Linux Basic Commands Cheat Sheet

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Basic comands Shell Globbing (Wildc​ards)

cat file1 file2 ... Print the contents of file1, * A number of any characters
file2, ... ? A single character
ls List the contents of a directory. [] Specify a range. [ab] can become: a, b. [a-c] can
ls -l Use a long listing format become: a, b, c

ls -a Do not ignore entries starting with . [!a-c] Any single character except a, b, c

cp file1 file2 Copy file1 to file2 Globbing is the operation that expands a wildcard pattern into the list
cp file1 ... fileN dir Copy a number of files to a of pathnames
directory It is applied on each of the components of a pathname separa​tely. /
in a pathname cannot be matched.
mv file1 file2 Rename file1 to file2
If filename starts with ., . must be matched explic​itly.
mv file1 ... fileN dir Move a number of files to a
Wildcard patterns are not regular expres​sions, they match filenames,
directory
not text.
touch file Create a file. If the file already
exists, touch does not change it Search files
rm file Remove a file grep RegEx file Search for regular expression
rm -r dir Recurs​ively remove all files and pattern in file
subdir​ect​ories in dir grep -i Case-i​nse​nsitive search
echo Print echo's arguments to the grep -v Print all lines that don't match
standard output
find dir -name file -print Find file in dir and display
pwd Print working directory
the pathname of it
pwd -P Print true full path, not path of locate file Search an index that the
symbolic link system builds period​ically
sudo command Run command as root
Display a file
Navigating Direct​ories
less file Display the contents of file one screenful at a time
cd dir Change the shell's current working directory spacebar Go forward one screenful
mkdir dir Create a new directory b Skip back one screenful
rmdir dir Remove the directory dir if dir is empty /word Search forward for word
Linux has a directory hierarchy starts at / (root directory). ?word Search backward for word
Directory separator is the slash (/).
q Quit less
Two dots (..) refers to the parent of a directory.
head file Display the first 10 lines of file
One dot (.) refers to the current directory.
tail file Display the last 10 lines of file

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 Linux Basic Commands Cheat Sheet
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Differ​ences between text files Comman​d-Line Editing

diff file1 file2 Print differ​ences between two text files CTRL-B Move the cursor left

diff --color Print differ​ences with color CTRL-F Move the cursor right

diff -y Print differ​ences side by side CTRL-A Move the cursor to the beginning of the line

diff -c View differ​ences in context mode CTRL-E Move the cursor to the end of the line

diff -i Ignore case differ​ences CTRL-W Erase the preceding word

diff -w Ignore all white space CTRL-U Erase from cursor to beginning of line
CTRL-K Erase from cursor to end of line
diff gives the instru​ctions on how to change the first file to make it
match the second file. CTRL-Y Paste erased text

< denotes lines in file1. > denotes lines in file2. CTRL-D Stop the current standard input entry from the terminal
Change command
LaR: Add the lines in range R of the second file after line L of the first Getting Online Help
file. man command Show manual page for command
FcT: Replace the lines in range F of the first file with lines in range T
man -k Search for a manual page by keyword
of the second file.
keyword
RdL: Delete the lines in range R from the first file so that both the
man n command Show manual page for command from section n
files sync up at line L.
Online Manual Sections
Enviro​nment and Shell Variables 1 User commands
stuff=blah Create a shell variab​le/​Assign a value to a 2 System calls
variable 3 Higher​-level Unix progra​mming library docume​‐
PATH=$PATH:dir Appends ":dir" to the end of PATH variable ntation
$STUFF Access a variable 4 Device interface and driver inform​ation

export STUFF Make $STUFF shell variable into an enviro​‐ 5 File descri​ptions (system config​uration files)
nment variable 6 Games
unset STUFF Delete variable STUFF 7 File formats, conven​tions, and encodings
env Prints enviro​nment variables (ASCII, suffixes, and so on)
8 System commands and servers
Shell variables are variables whose scope is in the current shell
session. Manual pages cover the essent​ials, but there are many more ways to
Enviro​nment variables are shell variables which has been exported. get online help. Try entering a command name followed by --help
Children processes get their own copy of the parent variables so they or -h to look for a certain option for a command
can never change the enviro​nment variables in their parent process.
Enviro​nment variables must be name=value pair.
Command path
PATH is enviro​nment variable that contains command path (list of
system direct​ories that the shell searches when trying to locate a
command).

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Shell Input and Output Listing and Manipu​lating Processes (cont)

command > file Send the output of command to a file jobs -l List the active jobs with their status and pid (-l)

command >> file Append output to the file fg %n Move job that have job number n to the foreground

command < file Channel a file to a program's standard bg %n Move job that have job number n to the background
input command & Run command in background
command1 | command2 Send the standard output of command1
The ps command has many options. Options can be specified in
to the standard input of command2
three different styles​—Unix, BSD, and GNU. Above commands use
command 2> file Redirect the standard error (2 is BSD style.
standard error stream ID)
command &> file Redirect the all output to file File Modes and Permis​sions

command 2>&1 Send standard error to the same place File's mode represents the file's permission and some extra inform​‐
as standard output ation. There is 4 parts to the mode. First character is file type. The
rest contains the permis​sions, which break down into three sets:
Listing and Manipu​lating Processes user, group, other, in that order. Each set can contain four basic
repres​ent​ations:
ps List processes owned by root
r Means that the file is readable
ps x List all processes owned by you
w Means that the file is writable
ps ax List all processes on the system
x Means that the file is executable
ps u Include more detailed inform​ation
on processes - Means nothing

ps w Show full command names Modifying Permis​sions

chmod ugo+r file Add (+) owner (u), group (g) and
top Show real-time view of running other users (o) read (r) permis​sions
system to file

chmod 644 file Set file mode to absolute

kill pid Send TERMinate signal to the permission mode 644
process with ID pid Symbolic links
kill -STOP pid or CTRL-Z Send STOP (freeze) signal to the A symbolic links is a file that points to another file or a directory
process ln -s target linkname Create a symbolic link from target
kill -CONT pid CONTinue running the process to linkname
again
kill -INT pid or CTRL-C End process with INTerrupt signal

kill -KILL pid Terminate the process and forcibly

remove it from memory

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 Linux Basic Commands Cheat Sheet
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Archiving and Compre​ssing Files Some subdir​ect​ories in root (cont)

gzip file Compress file to /usr Other bulk of Linux system

file.gz /var Where programs record runtime inform​ation
gunzip file.gz or gzip -d Uncompress /boot Contains kernel boot loader files
file.gz and
/media A base attachment point for removable media
remove the suffix
/opt This may contain additional third-​party
tar cf archiv​e.tar file1 file2 Create (c) an
software
archive name (f)
/vmlinuz Kernel location
archiv​e.tar
or /boot/vmlinuz
contains file1,
file2 The reason that the root directory does not contain the complete
system but other parts stored in /usr is primarily histor​ic—in the
tar xf archiv​e.tar Unpack (x)
past, it was to keep space requir​ements low for the root
archiv​e.tar

tar tf archiv​e.tar List the contents (t)

of archiv​e.tar

gunzip -c file.tar.gz | tar xf - Unpack compressed

zcat file.tar.gz | tar xf - archive file.t​‐
tar zxf file.tar.gz ar.gz

gunzip -c uncomp​resses archive then sends the result to standard

output.
tar xf - uses standard input instead of a given filename.

Some subdir​ect​ories in root

/bin Contains ready-​to-run programs including most of the basic

Linux commands
/dev Contains device files

/etc Core system config​uration directory that contains the user

password, boot, device, networ​king, and other setup files
/home Holds personal direct​ories for regular users

/lib Holds library files

/proc Provices system statistics

/sys Provides a device and system interface

/sbin Place for system management programs

/tmp Storage area for temporary files

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