System Based Commands

uname Displays Linux system information

uname -r Displays kernel release information

uptime
Displays how long the system has been running including load
average

hostname Shows the system hostname

hostname -i Displays the IP address of the system

last reboot Shows system reboot history

date Displays current system date and time

timedatectl Query and change the System clock

cal Displays the current calendar month and day

w Displays currently logged in users in the system

whoami Displays who you are logged in as

finger
username Displays information about the user

2. Hardware Based Commands

dmesg Displays bootup messages
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Displays more information about CPU e.g model,
model name, cores, vendor id

cat /proc/meminfo
Displays more information about hardware memory
e.g. Total and Free memory

lshw
Displays information about system's hardware
configuration

lsblk Displays block devices related information

free -m
Displays free and used memory in the system (-m
flag indicates memory in MB)

lspci -tv Displays PCI devices in a tree-like diagram

lsusb -tv Displays USB devices in a tree-like diagram

dmidecode Displays hardware information from the BIOS

hdparm -i /dev/xda Displays information about disk data

hdparm -tT
/dev/xda <:code> Conducts a read speed test on device xda

badblocks -s /dev/xda Tests for unreadable blocks on disk

3. Users Management Commands

id Displays the details of the active user e.g. uid, gid, and
 groups

last Shows the last logins in the system

who Shows who is logged in to the system

groupadd
"admin" Adds the group 'admin'

adduser "Sam" Adds user Sam

userdel "Sam" Deletes user Sam

usermod Used for changing / modifying user information

4. File Commands
ls -al
Lists files - both regular & hidden files
and their permissions as well.

Pwd Displays the current directory file path

mkdir 'directory_name' Creates a new directory

rm file_name Removes a file

rm -f filename Forcefully removes a file

rm -r directory_name Removes a directory recursively

rm -rf directory_name Removes a directory forcefully and

 recursively

cp file1 file2 Copies the contents of file1 to file2

cp -r dir1 dir2
Recursively Copies dir1 to dir2. dir2 is
created if it does not exist

mv file1 file2 Renames file1 to file2

ln -s /path/to/file_name
link_name Creates a symbolic link to file_name

touch file_name Creates a new file

cat > file_name Places standard input into a file

more file_name Outputs the contents of a file

head file_name Displays the first 10 lines of a file

tail file_name Displays the last 10 lines of a file

gpg -c file_name Encrypts a file

gpg file_name.gpg Decrypts a file

Wc
Prints the number of bytes, words and
lines in a file

Xargs Executes commands from standard input

5. Process Related Commands
Ps Display currently active processes

ps aux | grep 'telnet' Searches for the id of the process 'telnet'

Pmap Displays memory map of processes

Top Displays all running processes

kill pid Terminates process with a given pid

killall proc Kills / Terminates all processes named proc

pkill process-name Sends a signal to a process with its name

Bg Resumes suspended jobs in the background

Fg Brings suspended jobs to the foreground

fg n job n to the foreground

Lsof Lists files that are open by processes

renice 19 PID makes a process run with very low priority

pgrep firefox find Firefox process ID

Pstree visualizing processes in tree model

6. File Permission Commands
chmod octal filename Change file permissions of the file to octal

Example

Set rwx permissions to owner, group and

chmod 777 /data/test.c everyone (everyone else who has access to the
server)

chmod 755 /data/test.c

Set rwx to the owner and r_x to group and
everyone

chmod 766 /data/test.c Sets rwx for owner, rw for group and everyone

chown owner user-file Change ownership of the file

chown owner-user:owner-
group file_name Change owner and group owner of the file

chown owner-user:owner-
group directory Change owner and group owner of the directory

7. Network Commands
ip addr show
Displays IP addresses and all the network
interfaces

ip address add 192.168.0.1/24 Assigns IP address 192.168.0.1 to interface

dev eth0 eth0

ifconfig Displays IP addresses of all network

 interfaces

ping host
ping command sends an ICMP echo request
to establish a connection to server / PC

whois domain
Retrieves more information about a domain
name

dig domain
Retrieves DNS information about the
domain

dig -x host Performs reverse lookup on a domain

host google.com Performs an IP lookup for the domain name

hostname -i Displays local IP address

wget file_name Downloads a file from an online source

netstat -pnltu Displays all active listening ports

8. Compression/Archives Commands
tar -cf home.tar home<:code>
Creates archive file called 'home.tar' from
file 'home'

tar -xf files.tar Extract archive file 'files.tar'

tar -zcvf home.tar.gz source- Creates gzipped tar archive file from the
folder source folder

gzip file Compression a file with .gz extension

9. Install Packages Commands
rpm -i pkg_name.rpm Install an rpm package

rpm -e pkg_name Removes an rpm package

dnf install pkg_name Install package using dnf utility

10. Install Source (Compilation)

Checks your system for the required software needed to build the
./configure program. It will build the Makefile containing the instructions
required to effectively build the project

It reads the Makefile to compile the program with the required

make operations. The process may take some time, depending on your
system and the size of the program

make The command installs the binaries in the default/modified paths

install after the compilation

11. Search Commands

grep 'pattern' files Search for a given pattern in files

grep -r pattern dir

Search recursively for a pattern in a given
directory

locate file Find all instances of the file

find /home/ -name "index"
Find file names that begin with 'index'
in /home folder

find /home -size +10000k

Find files greater than 10000k in the
home folder

12. Login Commands

ssh user@host Securely connect to host as user

ssh -p port_number user@host

Securely connect to host using a
specified port

ssh host
Securely connect to the system via SSH
default port 22

telnet host Connect to host via telnet default port 23

13. File Transfer Commands

scp file1.txt server2/tmp
Securely copy file1.txt to server2 in /tmp
directory

rsync -a /home/apps Synchronize contents in /home/apps directory

/backup/ with /backup directory

14. Disk Usage Commands

df -h Displays free space on mounted systems

df -i Displays free inodes on filesystems

fdisk -l Shows disk partitions, sizes, and types

du -sh
Displays disk usage in the current directory in a
human-readable format

findmnt Displays target mount point for all filesystems

mount device-path mount-

point Mount a device

15. Directory Traverse Commands

cd .. Move up one level in the directory tree structure

cd Change directory to $HOME directory

cd /test Change directory to /test directory