1.

File and Directory Management

 ls – List directory contents
 cd – Change directory
 pwd – Print working directory
 cp – Copy files and directories
 mv – Move or rename files and directories
 rm – Remove files or directories
 mkdir – Make directories
 rmdir – Remove empty directories
 touch – Change file timestamps or create empty files
 find – Search for files in a directory hierarchy
 locate – Find files by name
 tree – Display directories in a tree-like format
 chmod – Change file permissions
 chown – Change file owner and group
 chgrp – Change group ownership
 stat – Display file or file system status

2. File Viewing and Editing

 cat – Concatenate and display file content
 tac – Concatenate and display file content in reverse
 more – View file content interactively (page by page)
 less – View file content interactively (scrollable)
 head – Output the first part of a file
 tail – Output the last part of a file
 nano – Text editor (terminal-based)
 vim / vi – Advanced text editors
 emacs – Text editor
 grep – Search text using patterns
 sed – Stream editor for filtering and transforming text
 awk – Pattern scanning and processing language
 cut – Remove sections from each line of files
 sort – Sort lines of text files
Page | 1
 uniq – Report or omit repeated lines

3. Process Management
 ps – Report a snapshot of current processes
 top – Display Linux tasks
 htop – Interactive process viewer (advanced top)
 kill – Send a signal to a process, typically to terminate
 killall – Terminate processes by name
 bg – Resume a suspended job in the background
 fg – Bring a job to the foreground
 jobs – List active jobs
 nice – Run a program with modified scheduling priority
 renice – Alter priority of running processes
 uptime – Show how long the system has been running
 time – Measure program running time

4. Disk Management
 df – Report file system disk space usage
 du – Estimate file space usage
 fdisk – Partition table manipulator for Linux
 lsblk – List information about block devices
 mount – Mount a file system
 umount – Unmount a file system
 parted – A partition manipulation program
 mkfs – Create a file system
 fsck – File system consistency check and repair
 blkid – Locate/print block device attributes

5. Networking
 ifconfig – Configure network interfaces
 ip – Show/manipulate routing, devices, and tunnels
 ping – Send ICMP Echo requests to network hosts
Page | 2
 netstat – Network statistics
 ss – Socket statistics (faster than netstat)
 traceroute – Trace the route packets take to a network host
 nslookup – Query Internet name servers interactively
 dig – DNS lookup utility
 wget – Non-interactive network downloader
 curl – Transfer data with URLs
 scp – Secure copy files between hosts
 ssh – Secure shell for remote login
 ftp – File Transfer Protocol client

6. User and Group Management

 useradd – Add a user to the system
 usermod – Modify a user account
 userdel – Delete a user account
 groupadd – Add a group to the system
 groupdel – Delete a group
 passwd – Change user password
 chage – Change user password expiry information
 whoami – Print the current logged-in user
 who – Show who is logged in
 w – Show who is logged in and what they’re doing
 id – Display user and group information
 groups – Show user’s groups

7. System Information and Monitoring

 uname – Print system information
 hostname – Show or set the system’s hostname
 uptime – How long the system has been running
 dmesg – Boot and system messages
 free – Display memory usage
 top – Display Linux tasks
 vmstat – Report virtual memory statistics
Page | 3
  lscpu – Display information about the CPU architecture
 lsusb – List USB devices
 lspci – List PCI devices
 lshw – List hardware configuration

8. Archiving and Compression

 tar – Archive files
o tar -czf archive.tar.gz /path/to/directory – Compress files

using gzip
o tar -xzf archive.tar.gz – Extract gzipped tarball

o tar -cf archive.tar /path/to/directory – Create a tarball

o tar -xf archive.tar – Extract tarball

 zip – Package and compress files into a ZIP archive

 unzip – Extract files from a ZIP archive
 gzip – Compress files using the gzip algorithm
 gunzip – Decompress files compressed with gzip
 bzip2 – Compress files using the bzip2 algorithm
 bunzip2 – Decompress files compressed with bzip2
 xz – Compress files using the xz algorithm
 unxz – Decompress files compressed with xz

9. Package Management (Depends on Distribution)

Debian-based (e.g., Ubuntu)
 apt-get – APT package handling utility
o apt-get install <package> – Install a package

o apt-get update – Update package list

o apt-get upgrade – Upgrade installed packages

o apt-get remove <package> – Remove a package

 apt-cache – Query APT cache

o apt-cache search <package> – Search for a package

o apt-cache show <package> – Show package details

Red Hat-based (e.g., CentOS, Fedora)

Page | 4
  yum – Package manager for RPM-based systems
o yum install <package> – Install a package

o yum update – Update installed packages

o yum remove <package> – Remove a package

 dnf – Next-generation package manager (Fedora, CentOS 8+)

o dnf install <package> – Install a package

o dnf update – Update installed packages

o dnf remove <package> – Remove a package

General Commands
 rpm – RPM package manager
o rpm -i <package.rpm> – Install an RPM package

o rpm -e <package> – Remove an RPM package

 dpkg – Debian package manager

o dpkg -i <package.deb> – Install a Debian package

o dpkg -r <package> – Remove a Debian package

10. System Services and Daemon Management

 systemctl – Control the systemd system and service manager
o systemctl start <service> – Start a service

o systemctl stop <service> – Stop a service

o systemctl restart <service> – Restart a service

o systemctl enable <service> – Enable a service to start on boot

o systemctl disable <service> – Disable a service from starting

on boot
o systemctl status <service> – Check service status

 service – Older service management command (used in non-

systemd systems)
o service <service> start – Start a service

o service <service> stop – Stop a service

o service <service> restart – Restart a service

o service <service> status – Check service status

Page | 5
 11. Scheduling Tasks
 cron – Daemon for running scheduled commands
o crontab -e – Edit cron jobs for the current user

o crontab -l – List the current user’s cron jobs

o crontab -r – Remove the current user's cron jobs

 at – Run commands at a specified time

o at 09:00 – Schedule a command to run at 09:00 AM

 batch – Run commands when the system load is low

 sleep – Delay for a specified time
o sleep 5s – Sleep for 5 seconds

12. File Permissions and Security

 chmod – Change file permissions
 chown – Change file owner and group
 chgrp – Change the group ownership of a file
 umask – Set default permissions for new files
 setfacl – Set file access control lists (ACL)
 getfacl – Get file access control lists (ACL)
 sudo – Execute a command as another user (usually root)
 visudo – Edit the sudoers file safely
 passwd – Change a user’s password
 sudoers – Manage sudo access for users
 gpasswd – Administer group password
 ss – Display socket statistics (for secure network connections)

13. System Backup and Restore

 rsync – Remote file and directory synchronization
o rsync -avz source/ destination/ – Synchronize files

o rsync -avz -e ssh source/ user@remote:/destination/ – Sync

over SSH
 cpio – Copy files to and from archives
 dd – Low-level copying and backup of entire filesystems
Page | 6
 o dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/backup.img – Backup a
disk/partition
o dd if=/path/to/backup.img of=/dev/sda – Restore a
disk/partition

14. System Diagnostics and Troubleshooting

 dmesg – Print the kernel ring buffer messages (system boot and
hardware-related messages)
 journalctl – Query and view logs from systemd’s journal
 strace – Trace system calls and signals
o strace <command> – Trace a command’s system calls

 lsof – List open files (useful for debugging)

o lsof <file> – Show processes using a specific file

 vmstat – Report virtual memory statistics

 iostat – Report CPU and I/O statistics
 mpstat – Report CPU usage statistics
 pidstat – Report statistics by process
 free – Display memory usage
 uptime – How long the system has been running
 watch – Execute a program periodically, showing output
o watch -n 1 free – Watch memory usage every second

 lshw – List hardware configuration

 htop – Interactive process viewer (better than top)
 netstat – Network statistics (deprecated in favor of ss)
 ss – Show socket statistics (more efficient than netstat)

15. Networking & Remote Management

 ifconfig – Configure network interfaces (older command,
replaced by ip)
 ip – A more modern alternative for managing network interfaces
and routing
o ip addr – Show IP addresses

o ip link – Show or manipulate network interfaces

Page | 7
 o ip route – Show or manipulate routing tables
 ss – Display socket statistics (useful for diagnosing network
issues)
 nmap – Network exploration tool (can be used for security
auditing)
 telnet – User interface to the TELNET protocol (less common
nowadays)
 nc (Netcat) – Network utility for reading and writing from network
connections
o nc -l -p 1234 – Listen on port 1234

o nc <host> <port> – Connect to a host and port

 iptables – Administration tool for IPv4 packet filtering and NAT

(Network Address Translation)
 firewalld – Frontend for managing firewall rules (used in some
distros like Fedora and CentOS)
 ufw – Uncomplicated firewall (front-end for iptables)
o ufw enable – Enable firewall

o ufw allow <port> – Allow traffic on a specific port

 tcpdump – Command-line packet analyzer

 curl – Transfer data from or to a server using various protocols
(HTTP, FTP, etc.)
 wget – Download files from the web via HTTP, HTTPS, FTP
 scp – Secure copy over SSH (used to copy files between systems)
o scp file.txt user@remote:/path/to/destination/ – Copy file to

remote server
 rsync – Remote file and directory synchronization (often used for
backups)
o rsync -avz /local/path/ remote:/remote/path/ – Sync

directories

16. Text Processing Utilities

 grep – Search for patterns within files
o grep 'pattern' file.txt – Search for a pattern in a file

o grep -r 'pattern' /dir/ – Recursively search for a pattern

Page | 8
 sed – Stream editor for filtering and transforming text
o sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt – Replace old with new globally

 awk – A powerful text processing language

o awk '{print $1}' file.txt – Print the first column of each line in

a file
 cut – Remove sections from each line of a file
o cut -d ':' -f 1 /etc/passwd – Print the first field of each line,

delimited by ":"
 sort – Sort lines of text files
o sort file.txt – Sort file content in ascending order

 uniq – Report or omit repeated lines in a file

o sort file.txt | uniq – Sort and remove duplicate lines

 tee – Read from standard input and write to standard output and
files
o echo "text" | tee file.txt – Write to file and show output on

screen
 tr – Translate or delete characters
o echo "hello" | tr 'a-z' 'A-Z' – Convert lowercase to uppercase

 paste – Merge lines of files

o paste file1.txt file2.txt – Combine lines of file1 and file2 side

by side
 wc – Word, line, character, and byte count
o wc -l file.txt – Count lines in a file

o wc -w file.txt – Count words in a file

17. System Shutdown and Reboot

 shutdown – Shut down the system
o shutdown -h now – Immediately shut down

o shutdown -r now – Reboot the system

o shutdown -h +10 – Shut down after 10 minutes

 reboot – Reboot the system

 halt – Halt the system immediately (equivalent to turning off
power)
 poweroff – Power off the system
Page | 9
 init – Change the runlevel (old-style system manager)
o init 0 – Shutdown

o init 6 – Reboot

18. File System Mounting and Management

 mount – Mount a file system
o mount /dev/sda1 /mnt – Mount partition to a directory

 umount – Unmount a file system

o umount /mnt – Unmount the file system mounted at /mnt

 fstab – File system table (configuration file for mounting file

systems)
o /etc/fstab – View and configure persistent mount points

 blkid – Display block device attributes

 fsck – Check and repair a file system
o fsck /dev/sda1 – Check and repair /dev/sda1

19. Filesystem Permissions and Security

 chmod – Change file permissions
o chmod 755 file.txt – Give read, write, and execute

permissions to owner, and read-execute permissions to

others
 chown – Change file owner and group
o chown user:group file.txt – Change owner and group of a file

 chgrp – Change group ownership of a file

o chgrp group file.txt – Change the group of a file

 umask – Set default permissions for new files

o umask 022 – Set default permissions for newly created files

to 755
 setfacl – Set access control lists (ACL) for file permissions
 getfacl – Get access control lists (ACL) for file permissions

Page | 10
 20. Containerization and Orchestration
Docker

 docker – Docker command-line interface (CLI) for managing

containers
o docker run <image> – Run a container from an image

o docker ps – List running containers

o docker ps -a – List all containers, including stopped ones

o docker build -t <image_name> . – Build an image

from a Dockerfile
o docker exec -it <container_id> bash – Start an

interactive bash shell inside a running container

o docker stop <container_id> – Stop a container

o docker rm <container_id> – Remove a container

o docker logs <container_id> – View logs of a container

o docker images – List available images

o docker rmi <image_name> – Remove an image

o docker network ls – List Docker networks

o docker-compose – Manage multi-container Docker

applications
 docker-compose up – Start up a multi-container

environment
 docker-compose down – Stop and remove containers

created by docker-compose
 docker-compose logs – View logs from containers

managed by docker-compose

Kubernetes (k8s)

 kubectl – Command-line tool for interacting with Kubernetes

clusters
o kubectl get pods – List pods in the current namespace

o kubectl get nodes – List nodes in the cluster

o kubectl get services – List services in the cluster

Page | 11
 o kubectl apply -f <file>.yaml – Apply configuration
from a file (e.g., a deployment or pod configuration)
o kubectl create -f <file>.yaml – Create a resource
from a file
o kubectl delete -f <file>.yaml – Delete a resource
defined in a file
o kubectl exec -it <pod_name> -- bash – Execute a
command inside a pod (e.g., open a shell)
o kubectl logs <pod_name> – View the logs of a pod
o kubectl describe pod <pod_name> – Get detailed
information about a pod
o kubectl scale deployment <deployment_name> --
replicas=<number> – Scale a deployment to the desired
number of replicas
o kubectl rollout restart deployment
<deployment_name> – Restart a deployment
o kubectl port-forward pod <pod_name>
<local_port>:<remote_port> – Forward a port from a
pod to localhost

Helm
 helm – Kubernetes package manager for deploying applications
o helm install <release_name> <chart_name> –

Install a Helm chart

o helm upgrade <release_name> <chart_name> –

Upgrade a Helm release

o helm list – List all Helm releases

o helm delete <release_name> – Delete a Helm release

o helm search <chart_name> – Search for a Helm chart

21. Automation and Configuration Management

Ansible
 ansible – Automation tool for configuration management
Page | 12
 o ansible all -m ping – Ping all hosts defined in the
inventory
o ansible-playbook playbook.yml – Run an Ansible
playbook
o ansible -m command -a 'command' <host> – Run a
single command on a target host
o ansible-playbook --check playbook.yml – Dry-run
a playbook to see what would change
o ansible-playbook --limit <host> playbook.yml –
Run a playbook on a specific host or group
o ansible-playbook --extra-vars "key=value" –
Pass extra variables to a playbook
Terraform
 terraform – Infrastructure as code tool for provisioning and
managing cloud resources
o terraform init – Initialize a working directory for

Terraform configuration
o terraform plan – Show an execution plan (preview of

what changes will be made)

o terraform apply – Apply the changes described in a

Terraform configuration
o terraform destroy – Destroy infrastructure created by

Terraform
o terraform validate – Validate the configuration files

o terraform show – Show the current state of the

infrastructure

Puppet

 puppet – Configuration management tool

o puppet apply <manifest.pp> – Apply a Puppet

manifest locally
o puppet agent --test – Test the Puppet agent (can be

used to run a one-off run)

Page | 13
 o puppet resource – Show the current state of resources
(files, services, etc.)

22. CI/CD Tools and Commands

Jenkins
 jenkins – Continuous integration tool
o java -jar jenkins.war – Start Jenkins from a WAR file

o Access Jenkins through http://localhost:8080 by default

GitLab CI
 .gitlab-ci.yml – Configuration file for GitLab CI/CD pipelines
(typically resides in your repository)
o gitlab-runner register – Register a new runner with

GitLab
o gitlab-runner run – Run the GitLab Runner to process

jobs

GitHub Actions

 GitHub Actions uses YAML configuration files (typically located in

.github/workflows/)
o actions/checkout@v2 – Checkout the repository code in

your CI pipeline
o actions/setup-node@v2 – Setup Node.js for use in a

pipeline
o docker/setup-buildx-action@v1 – Set up Docker

Buildx for building multi-platform images

23. Cloud Services

AWS CLI (Amazon Web Services)
 aws – Command-line tool for managing AWS services
o aws configure – Configure AWS CLI with your credentials

Page | 14
 o aws s3 cp file.txt s3://bucket-name/ – Copy a
file to an S3 bucket
o aws ec2 describe-instances – Describe EC2 instances
o aws ec2 start-instances --instance-ids <id> –
Start an EC2 instance
o aws ec2 stop-instances --instance-ids <id> –
Stop an EC2 instance
o aws s3 sync – Sync directories with an S3 bucket

Azure CLI (Microsoft Azure)

 az – Command-line tool for managing Azure services
o az login – Log in to your Azure account

o az vm list – List all virtual machines

o az vm start --name <vm_name> --resource-group

<resource_group> – Start an Azure VM

o az storage blob upload – Upload files to an Azure

blob storage
o az group create – Create a new resource group in Azure

Google Cloud SDK (gcloud)

 gcloud – Command-line tool for Google Cloud Platform
o gcloud auth login – Log in to Google Cloud

o gcloud compute instances list – List compute

instances
o gcloud compute instances stop <instance_name>

– Stop a Google Cloud VM instance

o gcloud app browse – Open the current Google App

Engine application in a browser

24. Logging and Monitoring

Prometheus

Page | 15
  prometheus – Open-source system monitoring and alerting
toolkit
o prometheus – Start Prometheus server (usually runs as a

service in the background)

o prometheus --config.file=<config_file> – Start

Prometheus with a specific config file

Grafana
 grafana-cli – Command-line interface for managing Grafana
plugins
o grafana-cli plugins install <plugin-name> –

Install a plugin in Grafana

ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)

 elasticsearch – Search engine for logging and data analytics

o curl -XGET

'localhost:9200/_cluster/health?pretty' – Get
cluster health status
 logstash – Server-side data processing pipeline
o logstash -f <config_file> – Run Logstash with the

specified configuration file

 kibana – Web interface for visualizing Elasticsearch data
o Kibana is generally accessed through a web browser

(http://localhost:5601)

Page | 16