Linux Commands Reference
| Command | Description |
| System information & Details | |
| | show architecture of machine |
| | show the timetable of 2007 |
| | show information CPU info |
| | show interrupts |
| | verify memory use |
| | show file(s) swap |
| | show version of the kernel |
| | show network adpters and statistics |
| | show mounted file system(s) |
| | save date changes on BIOS |
| | show system date |
| | set date and time - MonthDayhoursMinutesYear.Seconds |
| | show hardware system components - (SMBIOS / DMI) |
| | displays the characteristics of a hard-disk |
| | perform test reading on a hard-disk |
| | display PCI devices |
| | show USB devices |
| | show architecture of machine |
| | show used kernel version |
| Shutdown, Restart and Logout of a system | |
| | shutdown system |
| | leaving session |
| | reboot |
| | shutdown system |
| | planned shutdown of the system at 16:30 |
| | cancel a planned shutdown of the system |
| | reboot |
| | shutdown system |
| Files and Directory | |
| | enter to directory '/ home' |
| | go back one level |
| | go back two levels |
| | go to home directory |
| | go to home directory |
| | go to previous directory |
| | copying a file |
| | copy all files of a directory within the current work directory |
| | copy a directory within the current work directory |
| | copy a directory |
| | outputs the mime type of the file as text |
| | lists known encodings |
| | converting the coding of characters from one format to another |
| | batch resize files in the current directory and send them to a thumbnails directory (requires convert from Imagemagick) |
| | create a symbolic link to file or directory |
| | create a physical link to file or directory |
| | view files of directory |
| | view files of directory |
| | show details of files and directory |
| | show hidden files |
| | show files and directory containing numbers |
| | show files and directories in a tree starting from root(2) |
| | create a directory called 'dir1' |
| | create two directories simultaneously |
| | create a directory tree |
| | rename / move a file or directory |
| | show the path of work directory |
| | delete file called 'file1' |
| | remove a directory called 'dir1' and contents recursively |
| | remove two directories and their contents recursively |
| | delete directory called 'dir1' |
| | modify timestamp of a file or directory - (YYMMDDhhmm) |
| | show files and directories in a tree starting from root(1) |
| File search | |
| | search file and directory into root filesystem from '/' |
| | search files and directories belonging to 'user1' |
| | search files with '. bin' extension within directory '/ home/user1' |
| | search binary files are not used in the last 100 days |
| | search files created or changed within 10 days |
| | search files with '.rpm' extension and modify permits |
| | search files with '.rpm' extension ignoring removable partitions as cdrom, pen-drive, etc.… |
| | find files with the '.ps' extension - first run 'updatedb' command |
| | show location of a binary file, source or man |
| | show full path to a binary / executable |
| Mounting a Filesystem | |
| | force umount when the device is busy |
| | mount disk called hda2 - verify existence of the directory '/ mnt/hda2' |
| | mount a floppy disk |
| | mount a cdrom / dvdrom |
| | mount a cdrw / dvdrom |
| | mount a cdrw / dvdrom |
| | mount a file or iso image |
| | mount a Windows FAT32 file system |
| | mount a usb pen-drive or flash-drive |
| | mount a windows network share |
| | unmount disk called hda2 - exit from mount point '/ mnt/hda2' first |
| | run umount without writing the file /etc/mtab - useful when the file is read-only or the hard disk is full |
| Disk Space | |
| | show list of partitions mounted |
| | show the used space by installed deb packages, sorting by size (debian, ubuntu and alike) |
| | estimate space used by directory 'dir1' |
| | show size of the files and directories sorted by size |
| | show size of the files and directories ordered by size |
| | show the used space by rpm packages installed sorted by size (fedora, redhat and alike) |
| Networking (LAN / WiFi) | |
| | active interface 'eth0' in dhcp mode |
| | show network statistics of eth0 |
| | lookup hostname to resolve name to ip address and viceversa |
| | show hostname of system |
| | show configuration of an ethernet network card |
| | configure IP Address |
| | configure 'eth0' in promiscuous mode to gather packets (sniffing) |
| | disable an interface 'eth0' |
| | activate an interface 'eth0' |
| | show link status of all network interfaces |
| | show wireless networks |
| | wifi scanning to display the wireless connections available |
| | show link status of 'eth0' |
| | show all active network connections and their PID |
| | show all network services listening on the system and their PID |
| | show routing table alike "route -n" |
| | lookup hostname to resolve name to ip address and viceversa |
| | show routing table |
| | configure default gateway |
| | configure static route to reach network '192.168.0.0/16' |
| | remove static route |
| | activate ip routing temporarily |
| | show all HTTP traffic |
| | lookup on Whois database |
| Users and Groups | |
| | set deadline for user password |
| | create a new group |
| | delete a group |
| | rename a group from moon to sun |
| | check correct syntax and file format of '/etc/group' and groups existence |
| | log into a new group to change default group of newly created files |
| | change password |
| | change a user password (only by root) |
| | check correct syntax and file format of '/etc/passwd' and users existence |
| | create a new user "user1" belongs "admin" group |
| | create a new user |
| | delete a user ( '-r' eliminates home directory) |
| | change user attributes as description, group and other |
| Permits on Files | |
| | change group of files |
| | set permissions reading (r), write (w) and (x) access to users owner (u) group (g) and others (o) |
| | remove permits reading (r), write (w) and (x) access to users group (g) and others (or |
| | set SUID bit on a binary file - the user that running that file gets same privileges as owner |
| | disable SUID bit on a binary file |
| | set SGID bit on a directory - similar to SUID but for directory |
| | disable SGID bit on a directory |
| | set STIKY bit on a directory - allows files deletion only to legitimate owners |
| | disable STIKY bit on a directory |
| | change owner of a file |
| | change user owner of a directory and all the files and directories contained inside |
| | change user and group ownership of a file |
| | view all files on the system with SUID configured |
| | show permits on files |
| | divide terminal into 5 columns |
| Special Attributes on files | |
| | allows write opening of a file only append mode |
| | allows that a file is compressed / decompressed automatically by the kernel |
| | makes sure that the program ignores Dump the files during backup |
| | makes it an immutable file, which can not be removed, altered, renamed or linked |
| | allows a file to be deleted safely |
| | makes sure that if a file is modified changes are written in synchronous mode as with sync |
| | allows you to recover the contents of a file even if it is canceled |
| | show specials attributes |
| Archives and compressed files | |
| | decompress a file called 'file1.bz2' |
| | compress a file called 'file1' |
| | decompress a file called 'file1.gz' |
| | compress a file called 'file1' |
| | compress with maximum compression |
| | create an archive rar called 'file1.rar' |
| | compress 'file1', 'file2' and 'dir1' simultaneously |
| | decompress rar archive |
| | create a uncompressed tarball |
| | create an archive containing 'file1', 'file2' and 'dir1' |
| | show contents of an archive |
| | extract a tarball |
| | extract a tarball into / tmp |
| | create a tarball compressed into bzip2 |
| | decompress a compressed tar archive in bzip2 |
| | create a tarball compressed into gzip |
| | decompress a compressed tar archive in gzip |
| | decompress rar archive |
| | decompress a zip archive |
| | create an archive compressed in zip |
| | compress in zip several files and directories simultaneously |
| RPM Packages ( Fedora, Red Hat and like) | |
| | install a rpm package |
| | install a rpm package ignoring dependencies requests |
| | upgrade a rpm package without changing configuration files |
| | upgrade a rpm package only if it is already installed |
| | remove a rpm package |
| | show all rpm packages installed on the system |
| | show all rpm packages with the name "httpd" |
| | obtain information on a specific package installed |
| | show rpm packages of a group software |
| | show list of files provided by a rpm package installed |
| | show list of configuration files provided by a rpm package installed |
| | show list of dependencies required for a rpm packet |
| | show capability provided by a rpm package |
| | show scripts started during installation / removal |
| | show history of revisions of a rpm package |
| | verify which rpm package belongs to a given file |
| | show list of files provided by a rpm package not yet installed |
| | import public-key digital signature |
| | verify the integrity of a rpm package |
| | verify integrity of all rpm packages installed |
| | check file size, permissions, type, owner, group, MD5 checksum and last modification |
| | check all rpm packages installed on the system - use with caution |
| | verify a rpm package not yet installed |
| | install a package built from a rpm source |
| | extract executable file from a rpm package |
| | build a rpm package from a rpm source |
| YUM packages tool (Fedora, RedHat and alike) | |
| | download and install a rpm package |
| | That will install an RPM, and try to resolve all the dependencies for you using your repositories. |
| | update all rpm packages installed on the system |
| | upgrade a rpm package |
| | remove a rpm package |
| | list all packages installed on the system |
| | find a package on rpm repository |
| | clean up rpm cache erasing downloaded packages |
| | remove all files headers that the system uses to resolve dependency |
| | remove from the cache packages and headers files |
| DEB packages (Debian, Ubuntu and like) | |
| | install / upgrade a deb package |
| | remove a deb package from the system |
| | show all deb packages installed on the system |
| | show all deb packages with the name "httpd" |
| | obtain information on a specific package installed on system |
| | show list of files provided by a package installed on system |
| | show list of files provided by a package not yet installed |
| | verify which package belongs to a given file |
| APT packages tool (Debian, Ubuntu and alike) | |
| | returns list of packages which corresponds string "searched-packages" |
| | install / upgrade a deb package from cdrom |
| | install / upgrade a deb package |
| | update the package list |
| | upgrade all of the installed packages |
| | remove a deb package from system |
| | verify correct resolution of dependencies |
| | clean up cache from packages downloaded |
| Pacman packages tool (Arch, Frugalware and alike) | |
| | Install package 'name' with dependencies |
| | Delete package 'name' and all files of it |
| View file content | |
| | view the contents of a file starting from the first row |
| | view first two lines of a file |
| | similar to 'more' command but which allows backward movement in the file as well as forward movement |
| | view content of a file along |
| | view the contents of a file starting from the last line |
| | view last two lines of a file |
| | view in real time what is added to a file |
| Text Manipulation | |
| | remove all even lines from example.txt |
| | view the first column of a line |
| | view the first and third column of a line |
| | number row of a file |
| | compare contents of two files by deleting only unique lines from 'file1' |
| | compare contents of two files by deleting only unique lines from 'file2' |
| | compare contents of two files by deleting only the lines that appear on both files |
| | find differences between two files |
| | look up words "Aug" on file '/var/log/messages' |
| | look up words that begin with "Aug" on file '/var/log/messages' |
| | select from file '/var/log/messages' all lines that contain numbers |
| | search string "Aug" at directory '/var/log' and below |
| | merging contents of two files for columns |
| | merging contents of two files for columns with '+' delimiter on the center |
| | find differences between two files and merge interactively alike "diff" |
| | replace "string1" with "string2" in example.txt |
| | remove all blank lines from example.txt |
| | remove comments and blank lines from example.txt |
| | eliminates the first line from file example.txt |
| | view only lines that contain the word "string1" |
| | remove empty characters at the end of each row |
| | remove only the word "string1" from text and leave intact all |
| | print from 1th to 5th row of example.txt |
| | print row number 5 of example.txt |
| | replace more zeros with a single zero |
| | sort contents of two files |
| | sort contents of two files omitting lines repeated |
| | sort contents of two files by viewing only unique line |
| | sort contents of two files by viewing only duplicate line |
| | convert from lower case in upper case |
| Character set and Format file conversion | |
| | convert a text file format from MSDOS to UNIX |
| | convert a text file to html |
| | show all available formats conversion |
| | convert a text file format from UNIX to MSDOS |
| Filesystem Analysis | |
| | check bad blocks on disk hda1 |
| | repair / check integrity of dos filesystems on disk hda1 |
| | repair / check integrity of ext2 filesystem on disk hda1 |
| | repair / check integrity of ext3 filesystem on disk hda1 |
| | repair / check integrity of linux filesystem on disk hda1 |
| | repair / check integrity of ext2 filesystem on disk hda1 |
| | repair / check integrity of ext3 filesystem on disk hda1 |
| | repair / check integrity of fat filesystem on disk hda1 |
| | repair / check integrity of dos filesystem on disk hda1 |
| Format a Filesystem | |
| | format a floppy disk |
| | create a filesystem type linux ext2 on hda1 partition |
| | create a filesystem type linux ext3 (journal) on hda1 partition |
| | create a filesystem type linux on hda1 partition |
| | create a FAT32 filesystem |
| | create a swap filesystem |
| Filesystem SWAP | |
| | create a swap filesystem |
| | activating a new swap partition |
| | activate two swap partitions |
| Backup | |
| | find all files with '.log' extention and make an bzip archive |
| | find and copy all files with '.txt' extention from a directory to another |
| | make a backup of a local hard disk on remote host via ssh |
| | backup content of the harddrive to a file |
| | make a copy of MBR (Master Boot Record) to floppy |
| | restore MBR from backup copy saved to floppy |
| | make a full backup of directory '/home' |
| | make a incremental backup of directory '/home' |
| | restoring a backup interactively |
| | synchronization between directories |
| | rsync via SSH tunnel |
| | synchronize a local directory with a remote directory via ssh and compression |
| | synchronize a remote directory with a local directory via ssh and compression |
| | make a incremental backup of directory '/home/user' |
| | copy content of a directory on remote directory via ssh |
| | copy a local directory on remote directory via ssh |
| | local copy preserving permits and links from a directory to another |
| CDROM | |
| | rip audio tracks from a CD to wav files |
| | rip first three audio tracks from a CD to wav files |
| | clean a rewritable cdrom |
| | burn an ISO image |
| | burn a compressed ISO image |
| | scan bus to identify the channel scsi |
| | perform an md5sum on a device, like a CD |
| | create an iso image of cdrom on disk |
| | create a compressed iso image of cdrom on disk |
| | create an iso image of a directory |
| | mount an ISO image |
| Microsoft Windows networks (samba) | |
| | mount a windows network share |
| | netbios name resolution |
| | netbios name resolution |
| | show remote shares of a windows host |
| | like wget can download files from a host windows via smb |
| IPTABLES (firewall) | |
| | show all chains of filtering table |
| | show all chains of nat table |
| | clear all rules from filtering table |
| | clear all rules from table nat |
| | delete any chains created by user |
| | allow telnet connections to input |
| | block HTTP connections to output |
| | allow POP3 connections to forward chain |
| | Logging on input chain |
| | configure a PAT (Port Address Traslation) on eth0 masking outbound packets |
| | redirect packets addressed to a host to another host |
| Monitoring and debugging | |
| | displays status of RAM in megabytes |
| | force closure of the process and finish it |
| | force a process to reload configuration |
| | show history reboot |
| | display kernel loaded |
| | display a list of files opened by processes |
| | displays a list of open files in a given path system |
| | displays linux tasks |
| | displays linux tasks in a hierarchical mode |
| | Shows a tree system processes |
| | monitoring reliability of a hard-disk through SMART |
| | check if SMART is active on a hard-disk |
| | display system calls made and received by a process |
| | display library calls |
| | show events inherent to the process of booting kernel |
| | show system events |
| | display linux tasks using most cpu |
| | display interrupts in real-time |
| Others useful commands | |
| | set an alias for a command - hh = history |
| | display a list of commands that pertain to keywords of a program , useful when you know what your program does, but you don't know the name of the command |
| | change shell command |
| | nice command to know if you have to remote into another box |
| | encrypt a file with GNU Privacy Guard |
| | decrypt a file with GNU Privacy Guard |
| | show shared libraries required by ssh program |
| | display the on-line manual pages for example on ping command - use '-k' option to find any related commands |
| | create a boot floppy |
| | download an entire web site |
| | download a file with the ability to stop the download and resume later |
| | start a download at any given time |
| | displays description of what a program does |
| | show who is logged on, and print: time of last system boot, dead processes, system login processes, active processes spawned by init, current runlevel, last system clock change |
Reference : LinuxGuide.it and Google
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