1 – SYSTEM INFORMATION

2 – HARDWARE INFORMATION
3 – PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND STATISTICS
4 – USER INFORMATION AND MANAGEMENT
5 – FILE AND DIRECTORY COMMANDS
6 – PROCESS MANAGEMENT
7 – FILE PERMISSIONS
8 – NETWORKING
9 – ARCHIVES (TAR FILES)
10 – INSTALLING PACKAGES
11 – SEARCH
12 – SSH LOGINS
13 – FILE TRANSFERS
14 – DISK USAGE
15 – DIRECTORY NAVIGATION
1 – SYSTEM INFORMATION
# Show the current date and time
date
# Display Linux system information
uname -a
# Show this month's calendar
cal
# Display kernel release information
uname -r
# Display who is online
w
# Show which version of Red Hat installed
cat /etc/os-release
# Who you are logged in as
Whoami
# Show how long the system has been running + load
uptime
# Show system reboot history
last reboot
# Show system host name
hostname

# Display all local IP addresses of the host.

hostname -I
2 – HARDWARE INFORMATION
# Show info about disk sda
# Display messages in kernel ring buffer hdparm -i /dev/sda
dmesg
# Perform a read speed test on disk sda
# Display CPU information hdparm -tT /dev/sda
cat /proc/cpuinfo
# Test for unreadable blocks on disk sda
# Display memory information badblocks -s /dev/sda
cat /proc/meminfo # Display DMI/SMBIOS (hardware info) from
the BIOS
# Display free and used memory dmidecode
( -h for human readable, -m for MB, -g for GB.)
free -h

# Display PCI devices

lspci -tv

# Display USB devices

lsusb -tv
3 – PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND STATISTICS
# Display and manage the top processes # Monitor all traffic on port 80 ( HTTP )
top tcpdump -i eth0 'port 80'

# Interactive process viewer (top alternative) # List all open files on the system
htop lsof

# Display processor related statistics # List files opened by user

mpstat 1 lsof -u user

# Display virtual memory statistics # Display free and used memory ( -h for human
vmstat 1 readable, -m for MB, -g for GB.)
free -h
# Display I/O statistics
iostat 1 # Execute "df -h", showing periodic updates
watch df -h
# Display the last 100 syslog messages
(Use /var/log/syslog for Debian based systems.)
tail -100 /var/log/messages
# Capture and display all packets on interface eth0
tcpdump -i eth0
4 – USER INFORMATION AND MANAGEMENT
# Display the user and group ids of your current user.
id

# Display the last users who have logged onto the system.
last

# Show who is logged into the system. # Delete the john account.
who userdel john

# Show who is logged in and what they are doing. # Add the john account to the sales group
w usermod -aG sales john

# Create a group named "test".

groupadd test

# Create an account named john, with a comment of "John Smith" and create the user's
home directory.
useradd -c "John Smith" -m john
5 – FILE AND DIRECTORY COMMANDS
# List all files in a long listing (detailed) format
ls -al

# Display the present working directory

pwd

# Create a directory
mkdir directory

# Remove (delete) file

rm file

# Remove the directory and its contents recursively

rm -r directory

# Force removal of file without prompting for confirmation

rm -f file

# Forcefully remove directory recursively

rm -rf directory
# Copy file1 to file2
cp file1 file2
tail -f file

# Copy source_directory recursively to destination. If destination exists, copy

source_directory into destination, otherwise create destination with the contents of
source_directory.
cp -r source_directory destination

# Rename or move file1 to file2. If file2 is an existing directory, move file1 into
directory file2
mv file1 file2

# Create symbolic link to linkname

ln -s /path/to/file linkname

# Create an empty file or update the access and modification times of file.
touch file
# View the contents of file
cat file

# Browse through a text file

less file

# Display the first 10 lines of file

head file

# Display the last 10 lines of file

tail file

# Display the last 10 lines of file and "follow" the file as it grows.
tail -f file
6 – PROCESS MANAGEMENT
# Display your currently running processes
ps

# Display all the currently running processes on the system.

ps -ef

# Display process information for processname

ps -ef | grep processname # Start program in the background
program &
# Display and manage the top processes
top # Display stopped or background jobs
bg
# Interactive process viewer (top alternative)
htop # Brings the most recent background job to
foreground
# Kill process with process ID of pid fg
kill pid
# Brings job n to the foreground
# Kill all processes named processname fg n
killall processname
7 – FILE PERMISSIONS
Linux chmod example
PERMISSION EXAMPLE

U G W
rwx rwx rwx chmod 777 filename
rwx rwx r-x chmod 775 filename
rwx r-x r-x chmod 755 filename
rw- rw- r-- chmod 664 filename
rw- r-- r-- chmod 644 filename # NOTE: Use 777 sparingly!

LEGEND
U = User
G = Group
W = World

r = Read
w = write
x = execute
- = no access
8 – NETWORKING
# Display all network interfaces and IP address
ip a

# Display eth0 address and details

ip addr show dev eth0

# Query or control network driver and hardware settings

ethtool eth0

# Send ICMP echo request to host

ping host

# Display whois information for domain

whois domain

# Display DNS information for domain

dig domain

# Reverse lookup of IP_ADDRESS

dig -x IP_ADDRESS
# Display DNS IP address for domain
host domain

# Display the network address of the host name.

hostname -i

# Display all local IP addresses of the host.

hostname -I

# Download http://domain.com/file
wget http://domain.com/file

# Display listening tcp and udp ports and corresponding programs

netstat -nutlp
9 – ARCHIVES (TAR FILES)
# Create tar named archive.tar containing directory.
tar cf archive.tar directory

# Extract the contents from archive.tar.

tar xf archive.tar

# Create a gzip compressed tar file name archive.tar.gz.

tar czf archive.tar.gz directory

# Extract a gzip compressed tar file.

tar xzf archive.tar.gz

# Create a tar file with bzip2 compression

tar cjf archive.tar.bz2 directory

# Extract a bzip2 compressed tar file.

tar xjf archive.tar.bz2
10 – INSTALLING PACKAGES
# Search for a package by keyword.
yum search keyword

# Install package.
yum install package

# Display description and summary information about package.

yum info package

# Install package from local file named package.rpm

rpm -i package.rpm

# Remove/uninstall package.
yum remove package

# Install software from source code.

tar zxvf sourcecode.tar.gz
cd sourcecode
./configure
make
make install
11 – SEARCH
# Search for pattern in file
grep pattern file

# Search recursively for pattern in directory

grep -r pattern directory

# Find files and directories by name

locate name

# Find files in /home/john that start with "prefix".

find /home/john -name 'prefix*'

# Find files larger than 100MB in /home

find /home -size +100M
12 – SSH LOGINS
# Connect to host as your local username.
ssh host

# Connect to host as user

ssh user@host

# Connect to host using port

ssh -p port user@host
13 – FILE TRANSFERS
# Secure copy file.txt to the /tmp folder on server
scp file.txt server:/tmp

# Copy *.html files from server to the local /tmp folder.

scp server:/var/www/*.html /tmp

# Copy all files and directories recursively from server to the current system's /tmp folder.
scp -r server:/var/www /tmp

# Synchronize /home to /backups/home

rsync -a /home /backups/

# Synchronize files/directories between the local and remote system with compression
enabled
rsync -avz /home server:/backups/
14 – DISK USAGE

# Show free and used space on mounted filesystems

df -h

# Show free and used inodes on mounted filesystems

df -i

# Display disks partitions sizes and types

fdisk -l

# Display disk usage for all files and directories in human readable format
du -ah

# Display total disk usage off the current directory

du -sh
15 – DIRECTORY NAVIGATION
# To go up one level of the directory tree. (Change into the parent directory.)
cd ..

# Go to the $HOME directory

cd

# Change to the /etc directory

cd /etc