Welcome to the Linux Commands Cheat Sheet! This handy guide is perfect for anyone who's looking to navigate through Linux's commands more easily.
System Based Commands
uname
Displays system information: kernel version, machine type, and more. uname -r
Displays the running Linux kernel's release version. uptime
Shows current time, system uptime, users, and load averages. hostname
Shows the system hostname. hostname -i
Displays the IP address of the current host. last reboot
Shows last reboot times and durations in logs. date
Displays the current date and time information. timedatectl
Displays detailed system clock and time zone information. cal
Displays a simple calendar of the current month. w
Shows who is logged on and their activity .whoami
Displays the username of the current user. finger username
Displays information about a user named 'username'.
Hardware Based Commands
dmesg
Displays messages from the kernel's ring buffer. cat /proc/cpuinfo
Displays detailed information about the CPU. cat /proc/meminfo
Displays detailed system memory usage information. lscpu
Lists information about the CPU. lshw
Lists detailed hardware configuration of the system. lsblk
Lists information about all available block devices. free -m
Shows system memory usage in megabytes .lspci -tv
Displays PCI devices in tree format, verbosely. lsusb -tv
Shows USB devices as a tree, verbosely. dmidecode
Displays hardware information from system BIOS hdparm -i /dev/sda
Displays information of disk /dev/sda. badblocks -s /dev/sda
Checks /dev/sda for bad blocks, showing progress .
User Management Commands
id
Displays the user's UID, GID, and groups. last
Shows list of last logged-in users. who
Displays who is currently logged in. groupadd admin
Creates a new user group named admin. adduser Sam
Creates a new user account named Sam. userdel Sam
Deletes the user account named Sam. usermod
Modifies properties of an existing user account.
File Commands
ls -al
Lists all files, detailed information, in long format. pwd
Displays the present working directory's path. mkdir dir1
Creates a new directory named dir1. rm file1
Deletes the file named file1. rm -f file2
Forcefully deletes the file named file2. rm -r dir1
Recursively removes directory dir1 and its contents. rm -rf dir1
Forcefully deletes directory dir1 and its contents. cp file1 file2
Copies file1, creating or overwriting file2. cp -r dir1 dir2
Copies dir1 to dir2, including subdirectories. mv file1 file2
Renames or moves file1 to file2. ln -s /path/to/file_name link_name
Creates symbolic link named link_name to file_name. touch file1
Creates an empty file named file1. cat > file1
Creates/overwrites file1, awaiting standard input .more file1
Displays file1 content, paginating through output. head file1
Displays the first ten lines of file1. tail file1
Displays the last ten lines of file1. gpg -c file1
Encrypts file1 with symmetric cipher using passphrase. gpg file2.gpg
Decrypts file2.gpg, prompting for the passphrase. wc
Counts words, lines, and characters in files. xargs
Executes commands with piped or file-provided arguments .
Process Related Commands
ps
Displays a snapshot of current processes. ps aux | grep telnet
Displays running telnet processes with details. pmap
Shows memory map of a process. top
Displays dynamic real-time view of running tasks. kill 1234
Terminates the process with PID 1234. killall proc
Kills all processes named 'proc'. pkill process-name
Terminates processes with the name. bg
Resumes suspended jobs in the background fg
Brings a suspended job to foreground fg n
Brings job number 'n' to foreground. lsof
Lists all open files and processes. renice 19 PID
Changes priority of process with given PID .pgrep firefox
Displays Process ID(s) for firefox processes. pstree
Displays a tree of running processes.
File Permission Commands
chmod 644 /data/test.c
Sets the permissions of the file /data/test.c
to be read/write for the owner, and read-only for the group and others. chmod 755 /dir1
Assigns read, write, and execute permissions to the owner, and read and execute permissions to the group and others for the directory /dir1
. chown bob:devops filename
Changes file 'filename' ownership to 'bob' and 'devops'. chown ownername:groupname directory
Change owner and group of the directory.
Network Commands
ip addr show
Displays all network interfaces and their information. ip address add 192.168.0.1/24 dev eth0
Assigns IP address 192.168.0.1 to interface eth0. ifconfig
Shows network interfaces and their configuration. ping host
Sends ICMP packets, measures round-trip time to "host". whois domain
Retrieves and displays domain's registration information. dig domain
Queries DNS, provides domain's DNS information. dig -x host
Resolves IP address to hostname, shows DNS information. host google.com
Performs an IP lookup for the domain name wget file_path
Downloads file from specified path. netstat
Displays various network-related information and statistics. ss
Display information about network sockets.
Compression/Archives Commands
tar -cf backup.tar /home/ubuntu
Creates a tar archive of /home/ubuntu directory. tar -xf backup.tar
Extracts files from "backup.tar" archive. tar -zcvf backup.tar.gz /home/ubuntu
Creates compressed "backup.tar.gz" archive of "/home/ubuntu" gzip file1
Compresses "file1" into "file1.gz", original is removed.
Install Packages Commands
rpm -i pkg_name.rpm
Installs the package "pkg_name.rpm" using RPM Package Manager. rpm -e pkg_name
Uninstalls the specified RPM package. dnf install pkg_name
Installs the specified package using DNF. pacman -S pkg_name Installs the specified package using Pacman.
Install Source (Compilation)
./configure
Checks system compatibility and generates makefile for software installation. make
Compiles code by following instructions in the Makefile. make install
Installs compiled code into specified system locations.
Search Commands
grep pattern file
Search for a given pattern within the file. grep -r pattern dir1
Recursively searches for the specified "pattern" within the "dir1" directory and its subdirectories locate file
Finds files named "file" using prebuilt database .find /home -name index
Searches "/home" directory for files named "index" recursively. find /home -size +10000k
Finds files over 10000k size in /home directory.
Login Commands
ssh user@hostname
Initiates SSH connection to specified hostname. ssh -p port_number user@hostname
Initiates SSH connection using specific port. Connect to the host via telnet default port 23 Securely connect to the system via SSH default port 22 telnet host
Connect to the host via telnet default port 23.
File Transfer Commands
scp file.txt remoteuser@remote_host:/remote/directory
Copies file.txt to remote host's specified directory .rsync -a /home/ubuntu /backup/
Synchronizes content from source directory to destination directory,preserving attributes .rsync -a /var/www/web/ user@remote_host:/backup/web_backup/
Synchronizes local directory to remote, preserving attributes .
Disk Usage Commands
df -h
Displays human-readable disk space usage for all mounted filesystems. df -i
Displays inode usage information for all mounted filesystems. fdisk -l
Lists all partitions and their information on all drives. du -sh /dir1
Displays summary of total disk usage size of /dir1, human-readable. findmnt
Displays a list of all mounted filesystems and their properties. mount device-path mount-point
Mounts the device at the specified filesystem mount point.
Directory Traverse Commands
cd ..
Navigate to the parent directory .cd
Changes the current directory to the user's home. cd /mnt
Changes the current directory to "/mnt".
Cheat Sheet PDF
Download your free Linux commands cheat sheet in pdf format and print on A4 size paper .
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About The Author
Bobbin Zachariah
Bobbin Zachariah is an experienced Linux engineer who has been supporting infrastructure for many companies. He specializes in Shell scripting, AWS Cloud, JavaScript, and Nodejs. He has qualified Master’s degree in computer science. He holds Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification and RedHat Enable Sysadmin .
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