By Manny Fernandez

January 9, 2020

Adding Color to Your macOS “ls” Output

I am big on having colors on my cli.  It makes things very easy to identify when things are amiss.  I have this on my SecureCRT implementation.  Here is an easy way to show colors on your ls output on your macOS.

Before

Here is the default way iTerm2 displays the output.

2020-01-09_12-40-00.png

Command to Change

Shell out to your terminal.

vi ~/.bashrc

Once you edit the file, hit i to enter the edit mode.

​add alias ls="ls -G"

2020-01-09_12-47-28.png

After

As you can see below, the blue text is very difficult to read against my dark background.

2020-01-09_12-46-55.png

Customization

Since that Dark Blue is unacceptable for my use, here is how to customize it.

For this, I will edit the

vi ~/.bash_profile

In there we will enter

export CLICOLOR=1
export LSCOLORS=GxFxCxDxBxegedabagaced

2020-01-09_13-23-49.png

The color designators are as follows:

a black
b red
c green
d brown
e blue
f magenta
g cyan
h light grey
A bold black, usually shows up as dark grey
B bold red
C bold green
D bold brown, usually shows up as yellow
E bold blue
F bold magenta
G bold cyan
H bold light grey; looks like bright white
x default foreground or background

Note that the above are standard ANSI colors. The actual display may
differ depending on the color capabilities of the terminal in use.

The order of the attributes are as follows:

1. directory
2. symbolic link
3. socket
4. pipe
5. executable
6. block special
7. character special
8. executable with setuid bit set
9. executable with setgid bit set
10. directory writable to others, with sticky bit
11. directory writable to others, without sticky bit

In my example, value LSCOLORS=GxFxCxDxBxegedabagaced, means directory = Gx (1st Position) set to (bold cyan foreground and default background). So Capital G = Bold Cyan and lowercase x = the default background

Outcome

2020-01-09_13-34-15.png

So on this output, I moved to my Desktop folder so we could see some files and some fake executable files.

  1. Directory colors are Cyan in bold
  2. We see standard files shown in white
  3. Files with the x attribute are shown in red.

Hope this helps

 

Recent posts

  • If you've spent any time configuring user authentication on... Full Story

  • DNS is one of those technologies that quietly underpins... Full Story

  • BGP issues on FortiGate firewalls usually trace back to... Full Story

  • Every time your laptop talks to your router, a... Full Story

  • If you've spent any time configuring NAT on a... Full Story

  • If you have spent any time configuring firewall policies... Full Story

  • High availability on FortiGate is one of those features... Full Story

  • If you've configured SD-WAN on a FortiGate, you've almost... Full Story

  • FortiLink is the management protocol that turns a FortiSwitch... Full Story

  • FortiSwitches are pretty rock solid from Mean Time Between... Full Story

  • This is a quicky tip.  Have you ever gone... Full Story

  • DNS is one of those quiet pieces of internet... Full Story

  • This article is an updated version of the previous... Full Story

  • You will add ns2 as a secondary (slave) BIND9... Full Story

  • In the process of deploying my lab, I needed... Full Story

  • RFC 8805, used to be known as Self-Correcting IP... Full Story

  • Years back, I wrote an article about certificate pinning. ... Full Story

  • FortiGates have the ability to send alerts to Microsoft... Full Story

  • In this post, I am going to walk through... Full Story

  • Troubleshooting VoIP on a FortiGate can feel like trying... Full Story

  • Prior to FortiOS 7.0, there were three commands to... Full Story

  • In this post, I am going to go over... Full Story

  • What we are going to do:  We are going... Full Story

  • Choosing between FGCP (FortiGate Clustering Protocol) and FGSP (FortiGate... Full Story

  • Creating a VLAN on macOS (The "Pro" Move) A... Full Story

  • This blog post explores the logic behind how macOS... Full Story

  • Pretty Fly for a Wi-Fi Tell My Wi-Fi Love... Full Story

  • Part of my daily gig is creating BoMs (Bill-of-Materials)... Full Story

  • ICMP introduces several security risks, but careful filtering, rate... Full Story

  • The command diag debug application dhcps -1 enables full... Full Story

  • In the world of FortiOS, execute tac report is... Full Story

  • LLDP; What is it The Link Layer Discovery Protocol... Full Story

  • What it actually does When you run diagnose fdsm... Full Story

  • Monkey Bites are bite-sized, high-impact security insights designed for... Full Story

  • I have run macOS in macOS with Parallels but... Full Story

  • Don't be confused with my other FortiNAC posts where... Full Story

  • This is the third session in a multi-part article... Full Story

  • Today I was configuring key-based authentication on a FortiGate... Full Story

  • Netcat, often called the "Swiss Army knife" of networking,... Full Story

  • At its core, IEEE 802.1X is a network layer... Full Story

  • In case you did not see the previous FortiNAC... Full Story

  • This is our 5th session where we are going... Full Story

  • Now that we have Wireshark installed and somewhat configured,... Full Story

  • The Philosophy of Packet Analysis Troubleshooting isn't about looking... Full Story

  • Overview FortiOS 8.0 introduces custom tags as a first-class... Full Story

  • These are two distinct mechanisms on FortiOS, and conflating... Full Story

  • Replacement messages are the pages and text blocks that... Full Story