Linux Commands Cheat Sheet [With PDF]

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June 17, 2022

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

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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

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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 Creates symbolic link named link_name to

link_name 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

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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 Sets the permissions of the file /data/test.c to be read/write for
/data/test.c 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 Changes file 'filename' ownership to 'bob' and 'devops'.

filename

chown Change owner and group of the directory.

ownername:groupname
directory

Network Commands

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ip addr show Displays all network interfaces and their
information.

ip address add 192.168.0.1/24 Assigns IP address 192.168.0.1 to interface eth0.

dev 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 Creates a tar archive of /home/ubuntu directory.

/home/ubuntu

tar -xf backup.tar Extracts files from "backup.tar" archive.

tar -zcvf backup.tar.gz Creates compressed "backup.tar.gz" archive of

/home/ubuntu "/home/ubuntu"

gzip file1 Compresses "file1" into "file1.gz", original is

removed.

Install Packages Commands

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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 Installs compiled code into specified system locations.

install

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 Searches "/home" directory for files named "index"
index recursively.

find /home -size Finds files over 10000k size in /home directory.
+10000k

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 Securely connect to the system via SSH default
port 23 port 22

telnet host Connect to the host via telnet default port 23.

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File Transfer Commands

scp file.txt Copies file.txt to remote host's specified

remoteuser@remote_host:/remote/directory directory.

rsync -a /home/ubuntu /backup/ Synchronizes content from source

directory to destination
directory,preserving attributes.

rsync -a /var/www/web/ Synchronizes local directory to remote,

user@remote_host:/backup/web_backup/ 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- Mounts the device at the specified filesystem mount point.
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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