1.

File and Directory Management

 ls : Lists the contents of a directory

 cp : Copies files and directories
 mv : Moves or renames files and directories
 rm : Removes (deletes) files or directories
 touch : Creates a new empty file or update file mestamps
 nano : Text editor (terminal-based)
 vim / vi : Advanced text editors
 cat : Concatenates and displays file content
 tac : Concatenate and display file content in reverse
 less : Displays file content one screen at a me, allowing for scrolling
 more : Displays file content one screen at a me, but with less func onality than less
 head : Displays the beginning of a file
 tail : Displays the end of a file
 diff : Compares two files line by line
 grep : Searches for pa erns within files
 find : Searches for files and directories in a directory hierarchy
 file : Determines file type
 chmod : Changes file permissions
 chown : Changes file owner
 chgrp : Changes file group ownership
 ln : Creates links (hard or symbolic) between files
 locate : Find files by name
 stat : Display file or file system status
 sed : Stream editor for filtering and transforming text.
 awk : Pa ern scanning and processing language
 cut : Remove sec ons from each line of files
 sort : Sort lines of text files.
 uniq : Report or omit repeated lines

Directory Commands
 pwd : Prints the current working directory
 cd : Changes the current directory
 mkdir : Creates new directories
 rmdir : Removes empty directories
 tree : Lists contents of directories in a tree-like format
 2.Filesystem Permissions and Security
 chmod : Change file permissions
o chmod 755 file.txt – Give read, write, and execute permissions to owner, and
read-execute permissions to others

 chown : Change file owner and group

o chown user:group file.txt – Change owner and group of a file
 chgrp : Change group ownership of a file
o chgrp group file.txt – Change the group of a file
 umask : Set default permissions for new files
o umask 022 – Set default permissions for newly created files to 755
 se acl : Set access control lists (ACL) for file permissions
 ge acl : Get access control lists (ACL) for file permissions

3.User and Group Management

 useradd : Creates a new user account
 adduser : Creates a new user account with interac ve prompts and generally sets up
a home directory and other default configura ons
 userdel : Deletes a user account
 usermod : Modifies an exis ng user account’s proper es
 passwd : Changes a user's password
 chage : Changes user password expiry informa on
 id : Displays user and group iden ty informa on
 whoami : Displays the effec ve username of the current user
 su : Switches to another user account or becomes the superuser
 sudo : Executes a command with elevated privileges
 last : Displays informa on about the last logged-in users
 who : Displays informa on about currently logged-in users
 groupadd : Creates a new group
 groupdel : Deletes a group
 groupmod : Modifies an exis ng group's proper es
 groups : Displays the groups a user belongs to
 newgrp : Changes the current group ID, effec vely switching to a new group for the
current session
 gpasswd : Administers the /etc/group and /etc/gshadow files, used for managing
group passwords and memberships
 chgrp : Changes the group ownership of files or directories

4.Disk Management
 lsblk : Lists block devices, including disks and their par ons, in a tree-like format
 fdisk : par on table manipulator for linux
 parted : A par on manipulator program
 blkid : Locates and displays the a ributes (UUID, LABEL, TYPE) of block devices
 df : Reports filesystem disk space usage
 du : Es mates file and directory space usage

Filesystem Crea on
 mkfs : Builds a Linux filesystem on a device or par on. It's a front-end for various
filesystem-specific tools (e.g., mkfs.ext4, mkfs.xfs)
 mkswap : Sets up a Linux swap area
 fsck : Checks and op onally repairs a Linux filesystem. It's a front-end for filesystem-
specific check tools (e.g., fsck.ext4)
 e2fsck : Checks and repairs ext2, ext3, or ext4 filesystems

Moun ng and Unmoun ng Filesystems

 mount : A aches a filesystem to a specified mount point in the directory tree, making
it accessible
 umount : Detaches a mounted filesystem from the directory tree
 /etc/fstab : A system configura on file that contains informa on about filesystems to
be mounted automa cally at boot me

Logical Volume Management (LVM)

 pvcreate : Ini alizes a physical volume for use by LVM
 pvdisplay : Displays a ributes of physical volumes
 vgcreate : Creates a volume group
 vgdisplay : Displays a ributes of volume groups
 lvcreate : Creates a logical volume
 lvdisplay : Displays a ributes of logical volumes
 lvextend : Extends the size of a logical volume
 lvreduce : Reduces the size of a logical volume
 vgremove : Removes a volume group
 lvremove : Removes a logical volume
 5.Process management
 ps : Report a snapshot of current processes.
 top : Display Linux tasks.
 htop : Interac ve process viewer (advanced top).
 kill : Send a signal to a process, typically to terminate.
 killall : Terminate processes by name.
 bg : Resume a suspended job in the background.
 fg : Bring a job to the foreground.
 jobs : List ac ve jobs.
 nice : Run a program with modified scheduling priority.
 renice : Alter priority of running processes.
 up me : Show how long the system has been running.
 me : Measure program running me.

6. Network management
 ifconfig : displays and configure network interfaces
 ip a : shows all network interfaces and their Ips
 ip r : displays the rou ng tables
 ping : Send ICMP Echo requests to network hosts
 netstat : show open ports and listening services
 ss : Socket sta s cs and listening services (faster than netstat)
 traceroute : Trace the route packets take to a network host
 nslookup : Query Internet name servers interac vely
 dig : DNS lookup u lity
 wget : Non-interac ve network downloader
 curl : Transfer data with URLs
 scp : Secure copy files between hosts
 ssh : Secure shell for remote login
 p : File Transfer Protocol client

7. system informa on and monitoring

 uname : print system informa on
 hostname : Shows or sets the system's hostname
 lsusb : Lists USB devices connected to the system
 lspci : Lists PCI devices connected to the system
 lshw : Lists hardware configura on
 top : Displays dynamic processes and system informa on
 htop : Interac ve process and resource monitoring
 ps : Report a snapshot of current process
 free : Displays the total, used, and free amounts of physical and swap memory
 df : Reports file system disk space usage
 du : Es mates file space usage for files or directories.
 Iostat : Reports CPU u liza on and I/O sta s cs for devices and par ons.
 vmstat : Report virtual memory sta s cs
 netstat : show open ports and listening services
 up me : Shows system up me and load averages (1, 5, and 15 minutes).
 who : Displays informa on about users currently logged in.
 w : Shows who is logged on and what they are doing
 dmesg : Print the kernel ring buffer messages (system boot and hardware related
message)
 journalctl : Query and view logs from system’s journal

8. package management (depends on distribu ons)

Debian-based (e.g., Ubuntu)

 apt-get : APT package handling u lity

o apt-get install : Install a package
o apt-get update : Update package list
o apt-get upgrade : Upgrade installed packages
o apt-get remove : Remove a package
 apt-cache : Query APT cache
o apt-cache search : Search for a package
o apt-cache show : Show package details
Red Hat-based (e.g., CentOS, Fedora)

 yum : Package manager for RPM-based systems

o yum install : Install a package
o yum update : Update installed packages
o yum remove : Remove a package
 dnf : Next-genera on package manager (Fedora, CentOS 8+)
o dnf install : Install a package
 o dnf update : Update installed packages
o dnf remove : Remove a package
General Commands

 rpm : RPM package manager

o rpm -i : Install an RPM package
o rpm -e : Remove an RPM package
 dpkg – Debian package manager
o dpkg -i : Install a Debian package
o dpkg -r : Remove a Debian package

9. System Services and Daemon Management

 systemctl : Control the systemd system and service manager
o systemctl start : Start a service
o systemctl stop : Stop a service
o systemctl restart : Restart a service
o systemctl enable : Enable a service to start on boot
o systemctl disable : Disable a service from star ng on boot
o systemctl status : Check service status
 service : Older service management command (used in non systemd systems)
o service start : Start a service
o service stop : Stop a service
o service restart : Restart a service
o service status : Check service status

10. Archiving and Compression

Working with tar files

 tar -cvf archive.tar < files > : create a ter archive

 tar -xvf archive.tar : extract a tar archive
 tar -tvf archive.tar : list files in a tar archive
 tar -czvf archive.tar.gz < files > : create a compressed tar.gz archive
 tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz : extract a tar.gz archive
 tar -cJvf archive.tar.xz : Create a tar.xz archive
 tar -xJvf archive.tar.xz : Extract a tar.xz archive
Working with zip files

 zip archive.zip <files> : Create a zip archive

 unzip archive.zip : Extract a zip archive
 unzip -l archive.zip : List contents of a zip file
 zip -r archive.zip : Zip a directory
Working with gzip & bzip2

 gzip <file> : Compress a file using gzip

 gunzip <file> .gz : Decompress a gzip file
 bzip2 <file> : Compress a file using bzip2
 bunzip2 <file>.bz2 : Decompress a bzip2 file

11.Text Processing
 grep : Search for pa erns within files
o grep 'pa ern' file.txt – Search for a pa ern in a file
o grep -r 'pa ern' /dir/ – Recursively search for a pa ern
 sed : Stream editor for filtering and transforming text
o sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt – Replace old with new globally
 awk : A powerful text processing language
o awk '{print $1}' file.txt – Print the first column of each line in a file
 cut : Remove sec ons from each line of a file
o cut -d ':' -f 1 /etc/passwd – Print the first field of each line, delimited by ":"
 sort : Sort lines of text files
o sort file.txt – Sort file content in ascending order
 uniq : Report or omit repeated lines in a file
o sort file.txt | uniq – Sort and remove duplicate lines
 tee : Read from standard input and write to standard output and files
o echo "text" | tee file.txt – Write to file and show output on screen
 tr : Translate or delete characters
o echo "hello" | tr 'a-z' 'A-Z' – Convert lowercase to uppercase
 paste : Merge lines of files
o paste file1.txt file2.txt – Combine lines of file1 and file2 side by side
 wc : Word, line, character, and byte count
o wc -l file.txt – Count lines in a file
o wc -w file.txt – Count words in a file
 12. System Shutdown and Reboot
 shutdown : Shut down the system
o shutdown -h now : Immediately shut down
o shutdown -r now : Reboot the system
o shutdown -h +10 : Shut down a er 10 minutes
o shutdown -h 22:00 : Schedule shutdown at 10:00 PM
o shutdown -c : Cancel a scheduled shutdown
 reboot : Reboot the system
 halt : Halt the system immediately (equivalent to turning off power)
 poweroff : Power off the system
 init : Change the runlevel (old-style system manager)
o init 0 : Shutdown
o init 6 : Reboot

13. System Diagnos cs and Troubleshoo ng

 dmesg : Print the kernel ring buffer messages (system boot and hardware-related
messages)
 journalctl : Query and view logs from systemd’s journal
 strace : Trace system calls and signals
o strace : Trace a command’s system calls
 lsof : List open files (useful for debugging)
o lsof : Show processes using a specific file
 vmstat : Report virtual memory sta s cs
 iostat : Report CPU and I/O sta s cs
 mpstat : Report CPU usage sta s cs
 pidstat : Report sta s cs by process
 free : Display memory usage
 up me : How long the system has been running
 watch : Execute a program periodically, showing output
o watch -n 1 free – Watch memory usage every second
 lshw : List hardware configura on
 htop : Interac ve process viewer (be er than top)
 netstat : Network sta s cs (deprecated in favor of ss)
 ss : Show socket sta s cs (more efficient than netstat)
 14. Networking & Remote Management
 ifconfig : Configure network interfaces (older command, replaced by ip)
 ip : A more modern alterna ve for managing network interfaces and rou ng
o ip addr : Show IP addresses
o ip link : Show or manipulate network interfaces
o ip route : Show or manipulate rou ng tables
 ss : Display socket sta s cs (useful for diagnosing network issues)
 nmap : Network explora on tool (can be used for security audi ng)
 telnet : User interface to the TELNET protocol (less common nowadays)
 nc (Netcat) : Network u lity for reading and wri ng from network connec ons
o nc -l -p 1234 : Listen on port 1234
o nc <host><port> : Connect to a host and port
 iptables : Administra on tool for IPv4 packet filtering and NAT (Network Address
Transla on)
 firewalld : Frontend for managing firewall rules (used in some distros like Fedora and
CentOS)
 ufw : Uncomplicated firewall (front-end for iptables)
o ufw enable – Enable firewall
o ufw allow <port> – Allow traffic on a specific port
 tcpdump : Command-line packet analyzer
 curl : Transfer data from or to a server using various protocols (HTTP, FTP, etc.)
 wget : Download files from the web via HTTP, HTTPS, FTP
 scp : Secure copy over SSH (used to copy files between systems)
o scp file.txt user@remote:/path/to/des na on/ – Copy file to remote server
 rsync : Remote file and directory synchroniza on (o en used for backups)
o rsync -avz /local/path/ remote:/remote/path/ – Sync directories

15. Task Scheduling

 cron : Daemon for running scheduled commands
o crontab -e : Edit cron jobs for the current user
o crontab -l : List the current user’s cron jobs
o crontab -r : Remove the current user's cron jobs
 at : Run commands at a specified me
o at 09:00 : Schedule a command to run at 09:00 AM
 batch : Run commands when the system load is low
 sleep : Delay for a specified me
o sleep 5s – Sleep for 5 seconds

16. System Backup and Restore

 rsync : Remote file and directory synchroniza on
o rsync -avz source/ des na on/ : Synchronize files
o rsync -avz -e ssh source/ user@remote:/des na on/ : Sync over SSH
 cpio : Copy files to and from archives
 dd : Low-level copying and backup of en re filesystems
o dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/backup.img : Backup a disk/par on
o dd if=/path/to/backup.img of=/dev/sda : Restore a disk/par on