Team VLSI Linux Session

Session-1: 50 Most useful Linux commands

Category-1: File System Management

1. ls : list files and directories

ls -l ; indicates file/directory type, permissions, owner, size, last modified
- normal, d- directory, s-socket file, l-link file
ls -a ; shows hidden files/directories
ls -t ; lists the files/directory on basis of modification time
2. clear : clear the terminal

3. man / --help : manual of command and switches

4. pwd : Print Working Directory

5. cd : Change Directory
cd .. ; back to parent directory
cd - ; back to previous directory
cd ~ ; go to home directory
cd ../ ../ ../ ; back to n steps
cd ‘abc xyz’ ; go to a directory whose name contain white space

6. mkdir : create a directory

mkdir directory_name ; make directory for creating a new directory

7. touch : create a file

touch file_name ; create a new file
touch file1 file2 file3 ; To create multiple files
touch –a file_name ; to change file access time
touch –m file_name ; to change file modification time

8. gedit file_name & : create and edit a file in GUI mode

gedit /path/to/file_name ; create and edit a file in specified location
; word count, line no. , language
9. vi file_neme : create and edit a file using command line interface
i ; insert the text
/string ; find the string
Esc + :q ;exit without saving
Esc + :s ; Save only not exit
Esc + :wq ; save and exit

10. cp source destination : copy command

cp -f ; force , not a regular file
cp -R ; recursive coping of a directory
11. mv source destination : move command, like cut+paste
mv f1 f2 ; rename f1 by f2
mv -rf ; recursive and force moving of a directory
Team VLSI Linux Session
Session-1: 50 Most useful Linux commands
Category-1: File System Management

12. rm : remove file/directory , like delete

rm -rf ; remove recursive and force

rm *.txt ; remove all the file having extension .txt in PWD
rm -rf ; one of dangerous command as root
13. cat : stands for concatenate
cat file_name ; Display a contain of file
cat –n file_name ; display file with line number
cat text1 > text2 ; redirection of text , overwrite
cat text1 >> text2 ; appending the text
14. which :Path of the command

15. locate :searching a file/directory

locate -S ; review your database
locate file_name ; get the path of file
locate -i file_name ; search by ignoring case sensitivity

16. history : Get the list of executed commands

history ; history of all command
history n ;list of last n command executed
!n ; repeat any command in the history list
export HISTTIMEFORMAT=‘%F %T ’ ; seting history commnd
with time stamp format
unset export HISTTIMEFORMAT ; unsetting the time format
history -c ; clear all the history
~/.bash_history ; location of stored command history

17. chmod : Change mode, change the permission of file/directory

ls -l file_name ; See the current permissions of the file/dir

2 1: file or directory (- or d ) - : file

1 3 4 5
6 2. Permission for owner d : directory
3. Permissin for Group
4. Permissions for Others r : read
5. Ower w : write
6. Group x : execute/search
r w x
4 2 1
Numeric and Symbolic permissions
7 7 7
rwx rwx rwx
chmod 777 file_name ; set all the permission for all users
7 5 4 chmod 754 file_name ; set rwx for owner, r-x for group and and r–
rwx r-x r- - for others
chmod –R 777 dir_name ; Set all permission recursively inside the dir
Team VLSI Linux Session
Session-1: 50 Most useful Linux commands
Category-2: Text processing commands

18. touch : create a new file

touch file1 ; create an empty file

touch file1 file2 file3 ; create multiple files in one command
touch –am file2 ; change access and modification time

19. gedit : A GUI based linux text editor

gedit & ; open gedit text editor

gedit file1 ; create/open a file in geditor

20. head : To read first 10 line in command line

head file_name ; To read first 10 lines of a file

head –n 8 file_name ; To read first 8 lines of a file OR head -8 file
head -4 *.log ; Read first 4 lines of all log files in PWD

21. tail : To read last 10 line in command line

tail file_name ; To read last 10 lines of a file

tail –n 12 file_name ; To read last 12 lines of a file OR tail -2 file

22. sort : To sort the list

sort file_name ; sort the content of file
sort –n file_name ; sorting a file which has numbers
sort –r file_name ; sorting the file in reverse order
sort –o outputfile inputfile ; redirection of sorted output
sort –n -k2 file_name ; sorting the file on basis of nth coloumn

23. unique : An utility for filtering the repeated lines in a file

unique file_name ; will display only unique lines
unique –c file_name ; will tell no. of times a lines has repeated

24. more : Display text one screen at a time

more file_name ; display the text in command line
<space> next screen, <b> back to previous
screen, <enter> next line
More -10 file_name ; will display 10 lines at a time
dmesg | more ; will tell no. of times a lines has repeated

25. less : to read the text file in command line

less file_name ; similar to more command with some advance features

26. grep : global regular expression print

grep –i words file_name ; display the line contains searched word
dmesg | grep sda ; filtered the output and show only line having sda
dmesg | grep sda –A 5 ; Display 5 lines after the matching word sda
Team VLSI Linux Session
Session-1: 50 Most useful Linux commands
Category-2: Text processing commands

27. diff : find difference between two files/dir

diff file1 file2 ; To check the difference between two files

diff dir1 dir2 ; To check the difference between contain of two dir
A similar GUI tool is “meld”
vimdiff f1 f2 , gvimdiff f1 f2
28. wc : word count of a file

wc file_name ; New line, word and byte count in the file

wc –l file_name ; To count total new lines in the file
wc –w file_name ; T count total words only
wc –c file_name ; T count total characters only

Category-3: Process management commands

29. top or htop : It will show status of various resources and tasks
top ; you can see the utilization statics for resources and get PID
of all running process
htop ; Simillar to top but improved version.

30. ps : Known as Process Status

ps ; process for current shell
ps -e ; Display all active process
ps -ef ; Display all active process in full format
ps –ef | grep virtuoso ; If the list is too big we can grep it to
specific command

31. kill : To terminate a process

kill PID ; Killing a process by PID, PID is a numeric value.
kill PID1 PID2 PID3 ; Kill multiple process together. You can specify
the signal name in between Kill and PID. If no signal has been
specified, by default TERM signal will be sent.

32. who : Display the users who are currently logged in your Linux machine
who ; Without any argument who command will display user’s
login name, terminal, login time and host
who –q ;Display the name of all users and total no. of users logged in

33. w : information about current logged user and what they are doing

34. users : Display the all current users name in a single line

35. last : it display the list of user who logged the system
last ; If no options provided last command displays a list of all users
logged in (and out) since /var/log/wtmp file was created
last user_name ;Will display the activities of a particular user only
Team VLSI Linux Session
Session-1: 50 Most useful Linux commands
Category-3: Process management commands
36. free : Used to check available physical memory and swap memory
free ; Command used to checked used and free memory space in KB
free –m/g ;Space will be shown in MB or GB
free -s 5 ; Will update the status in every 5 seconds.

37. lshw : Used to check hardware information

lshw ; Generates detail reports about various hardware of system
lshw –class memory ;Details memory in the system
lshw –class processor ; Details of processor in the system
lshw –short –class disk ; Details about the hard drives (network)

38. lscpu : Display information about CPU architecture

lscpu ; Give the detailed information about the CPU

39. cat /proc/cpuinfo : Similar information like lscpu

40. dmidecode : Is a tool for dumping System Management BIOS (SMBIOS)
table content in human readable format
dmidecode ; Gives all the hardware details
dmidecode –t system ; Gives the manufacturer, model no. etc details
dmidecode –t bios ; Gives the bios information of system (/memory)
41. uptime : Gives the time how long system is running
uptime -p ; Gives the duration of system running
42. reboot : Will shutdown and restart the machine instantly

43. shutdown : Can be used to shutdown or restart the machine

shutdown –h now ; System will be shutdown instantly
shutdown –h +5 “message” ; System will be shutdown after 5 minute
shutdown –r +5 ; System will be restart after 5 minutes

Category-4: Bash Environment related commands

44. date : Will show the current date, time and of time zone
date ; Will show day, date, current time and timezone
date –d “1990-12-31” ; Details of any specific date
timedatectl ; Will show details of local and universal time and timezone
timedatectl set-time ‘2018-12-27 07:30:10’ ; to set specific date and time
timedatectl set-time ‘Asia/Kolkata’ ; Setting time by time zone

45. cal : Will display the calendar of current month in terminal

cal ; Will show calendar of current month in terminal

cal 08 1947 ; To display a calendar of particular month and year
cal –y 2019 ; Will show calendar of all month of a particular year
46. env : Used to print all the current environment variables and it’s
value
Team VLSI Linux System Administration

Category-4: Bash Environment related commands

47. whoami : prints the username of current user

48. uname : It provides kernel versions and other details

uname ; Without any option, will print kernel name only
uname -a ; Get all the information like, kernel name, version,
architecture, host name, current date and time.
49. hostname : To know the hostname
hostname ;It will display the hostname
cat /etc/hostname ;Inside the hostname file hostname is stored and
we can read and edit.
vi /etc/hostname ;to change a new hostname edit the name here
and reboot the machine

50. echo $BASH_VERSION : To know the BASH version. For more

variables value run env command