Linux Commands Cheat Sheet

1. SYSTEM

# uname –a # Display linux system information

# uname –r # Display kernel release information

# cat /etc/redhat_release # Show which version of redhat installed

# uptime # Show how long the system has been running +

load

# hostname # Show system host name

# hostname -i # Display the IP address of the host

# last reboot # Show system reboot history

# date # Show the current date and time

# cal # Show this month calendar

# w # Display who is online

# whoami # Who you are logged in as

# finger user # Display information about user

2. HARDWARE

# dmesg # Detected hardware and boot messages

# cat /proc/cpuinfo # CPU model

# cat /proc/meminfo # Hardware memory

# free -m # Used and free memory (-m for MB)

# lspci -tv # Show PCI devices

# lsusb -tv # Show USB devices

# lshal # Show a list of all devices with their

properties

# dmidecode # Show DMI/SMBIOS: hw info from the BIOS

# hdparm -i /dev/sda # Show info about disk sda

# hdparm -tT /dev/sda # Do a read speed test on disk sda

# badblocks -s /dev/sda # Test for unreadable blocks on disk sda

3. STATISTICS

# top # Display and update the top cpu processes

# mpstat 1 # Display processors related statistics

# vmstat 2 # Display virtual memory statistics

# iostat 2 # Display I/O statistics (2sec Intervals)

# tail -n 500 /var/log/messages # Last 10 kernel/syslog messages

# tcpdump -i eth1 # Capture all packets flows on interface eth1

# tcpdump -i eth0 'port 80' # Monitor all traffic on port 80 ( HTTP )

# lsof # List all open files belonging to all active

processes.

# lsof -u testuser # List files opened by specific user

# free –m # Show amount of RAM

# watch df –h # Watch changeable data continuously

4. USERS

# id # Show the active user id with login and

group

# last # Show last logins on the system

# who # Show who is logged on the system

# groupadd admin # Add group "admin"

# useradd -c "Sam Tomshi" -g admin -m sam # Create user "sam" and add to group
"admin"

# userdel sam # Delete user sam

# adduser sam # Add user "sam"

# usermod # Modify user information

5. FILE COMMANDS

# ls –al # Display all information about files/

directories
# pwd # Show the path of current directory

# mkdir directory-name # Create a directory

# rm file-name # Delete file

# rm -r directory-name # Delete directory recursively

# rm -f file-name # Forcefully remove file

# rm -rf directory-name # Forcefully remove directory recursively

# cp file1 file2 # Copy file1 to file2

# cp -r dir1 dir2 # Copy dir1 to dir2, create dir2 if it

doesn’t exist

# mv file1 file2 # Rename or move file1 to file2. If file2

is an existing directory , move file1 into directory file2

# ln –s /path/to/file-name link-name # Create symbolic link to file-name

# touch file # Create or update file

# cat > file # Place standard input into file

# more file # Output the contents of file

# head file # Output the first 10 lines of file

# tail file # Output the last 10 lines of file

# tail -f file # Output the contents of file as it grows

starting with the last 10 lines

# gpg -c file # Encrypt file

# gpg file.gpg # Decrypt file

6. PROCESS RELATED

# ps # Display your currently active processes

# ps aux | grep 'telnet' # Find all process id related to telnet process

# pmap # Memory map of process

# top # Display all running processes

# kill pid # Kill process with mentioned pid id

# killall proc # Kill all processes named proc

# bg # Lists stopped or background jobs

# fg # Brings the most recent job to foreground

# fg n # Brings job n to the foreground

7. FILE PERMISSION RELATED

# chmod octal file-name # Change the permissions of file to octal , which can
be found separately for user, group and world

octal value

4 - read

2 – write

1 – execute

Example

# chmod 777 /data/test.c # Shows rwx permission for owner , rwx

permission for group, rwx permission for world

# chmod 755 /data/test.c # Shows rwx permission for owner,rw for

group and world

# chown owner-user file # Change owner 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

Example

# chown bobbin:expertslogin test.txt

# ls -l test.txt

-rw-r--r-- 1 bobbin expertslogin 0 Mar 04 08:56 test.txt

8. NETWORK

# ifconfig –a # Display all network ports and ip address

# ifconfig eth0 # Display specific ethernet port ip address and

details

# ethtool eth0 # Linux tool to show ethernet status

# mii-tool eth0 # Linux tool to show ethernet status

# ping host # Send echo request to test connection

# whois domain # Get who is information for domain

# dig domain # Get DNS information for domain

# dig -x host # Reverse lookup host

# host google.com # Lookup DNS ip address for the name

# hostname –i # Lookup local ip address

# wget file # Download file

# netstat -tupl # List active connections to / from system

9. COMPRESSION / ARCHIVES

# tar cf home.tar home # Create tar named home.tar containing home/

# tar xf file.tar # Extract the files from file.tar

# tar czf file.tar.gz files # Create a tar with gzip compression

# tar xzf file.tar.gz # Extract a tar using gzip

# tar cjf file.tar.bz2 - # Create a tar with bzip2 compression

# gzip file # Compress file and renames it to file.gz

10. INSTALL PACKAGE

# rpm -i pkgname.rpm # Install rpm based package

# rpm -e pkgname # Remove package

Install from source

./configure

make

make install

11. SEARCH

# grep pattern files # Search for pattern in files

#grep -r pattern dir # Search recursively for pattern in dir

# locate file # Find all instances of file

# find /home/tom -name 'index*' # Find files names that start with "index"

# find /home -size +10000k # Find files larger than 10000k in /home

12. LOGIN (SSH AND TELNET)

# ssh user@host # Connect to host as user

# ssh -p port user@host # Connect to host using specific port

# telnet host # Connect to the system using telnet port

13. FILE TRANSFER

scp
# scp file.txt server2:/tmp # Secure copy file.txt to remote
host /tmp folder

# scp nixsavy@server2:/www/*.html /www/tmp # Copy *.html files from remote

host to current system /www/tmp folder

# scp -r nixsavy@server2:/www /www/tmp # Copy all files and folders

recursively from remote server to the current system /www/tmp folder

rsync

# rsync -a /home/apps /backup/ # Synchronize source to

destination

# rsync -avz /home/apps [email protected]:/backup # Synchronize

files/directories between the local and remote system with compression enabled
14. DISK USAGE

# df –h # Show free space on mounted filesystems

# df -i # Show free inodes on mounted filesystems

# fdisk -l # Show disks partitions sizes and types (run as

root)

# du -ah # Display disk usage in human readable form

# du -sh # Display total disk usage on the current

directory

15. DIRECTORY TRAVERSE

# cd .. # To go up one level of the directory tree

# cd # Go to $HOME directory

# cd /test # Change to /test directory