Linux - Commands

Basic Commands
ls : List files and directories in the current directory.
ls -l : List files and directories in long format.
ls -a : List all files, including hidden files.
cd : Change the current directory.
cd .. : Go up one directory level.
cd /path/to/directory : Change to a specific directory.
pwd : Print the current working directory.
cat : Display the contents of a file.
cat file.txt : Display the contents of file.txt .
echo : Print a message or value.
echo "Hello, World!" : Print "Hello, World!" to the console.
cp : Copy files and directories.
cp file.txt destination/ : Copy file.txt to the destination/
directory.
mv : Move or rename files and directories.
mv file.txt new_location/ : Move file.txt to the new_location/
directory.
mv file.txt new_name.txt : Rename file.txt to new_name.txt .
mkdir : Create a new directory.
mkdir new_directory : Create a directory named new_directory .
rm : Remove files and directories.
rm file.txt : Remove file.txt .
rm -r directory/ : Remove the directory/ and its contents
recursively.
grep : Search for patterns in files.
grep "pattern" file.txt : Search for "pattern" in file.txt .
grep -r "pattern" directory/ : Search for "pattern" recursively in
directory/ .
sed : Stream editor for filtering and transforming text.
sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt : Replace all occurrences of "old" with
"new" in file.txt .
awk : Text processing tool for manipulating structured data.
awk '{print $1}' file.txt : Print the first column of each line in
file.txt .
tar : Archive and compress files.
tar -cvf archive.tar directory/ : Create a tar archive of
directory/ .
 tar -xvf archive.tar : Extract the contents of archive.tar .
gzip : Compress files.
gzip file.txt : Compress file.txt into file.txt.gz .
unzip : Extract compressed files.
unzip file.zip : Extract the contents of file.zip .
ssh : Securely connect to a remote server.
ssh user@host : Connect to host as user .
scp : Securely copy files between hosts.
scp file.txt user@host:/path/ : Copy file.txt to /path/ on host as
user .
ps : Display information about running processes.
ps aux : Display all running processes.
top : Monitor system resource usage and processes in real-time.
free : Display memory usage information.
free -h : Display memory usage in human-readable format.
df : Display disk space usage.
df -h : Display disk space usage in human-readable format.
du : Estimate file and directory space usage.
du -sh directory/ : Display the total size of directory/ in human-
readable format.
netstat : Display network connections and statistics.
netstat -tuln : Display listening ports and associated processes.
iptables : Configure firewall rules.
iptables -L : List current firewall rules.
systemctl : Control system services.
systemctl start service : Start service .
systemctl stop service : Stop service .
systemctl status service : Check the status of service .

File Permissions
chmod : Change the permissions of files and directories.
chmod +x script.sh : Add execute permission to script.sh for the
current user.
chmod 644 file.txt : Set read and write permissions for the owner,
and read permissions for group and others on file.txt .
chown : Change the owner and group ownership of files and
directories.
chown user:group file.txt : Change the owner of file.txt to user
and the group to group .
umask : Set the default file permissions for newly created files and
directories.
 umask 022 : Set the default permissions to allow read and write
for the owner, and read for group and others.

Archives and Compression

zip : Create a compressed archive of files and directories.
zip archive.zip file1.txt file2.txt : Create a ZIP archive named
archive.zip containing file1.txt and file2.txt .
unzip : Extract files from a ZIP archive.
unzip archive.zip : Extract the contents of archive.zip in the
current directory.
tar : Create or extract tar archives, optionally with compression.
tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory/ : Create a compressed tar
archive named archive.tar.gz containing directory/ .
tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz : Extract the contents of archive.tar.gz in
the current directory.

System Resource Monitoring

vmstat : Display virtual memory statistics.
vmstat 5 : Display virtual memory statistics every 5 seconds.
iostat : Monitor input/output statistics for devices and partitions.
iostat -x 2 : Display extended I/O statistics every 2 seconds.
sar : Collect and report system activity information.
sar -u 1 5 : Display CPU usage every 1 second for 5 times.

Scheduling Tasks
crontab : Schedule tasks to run at specific times or intervals.
crontab -e : Edit the current user's crontab file to add or
modify scheduled tasks.
at : Schedule a one-time task to run at a specified time.
echo "command" | at 10:00 AM : Schedule command to run at 10:00 AM.

Shell Scripting
#!/bin/bash : Shebang line to specify the interpreter for a Bash
script.
echo : Print a message or value.
echo "Hello, World!" : Print "Hello, World!" to the console.
read : Read input from the user.
read name : Read input from the user and store it in the name
variable.
if , else , elif : Conditional statements for flow control.
 if [ condition ]; then commands; fi : Execute commands if condition
is true.
for , while : Looping constructs for repetitive tasks.
for i in 1 2 3; do echo $i; done : Print numbers 1, 2, and 3 using a
for loop.

Miscellaneous
history : Display the command history.
history : Show the list of previously executed commands.
man : Display the manual page for a command.
man ls : Show the manual page for the ls command.
sudo : Execute a command with superuser privileges.
sudo apt update : Run the apt update command with superuser
privileges.
touch: Create an empty file or update the timestamp of an existing
file.
touch new_file.txt: Create a new empty file named new_file.txt.
head: Display the first few lines of a file.
head -n 10 file.txt: Display the first 10 lines of file.txt.
tail: Display the last few lines of a file.
tail -n 10 file.txt: Display the last 10 lines of file.txt.
tail -f log_file.txt: Continuously display the last lines of
log_file.txt as it grows.
less: View the contents of a file interactively.
less file.txt: Open file.txt in the less pager for scrolling and
searching.
find: Search for files and directories based on various criteria.
find . -name "*.txt": Find all files with the .txt extension in
the current directory and its subdirectories.
du: Estimate file and directory space usage.
du -sh *: Display the size of each file and directory in the
current directory in human-readable format.

Process Management
kill: Send a signal to a process to terminate it.
kill PID: Terminate the process with the specified PID.
pkill: Send a signal to processes based on their name.
pkill process_name: Terminate all processes with the name
process_name.
bg: Put a suspended process in the background.
bg %1: Put the suspended job with job ID 1 in the background.
fg: Bring a background process to the foreground.
 fg %1: Bring the background job with job ID 1 to the foreground.

System Information
uname: Display system information.
uname -a: Display all system information.
lsb_release: Display Linux distribution-specific information.
lsb_release -a: Display all distribution-specific information.
uptime: Show how long the system has been running.
whoami: Display the current user's username.
hostname: Display the system's hostname.
df: Display disk space usage.
df -h: Display disk space usage in human-readable format.

Network Commands
ping: Test network connectivity to a host.
ping google.com: Test connectivity to google.com.
traceroute: Trace the route packets take to a host.
traceroute google.com: Trace the route to google.com.
curl: Transfer data from or to a server using various protocols.
curl https://example.com: Retrieve the content of
https://example.com.
ifconfig: Configure network interfaces.
ifconfig: Display information about active network interfaces.

Text Processing
sort: Sort lines of text.
sort file.txt: Sort the lines in file.txt alphabetically.
uniq: Remove or identify duplicate lines.
uniq file.txt: Remove consecutive duplicate lines from file.txt.
cut: Extract columns from each line of text.
cut -d ',' -f 1 file.csv: Extract the first column (field) from
file.csv using comma as the delimiter.
wc: Count lines, words, and characters in a file.
wc -l file.txt: Count the number of lines in file.txt.

Network Troubleshooting
nslookup : Query DNS servers to obtain domain name or IP address
mapping.
nslookup example.com : Get the IP address of example.com .
dig : Query DNS servers for detailed information about a domain.
dig example.com : Get detailed DNS information about example.com .
 telnet : Establish a telnet connection to a remote host.
telnet example.com 80 : Establish a telnet connection to
example.com on port 80.
nc (netcat): Versatile utility for network communication and
debugging.
nc -zv example.com 80 : Check if port 80 is open on example.com .

File Comparison and Patching

diff : Compare files line by line.
diff file1.txt file2.txt : Show the differences between file1.txt
and file2.txt .
patch : Apply a patch file to update source code or text files.
patch < patch_file.patch : Apply the changes described in
patch_file.patch to the corresponding files.

Text Searching
grep : Search for patterns in files.
grep -r "pattern" directory/ : Search for "pattern" recursively in
directory/ .
grep -i "pattern" file.txt : Perform a case-insensitive search for
"pattern" in file.txt .
egrep : Extended version of grep with support for more advanced
pattern matching.
egrep -o 'pattern|pattern2' file.txt : Search for multiple patterns
in file.txt and only print the matching parts.

File Integrity
md5sum : Calculate the MD5 checksum of a file.
md5sum file.txt : Display the MD5 checksum of file.txt .
sha256sum : Calculate the SHA-256 checksum of a file.
sha256sum file.txt : Display the SHA-256 checksum of file.txt .

System Maintenance
lsof : List open files and the processes using them.
lsof -i :80 : List processes using port 80.
watch : Execute a command periodically and display the output.
watch -n 5 'command' : Execute command every 5 seconds and display
the output.
dmesg : Display kernel ring buffer messages.
dmesg | tail : Display the last few kernel messages.
User and Group Management
useradd : Create a new user account.
useradd -m john : Create a new user account named "john" with a
home directory.
passwd : Change the password for a user account.
passwd john : Change the password for the user "john".
groupadd : Create a new group.
groupadd developers : Create a new group named "developers".
usermod : Modify a user account.
usermod -aG developers john : Add the user "john" to the
"developers" group.

Disk Usage
ncdu : Interactive disk usage analyzer.
ncdu /path/to/directory : Analyze disk usage in /path/to/directory
interactively.
iostat : Report CPU and I/O statistics for devices and partitions.
iostat -m 2 : Display I/O statistics in megabytes every 2
seconds.