System Info date – Show the current date and time cal – Show this month's calendar uptime – Show current uptime w – Display who is online whoami – Who you are logged in as finger user – Display information about user uname -a – Show kernel information cat /proc/cpuinfo – CPU information cat /proc/meminfo – Memory information df -h – Show disk usage du – Show directory space usage free – Show memory and swap usage
Keyboard Shortcuts Enter – Run the command Up Arrow – Show the previous command Ctrl + R – Allows you to type a part of the command you're looking for and finds it
Ctrl + Z – Stops the current command, resume with fg in the foreground or bg in the background Ctrl + C – Halts the current command, cancel the current operation and/or start with a fresh new line Ctrl + L – Clear the screen
command | less – Allows the scrolling of the bash command window using Shift + Up Arrow and Shift + Down Arrow !! – Repeats the last command command !$ – Repeats the last argument of the previous command Esc + . (a period) – Insert the last argument of the previous command on the fly, which enables you to edit it before executing the command
Ctrl + A – Return to the start of the command you're typing Ctrl + E – Go to the end of the command you're typing Ctrl + U – Cut everything before the cursor to a special clipboard, erases the whole line Ctrl + K – Cut everything after the cursor to a special clipboard Ctrl + Y – Paste from the special clipboard that Ctrl + U and Ctrl + K save their data to Ctrl + T – Swap the two characters before the cursor (you can actually use this to transport a character from the left to the right, try it!) Ctrl + W – Delete the word / argument left of the cursor in the current line
Ctrl + D – Log out of current session, similar to exit
Learn the Commands apropos subject – List manual pages for subject man -k keyword – Display man pages containing keyword man command – Show the manual for command man -t man | ps2pdf - > man.pdf – Make a pdf of a manual page which command – Show full path name of command time command – See how long a command takes
whereis app – Show possible locations of app which app – Show which app will be run by default; it shows the full path
Searching grep pattern files – Search for pattern in files grep -r pattern dir – Search recursively for pattern in dir command | grep pattern – Search for pattern in the output of command locate file – Find all instances of file find / -name filename – Starting with the root directory, look for the file called filename find / -name ”filename” – Starting with the root directory, look for the file containing the string filename locate filename – Find a file called filename using the locate command; this assumes you have already used the command updatedb (see next) updatedb – Create or update the database of files on all file systems attached to the Linux root directory which filename – Show the subdirectory containing the executable file called filename grep TextStringToFind /dir – Starting with the directory called dir, look for and list all files containing TextStringToFind
File Permissions chmod octal file – Change the permissions of file to octal, which can be found separately for user, group, and world by adding: 4 – read (r), 2 – write (w), 1 – execute (x) Examples: chmod 777 – read, write, execute for all chmod 755 – rwx for owner, rx for group and world For more options, see man chmod.
File Commands ls – Directory listing ls -l – List files in current directory using long format ls -laC – List all files in current directory in long format and display in columns ls -F – List files in current directory and indicate the file type ls -al – Formatted listing with hidden files
cd dir – Change directory to dir cd – Change to home mkdir dir – Create a directory dir pwd – Show current directory
rm name – Remove a file or directory called name rm -r dir – Delete directory dir rm -f file – Force remove file rm -rf dir – Force remove an entire directory dir and all it’s included files and subdirectories (use with extreme caution)
cp file1 file2 – Copy file1 to file2 cp -r dir1 dir2 – Copy dir1 to dir2; create dir2 if it doesn't exist cp file /home/dirname – Copy the filename called file to the /home/dirname directory
mv file /home/dirname – Move the file called filename to the /home/dirname directory mv file1 file2 – Rename or move file1 to file2; if file2 is an existing directory, moves file1 into directory file2
ln -s file link – Create symbolic link link to file touch file – Create or update file cat > file – Places standard input into file cat file – Display the file called file
more file – Display the file called file one page at a time, proceed to next page using the spacebar head file – Output the first 10 lines of file head -20 file – Display the first 20 lines of the file called file tail file – Output the last 10 lines of file tail -20 file – Display the last 20 lines of the file called file tail -f file – Output the contents of file as it grows, starting with the last 10 lines
Compression tar cf file.tar files – Create a tar named file.tar containing files tar xf file.tar – Extract the files from file.tar
tar czf file.tar.gz files – Create a tar with Gzip compression tar xzf file.tar.gz – Extract a tar using Gzip
tar cjf file.tar.bz2 – Create a tar with Bzip2 compression tar xjf file.tar.bz2 – Extract a tar using Bzip2
gzip file – Compresses file and renames it to file.gz gzip -d file.gz – Decompresses file.gz back to file
Printing /etc/rc.d/init.d/lpd start – Start the print daemon /etc/rc.d/init.d/lpd stop – Stop the print daemon /etc/rc.d/init.d/lpd status – Display status of the print daemon lpq – Display jobs in print queue lprm – Remove jobs from queue lpr – Print a file lpc – Printer control tool man subject | lpr – Print the manual page called subject as plain text man -t subject | lpr – Print the manual page called subject as Postscript output printtool – Start X printer setup interface
Network ifconfig – List IP addresses for all devices on the local machine iwconfig – Used to set the parameters of the network interface which are specific to the wireless operation (for example: the frequency) iwlist – used to display some additional information from a wireless network interface that is not displayed by iwconfig ping host – Ping host and output results whois domain – Get whois information for domain dig domain – Get DNS information for domain dig -x host – Reverse lookup host wget file – Download file wget -c file – Continue a stopped download
SSH ssh user@host – Connect to host as user ssh -p port user@host – Connect to host on port port as user ssh-copy-id user@host – Add your key to host for user to enable a keyed or passwordless login
User Administration adduser accountname – Create a new user call accountname passwd accountname – Give accountname a new password su – Log in as superuser from current login exit – Stop being superuser and revert to normal user
Process Management ps – Display your currently active processes top – Display all running processes kill pid – Kill process id pid killall proc – Kill all processes named proc (use with extreme caution) bg – Lists stopped or background jobs; resume a stopped job in the background fg – Brings the most recent job to foreground fg n – Brings job n to the foreground
Installation from source ./configure make make install dpkg -i pkg.deb – install a DEB package (Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint) rpm -Uvh pkg.rpm – install a RPM package (Red Hat / Fedora)
Stopping & Starting shutdown -h now – Shutdown the system now and do not reboot halt – Stop all processes - same as above shutdown -r 5 – Shutdown the system in 5 minutes and reboot shutdown -r now – Shutdown the system now and reboot reboot – Stop all processes and then reboot - same as above startx – Start the X system
Recommended reading:
Cheat-Sheets.org – All cheat sheets, round-ups, quick reference cards, quick reference guides and quick reference sheets in one page. The only one you need.
Tutorial: The best tips & tricks for bash, explained – Linux Tutorial Blog / Quality Linux tutorials without clutter
LinuxCommand.org – Learning the shell, Writing shell scripts, Script library, SuperMan pages, Who, What, Where, Why
LinuxManPages.com – General commands, System calls, Subroutines, Special files, File formats, Games, Macros and conventions, Maintenence commands, Most Popular Man Pages
Linux Man Pages from die.net – Man pages are grouped into sections, to see the full list of Linux man pages for a section, pick one. Or you can browse Linux man pages by name; choose the first letter of the name of the Linux command, function, or file you are interested in.
Linux Newbie Guide: Shorcuts and Commands – Linux essential shortcuts and sanity commands; Common Linux commands - system info; Basic operations, network apps, file (de)compression; Process control; Basic administration commands, accessing drives/partitions; Network administration tools, music-related commands, graphics-related commands.
Sudo Manual Pages – Sudo (su "do") allows a system administrator to delegate authority to give certain users (or groups of users) the ability to run some (or all) commands as root or another user while providing an audit trail of the commands and their arguments. For more information, see the introduction to Sudo. Sudo is free software, distributed under an ISC-style license.
LinOxide.com – Linux Commands Cheat Sheet in Black & White