1.
User and Group Management
● useradd - Add a new user
● usermod - Modify user account
● userdel - Delete a user
● groupadd - Add a new group
● groupdel - Delete a group
a
● chgrp - Change group ownership of a file
an
● passwd - Change user password
● Who - Who is logged in
2. File and Directory Management
ay
● ls - List directory contents
● cd - Change directory
N
● pwd - Print working directory
● mkdir - Make a new directory
● rmdir - Remove a directory
● rm - Remove files or directories
● cp - Copy files or directories
● mv - Move or rename files or directories
1
● touch - Create empty files
● find - Search for file in a directory hierarchy
● locate- Find files by name
3. File Management
● cat - Concatenate and display file contents
a
● more - View file content page by page
an
● less - View file content with navigation
● head - View the first part of a file
● tail - View the last part of a file
ay
● nano - Text editor to edit files
● vi - Text editor to edit files
● touch - Create an empty file or update file timestamp
N
● ln - Create hard or symbolic links
● file - Determine file type
● stat - Display file or file system status
● find - Search for files in a directory hierarchy
● locate - Find files by name (using a database)
2
● updatedb - Update the database used by locate
● xargs - Build and execute command lines from standard
input
4. File Permissions and Ownership
● chmod - Change file permissions
● chown - Change file owner and group
a
● chgrp - Change group ownership
an
● umask - Set file creation mask
● getfacl - Get file access control lists (ACL)
● setfacl - Set file access control lists (ACL)
ay
● ls -l - List files with detailed permissions, owner, and group
● stat - Display file or file system status
● acl - View or modify Access Control Lists (ACL) on files
N
5. Disk Management
● df - Display free disk space
● du - Estimate file space usage
● fdisk - Partition table manipulator
● parted - A tool for creating and managing disk partitions
3
● lsblk - List information about block devices
● blkid - Find or display block device attributes
● mount - Mount a file system
● umount - Unmount a file system
● mkfs - Create a file system
● fsck - Check and repair file systems
● tune2fs - Adjust tunable file system parameters
a
● resize2fs - Resize an ext2, ext3, or ext4 file system
an
● lvcreate - Create a logical volume
● vgcreate - Create a volume group
● pvcreate - Prepare a physical volume for LVM
ay
● lsattr - List file attributes on a file system
● chattr - Change file attributes on a file system
N
6. Process Management
● ps - Display current processes
● top - Display dynamic process information
● htop - Interactive process viewer
4
● kill - Terminate a process by ID
● killall - Kill all processes by name
● bg - Resume a suspended process in the background
● fg - Bring a process to the foreground
● nice - Set process priority
● renice - Change the priority of running processes
● jobs - List active jobs
a
● pgrep - Search for processes by name or other attributes
an
● pkill - Kill processes by name or other attributes
● pstree - Display processes in a tree format
● lsof - List open files and the processes that opened them
ay
● strace - Trace system calls and signals
● timeout - Run a command with a time limit
● watch - Execute a program periodically and show output
N
7. Network Management
● ifconfig - Display and configure network interfaces
● ip a - Show all network interfaces and their IPs
● ip r - Display the routing table
5
● ip link set <interface> up/down - Enable or disable a
network interface
● ping <host> - Send ICMP echo request to check connectivity
● traceroute <host> - Trace the route packets take to a
network host
● netstat -tulnp - Show open ports and listening services
● ss -tulnp - Display socket statistics and listening services
● hostname -I - Show the system’s IP address
a
● dig <domain> - Query DNS records
an
● nslookup <domain> - Lookup DNS details
● whois <domain> - Get domain registration details
● curl -I <URL> - Fetch HTTP headers from a website
● wget <URL> - Download files from the web
ay
● scp <file> user@host:/path - Securely copy files over
SSH
● rsync -avz <src> <dest> - Sync files between local and
remote locations
N
● tcpdump -i eth0 - Capture network packets on an interface
● nmap <IP> - Scan a network for open ports
8. System and Monitoring
● uptime - Show system uptime and load average
6
● dmesg - Print system boot and hardware logs
● free -m - Display memory usage in MB
● vmstat - Report system performance statistics
● iostat - Display CPU and disk I/O statistics
● mpstat - Show CPU usage per core
● top - Display dynamic process and system information
● htop - Interactive process and resource monitoring
a
● sar -u 5 10 - Monitor CPU usage at 5-second intervals
an
● iotop - Display disk read/write usage per process
● lsof - List open files by processes
● watch -n 2 <command> - Run a command every 2 seconds
ay
● journalctl -xe - View system logs with extended details
● systemctl status <service> - Check the status of a
service
● service <service> status - View service status (legacy
N
systems)
● df -h - Show disk space usage in a human-readable format
● du -sh <directory> - Display the size of a directory
● ps aux --sort=-%mem - List processes sorted by memory
usage
● netstat -tulnp - Show active network connections and
listening services
7
9. Text Processing
● cat <file> - Display file contents
● tac <file> - Display file contents in reverse order
● head -n <num> <file> - Show the first <num> lines of a file
● tail -n <num> <file> - Show the last <num> lines of a file
● tail -f <file> - Continuously display new lines in a file
a
● grep '<pattern>' <file> - Search for a pattern in a file
an
● grep -r '<pattern>' <directory> - Recursively search
for a pattern in a directory
● awk '{print $1, $2}' <file> - Process and extract
columns from a file
ay
● sed 's/old/new/g' <file> - Replace text in a file
● cut -d':' -f1 <file> - Extract specific fields from a file
● sort <file> - Sort file contents
N
● uniq <file> - Remove duplicate lines from a file
● wc -l <file> - Count lines in a file
● wc -w <file> - Count words in a file
● wc -c <file> - Count bytes in a file
● tr 'a-z' 'A-Z' <file> - Convert lowercase to uppercase
● diff <file1> <file2> - Compare two files line by line
8
● cmp <file1> <file2> - Compare two files byte by byte
● tee <file> - Read from standard input and write to both a
file and standard output
10. Package Management
For Debian-based systems (Ubuntu, Debian)
● apt update - Update package lists
● apt upgrade - Upgrade all installed packages
a
● apt install <package> - Install a package
an
● apt remove <package> - Remove a package
● apt purge <package> - Remove a package and its config
files
● dpkg -i <package>.deb - Install a .deb package
ay
● dpkg -r <package> - Remove a package installed via dpkg
● dpkg -l - List installed packages
● apt-cache search <package> - Search for a package
N
● apt autoremove - Remove unnecessary packages
● apt clean - Clear the package cache
For RHEL-based systems (CentOS, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux,
Fedora)
● yum update - Update installed packages (for older systems)
9
● dnf update - Update installed packages (for newer systems)
● yum install <package> - Install a package
● dnf install <package> - Install a package (newer distros)
● yum remove <package> - Remove a package
● dnf remove <package> - Remove a package (newer distros)
● rpm -ivh <package>.rpm - Install an .rpm package
● rpm -e <package> - Remove an installed .rpm package
a
● yum list installed - List installed packages
an
● dnf list installed - List installed packages (newer
distros)
● yum search <package> - Search for a package
● dnf search <package> - Search for a package (newer
ay
distros)
● yum clean all - Clean cached package data
11. Archive and Compression
N
Working with tar files
● tar -cvf archive.tar <files> - Create a tar archive
● tar -xvf archive.tar - Extract a tar archive
● tar -tvf archive.tar - List files in a tar archive
10
● tar -czvf archive.tar.gz <files> - Create a
compressed tar.gz archive
● tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz - Extract a tar.gz archive
● tar -cJvf archive.tar.xz <files> - Create a tar.xz
archive
● tar -xJvf archive.tar.xz - Extract a tar.xz archive
Working with zip files
● zip archive.zip <files> - Create a zip archive
a
● unzip archive.zip - Extract a zip archive
an
● unzip -l archive.zip - List contents of a zip file
● zip -r archive.zip <directory> - Zip a directory
ay
Working with gzip & bzip2
● gzip <file> - Compress a file using gzip
● gunzip <file>.gz - Decompress a gzip file
N
● bzip2 <file> - Compress a file using bzip2
● bunzip2 <file>.bz2 - Decompress a bzip2 file
12. Shutdown and Reboot
● shutdown -h now - Shutdown the system immediately
● shutdown -h +10 - Shutdown the system in 10 minutes
11
● shutdown -h 22:00 - Schedule shutdown at 10:00 PM
● shutdown -c - Cancel a scheduled shutdown
● poweroff - Immediately power off the system
● halt - Halt the system
● reboot - Reboot the system immediately
● shutdown -r now - Reboot the system immediately
● shutdown -r +5 - Reboot the system in 5 minutes
a
● systemctl reboot - Reboot using systemd
an
13. Task Scheduling
● crontab -e - Edit cron jobs for the current user
● crontab -l - List scheduled cron jobs
ay
● crontab -r - Remove all cron jobs for the current user
● crontab -u <user> -l - List cron jobs for a specific user
● at <time> - Schedule a command to run at specified time
N
14. System Diagnostics and Troubleshooting
● journalctl -xe - View detailed system logs
● journalctl -f - Follow live logs in real-time
12
● journalctl --since "1 hour ago" - View logs from the
last hour
● dmesg | less - View system boot logs
● dmesg | grep error - Check for errors in system logs
● cat /var/log/syslog - View general system logs
(Debian-based)
● cat /var/log/messages - View general system logs
(RHEL-based)
a
● uptime - Show system uptime and load
● free -m - Display available and used memory in MB
an
● top - Monitor real-time CPU, memory, and process usage
● htop - Interactive system monitoring (if installed)
● vmstat 1 5 - Display system performance stats
ay
● iostat - Show CPU and disk usage statistics
N
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