101 Linux Commands
Some of these commands require elevated permissions (sudo) to run.
101 | Linux Commands |
|---|---|
| !! | Execute the previous command used: |
| ! cd .. | Move to parent (higher level) directory. |
| cd ~ | Go to home directory |
| !s | Execute a previous command starting with a specific letter. |
| cp | copy or backup a file cp nginx.conf{,.bak} |
| cd – | Toggle between current directory and last directory |
| cd $HOME | Go to home directory |
| cd | Go to home directory |
| chmod 755 | Set permissions to 755. Corresponds to these permissions: (-rwx-r-x-r-x), arranged in this sequence: (owner-group-other) |
| chmod a+x | Add execute permission to all users. |
| chown | |
| cp .backup | Make a backup copy of a file (named file.backup) |
| cp | Copy file1, use it to create file2 |
| cp -r / | Copy directory1 and all its contents (recursively) into directory2 |
| date | Display date |
| dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb | Zero the sdb drive |
| df -h | Display disk space usage |
| dmesg>dmesg.txt | Take detailed messages from OS and input to text file |
| dmidecode | Display a LOT of system information |
| dmidecode -t 0 | Display BIOS information. |
| dmidecode -t 4 | Display CPU information. |
| dpkg –get-selections | grep apache | Search for installed packages related to Apache |
| dpkg -L | Shows you where in the filesystem the package components were installed |
| du / -bh | less | Display detailed disk use for each subdirectory |
| echo $PATH | Print the environment variable PATH |
| eog | Opens Eye of Gnome |
| exit | Quit the terminal |
| free | Display memory usage |
| gnome-system-log | view all the system logs. |
| grep | Search through file(s) and display lines containing matching string |
| grep btime /proc/stat | grep -Eo “[[:digit:]]+” | Get the number of seconds since the OS was started |
| history | less | Display the last 1000 commands |
| hostname | Display the name of the local host |
| hwclock –show | Display time. |
| id | Display user id (uid) and group id (gid) |
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37. Display your local IP address and netmask ifconfig
38. Wireless network interface iwconfig
39. Display wireless network information iwlist
40. Kill process by name. You need elevated permissions to run this (sudo). killall process
41. Get the date and time of the last system shutdown last -x | grep shutdown | head -1 | grep -Eo “[A-Z][a-z]{2} [[:digit:] ][[:digit:]] [[:digit:]]{2}:[[:digit:]]{2}”
42. Quit shell session (only for a shell you’ve logged into like one of the virtual consoles) logout
43. List non-hidden files and subfolders in current directory (like dir for windows). Use -R for recursive and -a to include hidden files. ls
44. Display file access permissions for all files in the current directory. The format for permissions is drwxrwxrwx where the order is owner-group-other and the numeric values are read=4, write=2, execute=1. ls -l
45. List all available applications, in case you’ve forgotten how to open Open Office Writer or another application from the terminal (oowriter) ls /usr/bin | less
46. Display more networking information lshw -C network
47. Display kernel modules currently loaded lsmod
48. Display sound, video, and networking hardware lspci -nv | less
49. Display usb-connected hardware lsusb
50. Read the command’s man page (manual) man
51. Create new directory at specified location mkdir
52. Move file to specified directory mv
53. Rename file1 to file2 mv
54. Display routing table netstat -rn
55. Print environmental variables printenv
56. List the processes currently running by this user. There are many useful options, view them with ps –help ps -Af
57. Print working directory pwd
58. Delete file rm
59. Delete directory and all it’s contents rm -rf
60. Removes all files that end in txt in current directory rm *.txt
61. Delete directory (will only work if it’s empty) rmdir
62. Display your default gateway listed under “default” route
63. Completely destroy all traces of the file. This takes a while. -n 7 means seven overwrites, -z means zero the bits afterward to hide shredding, -u means delete the file when done, and -v means verbose. shred -zuv -n 7
64. Shutdown now. shutdown -h now
65. Restart now. shutdown -r now
66. Log into remote computer ssh
67. Open the root shell, giving yourself superuser permissions until you relegate your powers with exit. Unlike sudo su which does the same thing, this method of starting the root shell is uncorrupted by a user’s environmental variables. sudo -i
68. Open the root shell, like sudo -i, but this method retains the user’s environmental variables. Relegate superuser permissions and return to normal shell with exit. sudo su
69. Creates a compressed archive of the specified directory and all files/directories under it. tar czf .tgz
70. Expand the contents of a compressed archive and extract to current directory. tar zxvf
71. List current processes by cpu use. This is very useful. Press q to quit and h for help. top
72. Create an empty file if it doesn’t exist touch
73. Display the name of the current terminal tty
74. Display your linux kernel uname -a
75. Display your machine’s processor architecture uname -m
76. Returns one-line synopsis from the command’s man page whatis
77. Returns the location of the program in the filesystem whereis
78. Returns the application’s path which
79. Display the users logged into the machine who
80. Display your login name whoami
81. This will display the output of test.log as it is being written to by another program tail –follow test.log
82. If you’ve just navigated to a directory shell and want to open a file or application IN that directory. Just use this command followed by the filename eg. ./filename.txt
83. Escape operator. Use it before a space if you’re trying to open a file that has whitespace in the name. \
84. The tilde represents your home directory. ~
85. Run any command when the system load is low batch
86. Display cpu info cat /proc/cpuinfo
87. Display memory usage cat /proc/meminfo
88. Display networking devices cat /proc/net/dev
89. Display performance information cat /proc/uptime
90. Display kernel version cat /proc/version
91. Display file contents cat
92. List partition tables fdisk -l
93. Show the properties/compression of a file or package file
94. Find a file. Search Linux filesystem for a file name. find / -name
95. To create a *.gz compressed file gzip test.txt 9
6. To uncompress a *.gz file gzip -d test.txt.gz 97. Display compression ratio of the compressed file using gzip -l $ gzip -l *.gz
98. Output file status stat filename.txt 99. Download a file from the internet wget http://remote_file_url
100. Show list of last 10 logged in users. last -n 10
101. Display a tree of processes pstree Note: If you are pasting a command from above that includes a “ or ‘ and it does not work, you may have to re-type those quotes in shell manually.