The following post lists some basic Linux commands and their functions:
ls – Lists files and directories that exist within your current directory. This command resembles the dir command in Windows.
ls -al – To view dotfiles (filenames that begin with a period) and additional file and directory details, add the -al options to the command:
cd location – Navigates between directories. Replace location with the path to the directory that you wish to navigate to.
For example, to navigate to the /usr/local/apache/ directory, run the following command:
cd /usr/local/apache/
cat filename – Prints the contents of the specified file to the CLI. Replace filename with the relative path to the file that you wish to view.
For example, to print the contents of the filename.txt file, run the following command:
cat filename.txt
ail filename – Print the last 20 lines of a file to the command line interface (CLI). Replace filename with the relative path to the file that you wish to view.
To print the last 20 lines of the filename.txt file, run the following command:
tail filename.txt
You can add an argument to change the number of lines that this command prints. For example, to print the last 100 lines of the filename.txt file, run the following command:
tail -100 filename.txt
more filename – Print the contents of a file to the CLI, one screen at a time.
Replace filename with the relative path to the file that you wish to view.
For example, to print the contents of the filename.txt file one screen at a time, run the following command:
more filename.txt
pico filename – Opens the specified file in the pico text editor.
Replace filename with the relative path to the file that you wish to edit. For example, to open the filename.txt file in the pico editor, run the following command: pico filename.txt
vi filename – Opens the specified file in the vi text editor.
Replace filename with the relative path to the file that you wish to edit. For example, to open the filename.txt file in the vi editor, run the following command: vi filename.txt
grep string filename – Searches for a string in a specified file, and prints each line that contains a match to the CLI.
Replace string with a single word, or multiple words within single quotes (”). Replace filename with the relative path to the file that you wish to search. For example, to search for the string coffee filters in the grocerylist.txt file, run the following command: grep ‘coffee filters’ grocerylist.txt
touch filename – Creates an empty file in the specified location.
Replace filename with the relative path to the file that you wish to create. For example, to create an empty example.txt file, run the following command: touch example.txt
ln -s file1 file2 – Creates a symbolic link between the two specified files.
Replace file1 with the relative path to the existing file, and file2 with the relative path to the new symbolic link file.
For example, to create the symlink-file.txt file and point it to the /pointtome/file.txt file, run the following command: ln -s /pointtome/file.txt symlink-file.txt
rm filename – Deletes the specified file. After you run this command, the system prompts you to confirm the file’s deletion. Replace filename with the relative path to the file that you wish to delete.
For example, to delete the trash.txt file, run the following command: rm trash.txt
file filename – Guesses a file’s type, based on the file’s contents.
Replace filename with the relative path to the file for which you want the system to guess the type. For example, to cause the system to guess the type for the example.txt file, run the following command: file filename
Replace filename with the relative path to the file for which you wish to view a word count. For example, to display a word count for the example.txt file, run the following command: wc example.txt
cp file1 file2 -Copies a file into a new file.
Replace file1 with the relative path to the existing file, and file2 with the relative path to the new copy file that you wish to create. For example, to copy the contents of the original.txt file to the /copies/duplicate.txt file, run the following command: cp original.txt /copies/duplicate.txt
chmod permissions filename – Changes a file’s octal permissions.
Replace permissions with the three-digit octal permissions that you wish to grant to the file, and replace filename with the relative path to the file for which you wish to alter the permissions. For example, to change the permissions of the myfile.txt file to 755, run the following command: chmod 755 myfile.txt
chown user:group filename – Replace user with the user to whom you wish to grant ownership of the file, group with the group name, and filename with the relative path to the file. For example, to grant the user joe in the group joesgroup ownership of the joesfile.txt file, run the following command: chown joe:joesgroup joesfile.txt
du – Shows the system’s current disk usage for each directory and subdirectory.
wc filename – Displays the word count for a specific file.
last – Lists which users recently logged in, with the timestamp for each login.
w – Lists the users that are currently logged in, and the location from which they logged in.
netstat – Lists all of the server’s current network connections.
We hope this helps! 🙂
Leave A Comment?