System Based Commands
uname Displays Linux system information
uname -r Displays kernel release information
uptime
Displays how long the system has been running including load
average
hostname Shows the system hostname
hostname -i Displays the IP address of the system
last reboot Shows system reboot history
date Displays current system date and time
timedatectl Query and change the System clock
cal Displays the current calendar month and day
w Displays currently logged in users in the system
whoami Displays who you are logged in as
finger
username Displays information about the user
2. Hardware Based Commands
dmesg Displays bootup messages
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Displays more information about CPU e.g model,
model name, cores, vendor id
cat /proc/meminfo
Displays more information about hardware memory
e.g. Total and Free memory
lshw
Displays information about system's hardware
configuration
lsblk Displays block devices related information
free -m
Displays free and used memory in the system (-m
flag indicates memory in MB)
lspci -tv Displays PCI devices in a tree-like diagram
lsusb -tv Displays USB devices in a tree-like diagram
dmidecode Displays hardware information from the BIOS
hdparm -i /dev/xda Displays information about disk data
hdparm -tT
/dev/xda <:code> Conducts a read speed test on device xda
badblocks -s /dev/xda Tests for unreadable blocks on disk
3. Users Management Commands
id Displays the details of the active user e.g. uid, gid, and
groups
last Shows the last logins in the system
who Shows who is logged in to the system
groupadd
"admin" Adds the group 'admin'
adduser "Sam" Adds user Sam
userdel "Sam" Deletes user Sam
usermod Used for changing / modifying user information
4. File Commands
ls -al
Lists files - both regular & hidden files
and their permissions as well.
Pwd Displays the current directory file path
mkdir 'directory_name' Creates a new directory
rm file_name Removes a file
rm -f filename Forcefully removes a file
rm -r directory_name Removes a directory recursively
rm -rf directory_name Removes a directory forcefully and
recursively
cp file1 file2 Copies the contents of file1 to file2
cp -r dir1 dir2
Recursively Copies dir1 to dir2. dir2 is
created if it does not exist
mv file1 file2 Renames file1 to file2
ln -s /path/to/file_name
link_name Creates a symbolic link to file_name
touch file_name Creates a new file
cat > file_name Places standard input into a file
more file_name Outputs the contents of a file
head file_name Displays the first 10 lines of a file
tail file_name Displays the last 10 lines of a file
gpg -c file_name Encrypts a file
gpg file_name.gpg Decrypts a file
Wc
Prints the number of bytes, words and
lines in a file
Xargs Executes commands from standard input
5. Process Related Commands
Ps Display currently active processes
ps aux | grep 'telnet' Searches for the id of the process 'telnet'
Pmap Displays memory map of processes
Top Displays all running processes
kill pid Terminates process with a given pid
killall proc Kills / Terminates all processes named proc
pkill process-name Sends a signal to a process with its name
Bg Resumes suspended jobs in the background
Fg Brings suspended jobs to the foreground
fg n job n to the foreground
Lsof Lists files that are open by processes
renice 19 PID makes a process run with very low priority
pgrep firefox find Firefox process ID
Pstree visualizing processes in tree model
6. File Permission Commands
chmod octal filename Change file permissions of the file to octal
Example
Set rwx permissions to owner, group and
chmod 777 /data/test.c everyone (everyone else who has access to the
server)
chmod 755 /data/test.c
Set rwx to the owner and r_x to group and
everyone
chmod 766 /data/test.c Sets rwx for owner, rw for group and everyone
chown owner user-file Change ownership of the file
chown owner-user:owner-
group file_name Change owner and group owner of the file
chown owner-user:owner-
group directory Change owner and group owner of the directory
7. Network Commands
ip addr show
Displays IP addresses and all the network
interfaces
ip address add 192.168.0.1/24 Assigns IP address 192.168.0.1 to interface
dev eth0 eth0
ifconfig Displays IP addresses of all network
interfaces
ping host
ping command sends an ICMP echo request
to establish a connection to server / PC
whois domain
Retrieves more information about a domain
name
dig domain
Retrieves DNS information about the
domain
dig -x host Performs reverse lookup on a domain
host google.com Performs an IP lookup for the domain name
hostname -i Displays local IP address
wget file_name Downloads a file from an online source
netstat -pnltu Displays all active listening ports
8. Compression/Archives Commands
tar -cf home.tar home<:code>
Creates archive file called 'home.tar' from
file 'home'
tar -xf files.tar Extract archive file 'files.tar'
tar -zcvf home.tar.gz source- Creates gzipped tar archive file from the
folder source folder
gzip file Compression a file with .gz extension
9. Install Packages Commands
rpm -i pkg_name.rpm Install an rpm package
rpm -e pkg_name Removes an rpm package
dnf install pkg_name Install package using dnf utility
10. Install Source (Compilation)
Checks your system for the required software needed to build the
./configure program. It will build the Makefile containing the instructions
required to effectively build the project
It reads the Makefile to compile the program with the required
make operations. The process may take some time, depending on your
system and the size of the program
make The command installs the binaries in the default/modified paths
install after the compilation
11. Search Commands
grep 'pattern' files Search for a given pattern in files
grep -r pattern dir
Search recursively for a pattern in a given
directory
locate file Find all instances of the file
find /home/ -name "index"
Find file names that begin with 'index'
in /home folder
find /home -size +10000k
Find files greater than 10000k in the
home folder
12. Login Commands
ssh user@host Securely connect to host as user
ssh -p port_number user@host
Securely connect to host using a
specified port
ssh host
Securely connect to the system via SSH
default port 22
telnet host Connect to host via telnet default port 23
13. File Transfer Commands
scp file1.txt server2/tmp
Securely copy file1.txt to server2 in /tmp
directory
rsync -a /home/apps Synchronize contents in /home/apps directory
/backup/ with /backup directory
14. Disk Usage Commands
df -h Displays free space on mounted systems
df -i Displays free inodes on filesystems
fdisk -l Shows disk partitions, sizes, and types
du -sh
Displays disk usage in the current directory in a
human-readable format
findmnt Displays target mount point for all filesystems
mount device-path mount-
point Mount a device
15. Directory Traverse Commands
cd .. Move up one level in the directory tree structure
cd Change directory to $HOME directory
cd /test Change directory to /test directory
