Linux Commands
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
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
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
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
tar -czf archive.tar.gz /path/to/directory – Compress files
using gzip
tar -xzf archive.tar.gz – Extract gzipped tarball
tar -cf archive.tar /path/to/directory – Create a tarball
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
apt-get install <package> – Install a package
apt-get update – Update package list
apt-get upgrade – Upgrade installed packages
apt-get remove <package> – Remove a package
apt-cache – Query APT cache
apt-cache search <package> – Search for a package
apt-cache show <package> – Show package details
Red Hat-based (e.g., CentOS, Fedora)
yum – Package manager for RPM-based systems
yum install <package> – Install a package
yum update – Update installed packages
yum remove <package> – Remove a package
dnf – Next-generation package manager (Fedora, CentOS 8+)
dnf install <package> – Install a package
dnf update – Update installed packages
dnf remove <package> – Remove a package
General Commands
rpm – RPM package manager
rpm -i <package.rpm> – Install an RPM package
rpm -e <package> – Remove an RPM package
dpkg – Debian package manager
dpkg -i <package.deb> – Install a Debian package
dpkg -r <package> – Remove a Debian package
10. System Services and Daemon Management
systemctl – Control the systemd system and service manager
systemctl start <service> – Start a service
systemctl stop <service> – Stop a service
systemctl restart <service> – Restart a service
systemctl enable <service> – Enable a service to start on boot
systemctl disable <service> – Disable a service from starting
on boot
systemctl status <service> – Check service status
service – Older service management command (used in
nonsystemd systems)
service <service> start – Start a service
service <service> stop – Stop a service
service <service> restart – Restart a service
service <service> status – Check service status
