Linux Cli commands
Navigating between Folders:
pwd – shows current directory
cd – changing to desired directory i.e cd Desktop
cd command alone relocates to home directory.
cd ~ shifting to Home/username Folder
cd / (with a space before slash) cd to root directory
cd .. back to the former directory
cd ../.. going back 2 directories
Displaying Folder Content:
ls – display current folder content
ls ~ - display home/username content
ls / - display root directory content
ls .. - display content of one directory back
ls ../.. - display content of 2 directories back
ls -l – displays content in a form of list specifying
ls -al – same as -l with hidden file display
ls -R – displays all content recursively
premissions,creator,owner,date and time of creations,file type.
ls -lS – same as ls -l but sorted.
ls -d */ - displaying only directories.
** if dir name consists of 2 words or more
use double quotes as: ls -lS “my dir”
Displaying/printing Files content:
cat – displaying/printing file content
cat File.txt – enables writing to File.txt
to terminate writing use ctrl + d
cat file1.txt file2.txt -disply the files consecutivly
cat -b file.txt – adds numbers to non blank rows
cat -n – adds numbers to all lines
cat -s – diminishes all blank lines to one line
cat -E – adds $ sign at the end of each row
Redirection of output to a file:
cat > out.txt – redirect written words to out.txt (ctrl +d to terminate)
cat >> out.txt – enables to write a new attached input to out.txt
cat file1.txt file2.txt > out.txt – concatnate file1 to the end of file2
and saves to out.txt
cat file1.txt >>file2.txt – same as upper example only saves to file2.
Creating Directories using mkdir:
mkdir Folder– create a new dir named Folder
mkdir -p – creates nested directories i.e name/mark
mkdir -p names/{john,dude,mark} – creates parent dir consists
john dude and mark folders
Removing directory using rmdir:
rmdir Folder – remove empty folder directory
rmdir -p a/b/c/d – removes all empty dir and sub dirs(deletes all)
(without -p flag removes only top level dir d)
rmdir -pv – removes all empty directories and display removal process
Removing Directories and files using rm;
rm – deletes files and directories according to option flag
rm -r – removes recursively all directories and file
Copying Files using cp:
cp file1.txt file2.txt – copys file1 content to file2
(if file2 doesn’t exist it creates it)
cp file.txt dir1 – copy file1 to dir1
cp file1.txt file2.txt dir1 – copys the 2 files to dir1
cp -i file1 file2 dir1 – interactive (-i) copy of 2 files to dir1
(asks for premission i.e if file1 already exists)
cp ../file1 ../file2 . - copy upper folder file1 and file2 to current
directory the dot after file2 denoting current directory
cp -R dir1 dir3 – cp dir1 and it’s content to dir3
(in case dir3 exsists , if not copys only content)
Moving Files and Folders using mv:
mv options source destination
mv file1.txt file2.txt – changes file1 name to file2.txt and
copys the content
mv file1.txt dir1 – moves file1.txt to dir1
Navigating through a text file using less:
less file.txt – display file.txt
up and down arrow keys to move up/down
space – moving page by page down
b key – moving page by page up
shift g- moving to the end of file (like END key)
g key – moves u t the top of the file
/book - enables search for the word “book” top to bottom
(n to the next occourence of the word)
?book – enables search for the word “book” bottom to top
q- quit less command
Creating new empty file using touch:
touch file.txt – creating new empty file.txt
(if file exists updates timetamp of the file)
Resources consumption display using top: Looking for commads using man:
top – display memory cpu etc. Usage man command – displays command info
S key – updates refresh time of data display(cpu usage etc.) man -k – short description of command
I key – filter idle processes-display only running processes keyword.
k key – kill process by tpying PID and then ENTER twice
q key – quit top command screen
kill command:
pidof process name- displays the PID number
kill 3286 – kills process with PID 3286
kill -KILL 3294 – forces kill of this PID
kill -9 3294 - forces kill of this PID
ps -ux – displays current user processes
ps -aux – display all users processes
ps -U username – display username running processes
ps -C process name – display all instances of this process
echo command:
echo – prints all chars after the word echo on the screen
creating variable – myvar=”Mark” -create myvar
echo $myvar wil print Mark word
echo -e ‘some \n text’ - prints some and next line text
-e option stands for escape
File premission and chmod command:
chmod – change premissions of user u
group g and others o
r – read w – write x - execute
chmod u+rwx file.txt – enables rwx premission to file.txt
chmod ug=rwx file.txt – sets premission of user to rwx
chmod a-rwx file – cancels rwx premission to all users
chmod u+rw,g=wx,o+r file
Directory premission using chmod:
same as in files
disabling write premission adds lock symbol to the folder
and prevents adding files for instance
Substracting read premission prevents content display of the folder
which command:
which – dispaly PATH of specific command
which bash – dispalys the path/location of bash
whatis – displays short description of command
Adding user using useradd:
useradd mark -m -s bin/bash -g users -c “my comment” (dont forget to use sudo)
m for creating home dir
s the current shell
g – the specific group
c – comment for user
passwd – enables to add password for the user
removing users using userdel:
ls home – to see current users
sudo userdel mark – deletes user mark but not his home dir
sudo userdel -r mark – erases home dir also
groups and adding groups using groupadd:
group – display the groups of the current user
cat /etc/group/ - dispaly all groups of the O.S
sudo groupadd java – adding java to /cat/group
sudo groupdel java – removes java grpoup
sudo gpasswd -a yosikiss java – adds java to yosikiss group
-d flag removes java from yosikiss group
Viewing resources using du df and free:
df – display amount of resources used/unused by O.S
df -h – readable versin of df
du – estimates and display disk space used by files
du -h – human readable for du
du -sh – summary of diskspace
free – displays the total free and used memory in the system
free -g – display data in gigabytes
- k – for kilobytes
-m – for megabytes
-b - for bytes
running scripts /files using watch command:
watch – updating time intervals of current command
watch -n 1 free -m – display free resources on intervals of 1 sec
ctrl + c – exiting watch command
Viewing files using head and tail: (for log files particulary)
head- display upper part of the file
tail- displays bottom part of the file
head -n 3 file.txt – displays first 3 lines of file.txt
tail -3 file.txt – dispalys last 3 lines of file.txt
tail -f file.txt – displays file.txt and follows input insertion and updates it.
head/tail dmseg kill.log - displays the files sequently

looking for files using find command:
find /dir -name file.txt – will look for file .txt
in directory dir (-name option specify to look by name)
find home/yosikiss/ -name word.* - will look for all files
named word ignoring file type in home/yosikiss
find ~/ -name file1* - will search for all files named file1
find ~/ -mtime 1 – dsplays all file created 1 day ago
(or + for future files)
Displaying word/character count using wc command:
wc text.txt – displays no. Of lines, no. Of word, no. Of chars
-c – displays chars only
-l – dispalys lines only
-w – displays oly words
-L – displays number of chars of the longest line.
Installing/removing/updtating usin apt-get:
**remember to use sudo
sudo apt-get install java
to check if certain package is installed
you can use java-version
sudo apt-get remove --purge java – removes package dependencies
**remove/autoremove/install/update/upgrade
cat etc/apt/sources.list – for apt sources.
Shell scripting:
cat /etc/shells – display shells O.S supports.
Which bash – location of current shell
# - used to write comments
name=Mark – creates variable name (to use it $name)
echo $name will print Mark.
Read -p ‘username: ‘ user_var – enables to read input and
display it in the same line.
read -sp ‘username: ‘ user_var – silent print of input.
Read -a names – read names and store it in an array.
echo “names: ${names[0]}, ${names[1]}”
echo -e – enables printing backslash chars.e
name = (“$@”)
Linux Cli commands
ip config using ifconfig:
ifconfig – displays all devices connections parallel to ipconfig
lo – specifys loopback connection for testing
wlp2s0 – wireless lan connection
ifconfig device – dispalys this device connection
ifconfig eth0 down/up – turning this device/connection off/on.
Compressing/extracting files using tar:
tar -cvf file.tar File – file.tar the name of the file File for folder
c for create
v for verbose
f for file
tar -xvf file.tar – extracts file.tar , x for extraction
for .gz files you should add z flag
tar -czvf file.txt File – z option for tar.gz files
printing document text using grep:
grep – global regular expression print
grep “word to search” filename
i – flag for non case sensitive
n – flag for stating line number
The expression can be more than one word
you can look for the expression in multipule files
using astrisk states to look for word in all files.
grep -n “something good” file1 file2 file3
grep -n “something” *
grep -v “something” file.txt – prints all lines that doesn’t contains “something”
Network statistics using netstat:
netstat -a – display all networking protocols running.
netstat -a | less – display info in a shell size box using less
-t – for tcp connection
-u – for udp
-l – for listening
-s – for statistics
-p – pid of connection
-x – for unix connections
-n – displays numric ports
-ie – i for interface , e for extended mode. Same as ifconfig
netstat -an | grep “:80’ - looks for ports 80
installing chrome browser:
adding -- no-sandbox to / opt / google / chrome /google-chrome