Linux Commands

Linux is a Unix-Like operating system. All the Linux/Unix commands are run in the terminal provided by the
Linux system. This terminal is just like command prompt of Windows OS. Linux/Unix commands are
case-sensitive. The terminal can be used to accomplish all Administrative tasks. This includes package
installation, file manipulation, and user management. Linux terminal is user-interactive. The terminal outputs
the results of commands which are specified by the user itself. Execution of typed command is done only after
you press the Enter key.

Commands Description
Used to check whether the calling program has access to a specified file. It
access
can be used to check whether a file exists or not
Used to turn on or turn off the process for accounting or change info process
accton
accounting file
aclocal Used to automatically generate aclocal.m4 files from configure.in file
acpi Used to display the battery status and other ACPI information
Tests whether ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) subsystem is
acpi_available
available or not
It provides intelligent power management on a system and is used to notify the
acpid
user-space programs about the ACPI events
addr2line Used to convert addresses into file names and line numbers
It is a Linux version of getty, which is a Unix program running on a host computer
agetty
that manages physical or virtual terminals to allow multi-user access
Instructs the shell to replace one string with another string while executing
alias
the commands
It is a command-line mixer for ALSA(Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
amixer
sound-card driver
Used to play standard MIDI(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) files, by
aplaymidi sending the content of a MIDI file to an ALSA(Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
MIDI port
It helps the user when they don’t remember the exact command but knows a few
apropos
keywords related to the command that define its uses or functionality
Provides a high-level CLI (Command Line Interface) for the package management
system and is intended as an interface for the end user which enables some options
apt
better suited for interactive usage by default compared to more specialized APT
tools like apt-cache and apt-get
apt-get It is a command-line tool which helps in handling packages in Linux
Opens up a highly built-in interface to interact with the package manager of
aptitude
the machine
ar Used to create, modify and extract the files from the archives
arch Used to print the computer architecture
It manipulates the System’s ARP cache. It also allows a complete dump of the
arp
ARP cache
aspell Used as a spell checker in Linux
atd It is a job scheduler daemon that runs jobs scheduled for later execution
 Used to remove the specified jobs. To remove a job, its job number is passed
atrm
in the command
atq It displays the list of pending jobs which are scheduled by the user
autoconf Used in Linux to generate configuration scripts
Used to create a template file of C “#define” or any other template header
autoheader
for configure to use
Used for automatically generating Makefile.in files compliant with the set GNU
automake
Coding Standards
autoreconf Used to create automatically buildable source code for Unix-like systems
autoupdate Used to update configure.in file in our Linux system to a newer Autoconf.
awk It is a scripting language used for manipulating data and generating reports
banner Used to print the ASCII character string in large letter to standrad output
It strips directory information and suffixes from file names i.e. it prints the file
basename
name NAME with any leading directory components removed
Used to read commands from standard input or a specified file and execute them when
batch
system load levels permit i.e. when the load average drops below 1.5
bc Used for command line calculator
bg Used to place foreground jobs in background
A mail notification system for unix that notifies the user at the command line when
biff
new mail arrives and tells from whom it is
bind Used to set Readline key bindings and variables
bison It is basically a parser generator similar to yacc
break Used to terminate the execution of for loop, while loop and until loop
builtin Used to run a shell builtin, passing it arguments(args), and also to get the exit status
bzcmp Used to invoke the cmp utility on bzip2 compressed files
bzdiff Used to compare the bzip2 compressed files
bzgrep Used to search for a pattern or an expression but inside a bzip2-compressed file
bzip2 Used to compress and decompress the files
It does not have to read the entire input file before starting, so with a large file,
bzless
it starts up faster
Used as a filter for CRT viewing of bzip2 compressed files, which are saved with .bz2
bzmore
suffix
Used to see the calendar of a specific month or a whole year. By default, it shows
cal
current month’s calendar as output
case It is the best alternative when we had to use multiple if/elif on a single variable
Reads data from file and gives their content as output. It helps us to create, view,
cat
concatenate files
cc It is used to compile the C language codes and create executables
ccrypt It is a command line tool for encryption and decryption of data
cd Known as change directory command. It is used to change current working directory
It displays or manipulates the disk partition table by providing a text-based
cfdisk
“graphical” interface
chage Used to view and change the user password expiry information
 It is a file system command which is used for changing the attributes of a file in
chattr
a directory
It allows you to change a user’s name and other details easily. chfn stands for Change
chfn
finger
chgrp Used to change the group ownership of a file or directory
chkconfig Used to list all available services and view or update their run level settings
chmod Used to change the access mode of a file
chown Used to change the file Owner or group
chpasswd Used to change password for multiple users at a time
chroot Used to change the root directory
chrt Used for manipulating the real-time attributes of a process
chsh Used to change the user’s login shell(currently login shell)
chvt Used to switch between the different TTY (TeleTYpewriter) terminals available
Used to display a CRC(Cyclic Redundancy Check) value, the byte size of the file and
cksum
the name of the file to standard output
clear Used to clear the terminal screen
Used to compare the two files byte by byte and helps you to find out whether the two
cmp
files are identical or not
It is used to filter out reverse line feeds. The col utility simply reads from the
col
standard input and writes to standard output
Used to format the text processor output so that it can be viewed on Cathode Ray Tube
colcrt
displays
colrm Removes selected columns from a file
column Used to display the contents of a file in columns
Compares two sorted files line by line and write to standard output; the lines that
comm
are common and the lines that are unique
Used to reduce the file size. After compression, the file will be available with an
compress
added .Z extension
continue Used to skip the current iteration in for, while and until loop
cp Used to copy files or group of files or directory
cpio stands for “copy in, copy out“. It is used for processing the archive files
cpio
like *.cpio or *.tar. This command can copy files to and from archives
cpp It is automatically used by C compiler to transform your program before compilation
A software utility, offered by Linux-like operating system which automates the
cron
scheduled task at a predetermined time
A list of commands that you want to run on a regular schedule, and also the name of
crontab
the command used to manage that list
csplit Used to split any file into many parts as required by the user
It allows quick access across the files (For example quickly seeing definition of
ctags
a function)
It is a type of scheduler for CUPS (Common Unit Printing System). It implements the
cupsd
printing system on the basis of the Internet Printing Protocol
curl A tool to transfer data to or from a server, using any of the supported protocols
cut For cutting out the sections from each line of files and writing the result to standard
 output
Used to store the history of a file. Whenever a file gets corrupted or anything goes
cvs
wrong “cvs” help us to go back to the previous version and restore our file
Used to display the system date and time. It is also used to set date and time of
date
the system
Used to evaluate arithmetic expressions. It evaluates expressions in the form of
dc
a postfix expression
It is a command-line utility for Unix and Unix-like operating systems whose primary
dd
purpose is to convert and copy files
Used to declare shell variables and functions, set their attributes and display their
declare
values
Used to generate a list of dependency description of kernel modules and its
depmod
associated map files
Used to display information related to file systems about total space and available
df
space
diff Used to display the differences in the files by comparing the files line by line
diff3 Used to compare the three files line by line
dir Used to list the contents of a directory
Used to remove the trailing forward slahes “/” from the NAME and prints the
dirname
remaining portion
dirs Used to display the list of currently remembered directories
disable Used to stop the printers or classes
dmesg Used to examine the kernel ring buffer and print the message buffer of kernel
Used when the user wants to retrieve system’s hardware related information such
dmidecode
as Processor, RAM(DIMMs), BIOS detail, etc. of Linux system in a readable format
domainname Used to return the Network Information System (NIS) domain name of the host
dos2unix Converts a DOS text file to UNIX format
dosfsck Diagnoses MS-DOS file system for problems and attempts to repair them
Used to track the files and directories which are consuming excessive amount of space
du
on hard disk drive
dump Used to backup the filesystem to some storage device
Used to print the super block and blocks group information for the filesystem present
dumpe2fs
on device
dumpkeys Used for the dump keyboard translation tables

echo Used to display line of text/string that are passed as an argument

Used for launching the ed text editor which is a line-based text editor with a minimal
ed interface which makes it less complex for working on text files i.e creating, editing,
displaying and manipulating files
It treats the pattern as an extended regular expression and prints out the lines that
egrep
match the pattern
It allows ejecting a removable media (typically a CD-ROM, floppy disk, tape, or JAZ or
eject
ZIP disk) using the software
emacs It is a editor having simple user interface. Also, there is no insert mode in this editor.
 It only have editing mode.
enable Used to start the printers or classes
Used to either print environment variables. It is also used to run a utility or command
env
in a custom environment
eval Built-in command used to execute arguments as a shell command
ex It is a text editor in Linux which is also termed as the line editor mode of the vi editor
exec Used to execute a command from the bash itself
exit Used to exit the shell where it is currently running
Allows you to convert tabs into spaces in a file and when no file is specified it reads
expand
from standard input
This command or scripting language works with scripts that expect user inputs. It
expect
automates the task by providing inputs
It is bash shell BUILTINS commands, which means it is part of the shell. It marks an
export
environment variables to be exported to child-processes
expr It evaluates a given expression and displays its corresponding output
Used to print the prime factors of the given numbers, either given from command line
factor
or read from standard input
Used to list, edit or re-execute the commands previously entered into an interactive
fc
shell
It scans the font directories and build font cache for applications which use
fc-cache
fontconfig for their font handling
It is used to list the available fonts and font styles. Using the format option, the
fc-list
list of all fonts can be filtered and sorted out
Format disk is a dialog-driven command in Linux used for creating and manipulating
fdisk
disk partition table
fg Used to put a background job in foreground
fgrep Used to search for the fixed-character strings in a file
Used to determine the type of a file. .file type may be of human-readable(e.g. ‘ASCII
file
text’) or MIME type(e.g. ‘text/plain; charset=us-ascii’)
find Used to find files and directories and perform subsequent operations on them
fmt Works as a formatter for simplifying and optimizing text files
It wraps each line in an input file to fit a specified width and prints it to the standard
fold
output
for Used to repeatedly execute a set of command for every element present in the list
Displays the total amount of free space available along with the amount of memory used
free
and swap memory in the system, and also the buffers used by the kernel
Fun Used to draw various type of patterns on the terminal
function Used to create functions or methods
Used for preprocessing, compilation, assembly and linking of source code to generate
g++
an executable file
gawk Used for pattern scanning and processing language
GNU Compiler Collections is used to compile mainly C and C++ language. It can also
gcc
be used to compile Objective C and Objective C++
gdb GNU Debugger tool helps to debug the programs written in C, C++, Ada, Fortran, etc.
getent Used to get the entries in a number of important text files called databases
gpasswd Used to administer the /etc/group and /etc/gshadow
Searches a file for a particular pattern of characters, and displays all lines that
grep
contain that pattern
groupadd Used to create a new user group
groupdel Used to delete a existing group
groupmod Used to modify or change the existing group on Linux system
Groups are the collection of users. Groups make it easy to manage users with the same
groups
security and access privileges
It is used to convert to shadow groups. The grpconv command creates a gshadow from
grpconv
the group and an optionally existing gshadow
This command invokes Ghostscript, which is an interpreter of Adobe Systems PostScript
gs
and Portable Document Format(PDF) languages
gunzip Used to compress or expand a file or a list of files in Linux
Used to compress executable files and also used to automatically uncompress and execute
gzexe
the files
gzip This command compresses files. Each single file is compressed into a single file.
Used to instruct the hardware to stop all the CPU functions. Basically, it reboots
halt
or stops the system.
hash Used to maintain a hash table of recently executed programs
Used to get statistics about the hard disk, alter writing intervals, acoustic
hdparm
management, and DMA settings
Head Prints the top N number of data of the given input
help Displays information about shell built-in commands
Used to filter and display the specified files, or standard input in a human readable
hexdump
specified format
history Used to view the previously executed command
host Used for DNS (Domain Name System) lookup operations
hostid Used to displays the Host’s ID in hexadecimal format
Used to obtain the DNS(Domain Name System) name and set the system’s hostname or
hostname
NIS(Network Information System) domain name.
Provides a proper API used to control Linux system hostname and change its related
hostnamectl
settings
It is a command line utility that allows the user to interactively monitor the
htop
system’s vital resources or server’s processes in real time
hwclock Utility for accessing the hardware clock, also called Real Time Clock (RTC)
iconv Used to convert some text in one encoding into another encoding
Used to find out user and group names and numeric ID’s (UID or group ID) of the
id
current user or any other user in the server
if Used to execute commands based on conditions
ifconfig Used to configure the kernel-resident network interfaces.
It basically brings the network interface up, allowing it to transmit and receive
ifup
data
import Used for capturing a screenshot for any of the active pages we have and it gives
 the output as an image file
Reads documentation in the info format. It will give detailed information for
info
a command when compared with the main page
insmod Used to insert modules into the kernel
install Used to copy files and set attributes
iostat Used for monitoring system input/output statistics for devices and partitions
ip Used for performing several network administration tasks
Used to remove some IPC(Inter-Process Communication) resources. It eliminates
ipcrm
the IPC objects and their associated data structure form the system
Shows information on the inter-process communication facilities for which the
ipcs
calling process has read access
Used to set up and maintain tables for the Netfilter firewall for IPv4, included
iptables
in the Linux kernel
It will save the current iptables rules in a user specified file, that can be
iptables-save
used later when the user wants
Used to display the parameters, and the wireless statistics which are extracted
iwconfig
from /proc/net/wireless
It is a command line utility for joining lines of two files based on a key field present
join
in both the files
Used to terminate processes manually. kill command sends a signal to a process which
kill
terminates the process
Used to display the list of all the users logged in and out since the file /var/log/wtmp
last
was created
less Used to read contents of text file one page(one screen) per time
let Used to evaluate arithmetic expressions on shell variables
ln Used to create links between files
locate Used to find the files by name
look Shows the lines beginning with a given string
Used to generate the detailed information of the system’s hardware configuration from
lshw
various files in the /proc directory
Used to display the status of modules in the Linux kernel. It results in a list of loaded
lsmod
modules
lsof Provides a list of files that are opened
lsusb Used to display the information about USB buses and the devices connected to them
man Used to display the user manual of any command that we can run on the terminal
md5sum To verify data integrity using MD5 (Message Digest Algorithm 5)
Allows the user to create directories. This command can create multiple directories
mkdir
at once
modinfo Used to display the information about a Linux Kernel module
Used to view the text files in the command prompt, displaying one screen at a time in
more
case the file is large (For example log files)
Used to mount the filesystem found on a device to big tree structure(Linux filesystem)
mount
rooted at ‘/‘
mv Used to move one or more files or directories from one place to another in file system
 like UNIX

Displays various network related information such as network connections, routing

netstat
tables, interface statistics, masquerade connections, multicast memberships, etc.
Used for controlling NetworkManager. nmcli commnad can also be used to display network
nmcli
device status, create, edit, activate/deactivate, and delete network connections
It is a network administration tool for querying the Domain Name System (DNS) to obtain
nslookup
domain name or IP address mapping or any other specific DNS record
Used to convert the content of input in different formats with octal format as the default
od
format
passwd Used to change the user account passwords
Used to join files horizontally (parallel merging) by outputting lines consisting of
paste
lines from each file specified, separated by tab as delimiter, to the standard output
ping Used to check the network connectivity between host and server/host
Used to display the memory map of a process. A memory map indicates how memory is spread
pmap
out
poweroff Sends an ACPI signal which instructs the system to power down
Used to display the given string, number or any other format specifier on the terminal
printf
window
Used to list the currently running processes and their PIDs along with some other
ps
information depends on different options
pwd It prints the path of the working directory, starting from the root
ranlib Used to generate index to archive
rcp Used to copy files from one computer to another computer
read Reads up the total number of bytes from the specified file descriptor into the buffer
readlink Used to print resolved symbolic links or canonical file names
reboot Instructs the system to restart or reboot
rename Used to rename the named files according to the regular expression perlexpr
Used to initialize the terminal. This is useful once a program dies leaving a terminal
reset
in an abnormal state
restore Used for restoring files from a backup created using dump
return Used to exit from a shell function.
rev Used to reverse the lines characterwise
Used to remove objects such as files, directories, symbolic links and so on from the
rm
file system like UNIX
rmdir Used to remove empty directories from the filesystem in Linux
rmmod Used to remove a module from the kernel
It is a software utility for Unix-Like systems that efficiently sync files and
rsync
directories between two hosts or machines
Used to monitor Linux system’s resources like CPU usage, Memory utilization, I/O
sar
devices consumption, etc.
scp Used to copy file(s) between servers in a secure way.
Provides the ability to launch and use multiple shell sessions from a single ssh
screen
session
script Used to make typescript or record all the terminal activities
Used to replay a typescript/terminal_activity stored in the log file that was
scriptreplay
recorded by the script command
Used to compare two files and then writes the results to standard output in a
sdiff
side-by-side format
Used for finding, filtering, text substitution, replacement and text
sed
manipulations like insertion, deletion search etc.
select Used to create a numbered menu from which a user can select an option
seq Used to generate numbers from FIRST to LAST in steps of INCREMENT
setsid Used to run a program in a new session
prints to standard output either the scan codes or the key code or the `ascii’
showkey
code of each key pressed
shutdown Used to shutdown the system in a safe way
sleep Used to create a dummy job. A dummy job helps in delaying the execution
Used to read and execute the content of a file(generally set of commands), passed
source
as an argument in the current shell script
sort Used to sort a file, arranging the records in a particular order
ssh Protocol used to securely connect to a remote server/system
stty Used to change and print terminal line settings
sudo Used as a prefix of some command that only superuser are allowed to run
sum Used to find checksum and count the blocks in a file
sync Used to synchronize cached writes to persistent storage
systemctl Used to examine and control the state of “systemd” system and service manager
tac Used to concatenate and print files in reverse
Tail Prints the last N number of data of the given input
tar Used to create Archive and extract the Archive files
Reads the standard input and writes it to both the standard output and one or more
tee
files
Used to execute a command and prints a summary of real-time, user CPU time and system
time
CPU time spent by executing a command when it terminates
top Provides a dynamic real-time view of the running system
touch Used to create, change and modify timestamps of a file
tr It is a command line utility for translating or deleting characters
tracepath Used to traces path to destination discovering MTU along this path
traceroute Prints the route that a packet takes to reach the host
A recursive directory listing program that produces a depth-indented listing of
Tree
files
It displays the information related to terminal. It basically prints the file name
tty
of the terminal connected to standard input
type Used to describe how its argument would be translated if used as commands
uname Displays the information about the system
unexpand Converts each spaces into tabs writing the produced output to the standard output
uniq It is a command line utility that reports or filters out the repeated lines in a file
unix2dos Converts a Unix text file to DOS format
Used to execute a set of commands as long as the final command in the ‘until’ Commands
until
has an exit status which is not zero
Uptime Used to find out how long the system is active (running)
users Used to show the user names of users currently logged in to the current host
userdel Used to delete a user account and related files
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It is the default editor that comes with the UNIX operating system is called visual
vi
editor.
It is a performance monitoring command of the system as it gives the information about
vmstat
processes, memory, paging, block IO, disk and CPU scheduling
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w Used to show who is logged on and what they are doing
Displays a message, or the contents of a file, or otherwise its standard input, on the
wall
terminals of all currently logged in users
watch Used to execute a program periodically, showing output in fullscreen
Used to find out number of lines, word count, byte and characters count in the files
wc
specified in the file arguments
Used to download files from the server even when the user has not logged on to the system
Wget
and it can work in background without hindering the current process
whatis Used to get a one-line manual page descriptions
Used to locate the executable file associated with the given command by searching it
which
in the path environment variable
while Used to repeatedly execute a set of command as long as the COMMAND returns true
who Used to get information about currently logged in user on to system
whoami Displays the username of the current user when this command is invoked
Allows a user to communicate with other users, by copying lines from one user’s terminal
write
to others
Used to build and execute commands from standard input. It converts input recieved
xargs
from standard input into arguments of a command
xdg-open Used to open a file or URL in the user’s preferred application
Used to print a continous output stream of given STRING. If STRING is not mentioned then
yes
it prints ‘y’
zdiff Used to invoke the diff program on files compressed via gzip
Used to print the current time in the specified zone or you can say prints the current
zdump
time in each zonename named on the command line
zgrep Used to search out expressions from a given a file even if it is compressed
It is a compression and file packaging utility for Unix. Each file is stored in single .zip
zip
{.zip-filename} file with the extension .zip