paste board by doing this at the same time they are?

Are tehre security issues here?

[onan]

Unfortunately, there is a single, globally readable and writable clipboard. Which is to say, yes, there is a huge security hole.

Unprivileged users can use tools like this to view whatever is on another user's (including root's) clipboard. Worse, another using writing anything to "their" clipboard will also change what all other users get.

Note that the problem isn't with pbcopy/pbpaste in particular, but rather the overall design of the clipboard service. Even if you remove these tools from your system, a user could create or install similar tools without needing any elevated privileges.

I've been complaining to Apple about this literally for years. This is one of a few issues which make macosx completely unsuitable as a production server platform in my mind.