How these guides work

A harmless walkthrough of every feature a guide on this site can use: fill-in values, copy buttons, expected output, marked destructive steps, and the generated script.

beginner5 minupdated 2026-09-12metareferenceDownload script.sh

Before you start

A terminal on any Linux, macOS or BSD machine
Nothing else. This guide only writes to /tmp.

Your values

Fill these in and every command below updates to match. Nothing is sent anywhere.

HostnameThe machine you are working onUsernameThe account you run these commands asWorking directoryCreated under /tmp, deleted at the endSite URLWhere this site is served from

Run this at your own risk. These steps worked on my hardware; yours may differ. Take a backup first, read each command before running it, and see the disclaimer.

This guide is the reference. It exists to show what every guide on this site can do, and to prove the machinery works end to end. Every command below is harmless and runs in /tmp.

Fill in your values

Look at the Your values panel above. Change anything in it and every command on this page updates immediately. That is the difference between a guide you can run and a guide you have to translate first.

bash

echo "Setting up example-project on nas.example.lan as admin"

Your values stay in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere, and nothing is stored on the server.

Copy, do not retype

Every command block has a Copy button. It copies the command with your values already substituted, not the placeholders.

bash

mkdir -p /tmp/example-project
cd /tmp/example-project
printf 'host=%s\nuser=%s\n' "nas.example.lan" "admin" > config.ini

Know what success looks like

Blocks with a dashed border are expected output, not commands. They have no Copy button, because pasting output into a shell is a classic way to waste an afternoon.

bash

cat /tmp/example-project/config.ini

expected output

host=nas.example.lan
user=admin

If what you see differs from what is shown, stop there rather than continuing to the next step.

Destructive steps are marked

Anything that deletes data, reboots a machine, or interrupts a service is shown in red and hidden behind a click. You have to choose to see it.

bash

Destructive command. Read it before running it. This can delete data or interrupt service.

rm -rf /tmp/example-project

These steps are also included in the downloadable script, but commented out, so running the script cannot destroy anything by accident.

Take the whole thing with you

The Download script.sh link at the top of every guide gives you all the commands as one file. It is generated from this same page, so it can never drift out of date, and your values appear as shell variables at the top where you can change them in one place.

bash

curl -O https://www.zadran.net/guides/how-these-guides-work/script.sh
less how-these-guides-work.sh

Read it before you run it. That advice applies to every script on the internet, including the ones here.