50 Most Frequently Used UNIX / Linux Commands (With Examples)

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/11/50-linux-commands/ This article provides practical examples for 50 most frequently used commands in Linux / UNIX. This is not a comprehensive list by any means, but this should give you a jumpstart on some of the common Linux commands. Bookmark this article for your future reference. Did I miss any frequently used Linux commands? Leave a comment and let me know. 1. tar command examples Create a new tar archive. $ tar cvf archive_name.tar dirname/ Extract from an existing tar archive. $ tar xvf archive_name.tar View an existing tar archive. $ tar tvf archive_name.tar More tar examples: The Ultimate Tar Command Tutorial with 10 Practical Examples 2. grep command examples Search for a given string in a file (case in-sensitive search). $ grep -i "the" demo_file Print the matched line, along with the 3 lines after it. $ grep -A 3 -i "example" demo_text Search for a given string in all files recursively $ grep -r "ramesh" * More grep examples: Get a Grip on the Grep! – 15 Practical Grep Command Examples 3. find command examples Find files using file-name ( case in-sensitve find) # find -iname "MyCProgram.c" Execute commands on files found by the find command $ find -iname "MyCProgram.c" -exec md5sum {} \; Find all empty files in home directory # find ~ -empty More find examples: Mommy, I found it! — 15 Practical Linux Find Command Examples 4. ssh command examples Login to remote host ssh -l jsmith remotehost.example.com Debug ssh client ssh -v -l jsmith remotehost.example.com Display ssh client version $ ssh -V OpenSSH_3.9p1, OpenSSL 0.9.7a Feb 19 2003 More ssh examples: 5 Basic Linux SSH Client Commands 5. sed command examples When you copy a DOS file to Unix, you could find \r\n in the end of each line. This example converts the DOS file format to Unix file format using sed command. $sed 's/.$//' filename Print file content in reverse order $ sed -n '1!G;h;$p' thegeekstuff.txt Add line number for all non-empty-lines in a file $ sed '/./=' thegeekstuff.txt | sed 'N; s/\n/ /' More sed examples: Advanced Sed Substitution Examples 6. awk command examples Remove duplicate lines using awk $ awk '!($0 in array) { array[$0]; print }' temp Print all lines from /etc/passwd that has the same uid and gid $awk -F ':' '$3==$4' passwd.txt Print only specific field from a file. $ awk '{print $2,$5;}' employee.txt More awk examples: 8 Powerful Awk Built-in Variables – FS, OFS, RS, ORS, NR, NF, FILENAME, FNR 7. vim command examples Go to the 143rd line of file $ vim +143 filename.txt Go to the first match of the specified $ vim +/search-term filename.txt Open the file in read only mode. $ vim -R /etc/passwd More vim examples: How To Record and Play in Vim Editor 8. diff command examples Ignore white space while comparing. # diff -w name_list.txt name_list_new.txt 2c2,3 < John Doe --- > John M Doe > Jason Bourne More diff examples: Top 4 File Difference Tools on UNIX / Linux – Diff, Colordiff, Wdiff, Vimdiff 9. sort command examples Sort a file in ascending order $ sort names.txt Sort a file in descending order $ sort -r names.txt Sort passwd file by 3rd field. $ sort -t: -k 3n /etc/passwd | more 10. export command examples To view oracle related environment variables. $ export | grep ORACLE declare -x ORACLE_BASE="/u01/app/oracle" declare -x ORACLE_HOME="/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0" declare -x ORACLE_SID="med" declare -x ORACLE_TERM="xterm" To export an environment variable: $ export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0 11. xargs command examples Copy all images to external hard-drive # ls *.jpg | xargs -n1 -i cp {} /external-hard-drive/directory Search all jpg images in the system and archive it. # find / -name *.jpg -type f -print | xargs tar -cvzf images.tar.gz Download all the URLs mentioned in the url-list.txt file # cat url-list.txt | xargs wget –c 12. ls command examples Display filesize in human readable format (e.g. KB, MB etc.,) $ ls -lh -rw-r----- 1 ramesh team-dev 8.9M Jun 12 15:27 arch-linux.txt.gz Order Files Based on Last Modified Time (In Reverse Order) Using ls -ltr $ ls -ltr Visual Classification of Files With Special Characters Using ls -F $ ls -F More ls examples: Unix LS Command: 15 Practical Examples 13. pwd command pwd is Print working directory. What else can be said about the good old pwd who has been printing the current directory name for ages. 14. cd command examples Use “cd -” to toggle between the last two directories Use “shopt -s cdspell” to automatically correct mistyped directory names on cd More cd examples: 6 Awesome Linux cd command Hacks 15. gzip command examples To create a *.gz compressed file: $ gzip test.txt To uncompress a *.gz file: $ gzip -d test.txt.gz Display compression ratio of the compressed file using gzip -l $ gzip -l *.gz compressed uncompressed ratio uncompressed_name 23709 97975 75.8% asp-patch-rpms.txt 16. bzip2 command examples To create a *.bz2 compressed file: $ bzip2 test.txt To uncompress a *.bz2 file: bzip2 -d test.txt.bz2 More bzip2 examples: BZ is Eazy! bzip2, bzgrep, bzcmp, bzdiff, bzcat, bzless, bzmore examples 17. unzip command examples To extract a *.zip compressed file: $ unzip test.zip View the contents of *.zip file (Without unzipping it): $ unzip -l jasper.zip Archive: jasper.zip Length Date Time Name -------- ---- ---- ---- 40995 11-30-98 23:50 META-INF/MANIFEST.MF 32169 08-25-98 21:07 classes_ 15964 08-25-98 21:07 classes_names 10542 08-25-98 21:07 classes_ncomp 18. shutdown command examples Shutdown the system and turn the power off immediately. # shutdown -h now Shutdown the system after 10 minutes. # shutdown -h +10 Reboot the system using shutdown command. # shutdown -r now Force the filesystem check during reboot. # shutdown -Fr now 19. ftp command examples Both ftp and secure ftp (sftp) has similar commands. To connect to a remote server and download multiple files, do the following. $ ftp IP/hostname ftp> mget *.html To view the file names located on the remote server before downloading, mls ftp command as shown below. ftp> mls *.html - /ftptest/features.html /ftptest/index.html /ftptest/othertools.html /ftptest/samplereport.html /ftptest/usage.html More ftp examples: FTP and SFTP Beginners Guide with 10 Examples 20. crontab command examples View crontab entry for a specific user # crontab -u john -l Schedule a cron job every 10 minutes. */10 * * * * /home/ramesh/check-disk-space More crontab examples: Linux Crontab: 15 Awesome Cron Job Examples 21. service command examples Service command is used to run the system V init scripts. i.e Instead of calling the scripts located in the /etc/init.d/ directory with their full path, you can use the service command. Check the status of a service: # service ssh status Check the steatus of all the services. service --status-all Restart a service. # service ssh restart 22. ps command examples ps command is used to display information about the processes that are running in the system. While there are lot of arguments that could be passed to a ps command, following are some of the common ones. To view current running processes. $ ps -ef | more To view current running processes in a tree structure. H option stands for process hierarchy. $ ps -efH | more 23. free command examples This command is used to display the free, used, swap memory available in the system. Typical free command output. The output is displayed in bytes. $ free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3566408 1580220 1986188 0 203988 902960 -/+ buffers/cache: 473272 3093136 Swap: 4000176 0 4000176 If you want to quickly check how many GB of RAM your system has use the -g option. -b option displays in bytes, -k in kilo bytes, -m in mega bytes. $ free -g total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3 1 1 0 0 0 -/+ buffers/cache: 0 2 Swap: 3 0 3 If you want to see a total memory ( including the swap), use the -t switch, which will display a total line as shown below. ramesh@ramesh-laptop:~$ free -t total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3566408 1592148 1974260 0 204260 912556 -/+ buffers/cache: 475332 3091076 Swap: 4000176 0 4000176 Total: 7566584 1592148 5974436 24. top command examples top command displays the top processes in the system ( by default sorted by cpu usage ). To sort top output by any column, Press O (upper-case O) , which will display all the possible columns that you can sort by as shown below. Current Sort Field: P for window 1:Def Select sort field via field letter, type any other key to return a: PID = Process Id v: nDRT = Dirty Pages count d: UID = User Id y: WCHAN = Sleeping in Function e: USER = User Name z: Flags = Task Flags ........ To displays only the processes that belong to a particular user use -u option. The following will show only the top processes that belongs to oracle user. $ top -u oracle More top examples: Can You Top This? 15 Practical Linux Top Command Examples 25. df command examples Displays the file system disk space usage. By default df -k displays output in bytes. $ df -k Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 29530400 3233104 24797232 12% / /dev/sda2 120367992 50171596 64082060 44% /home df -h displays output in human readable form. i.e size will be displayed in GB’s. ramesh@ramesh-laptop:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 29G 3.1G 24G 12% / /dev/sda2 115G 48G 62G 44% /home Use -T option to display what type of file system. ramesh@ramesh-laptop:~$ df -T Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda1 ext4 29530400 3233120 24797216 12% / /dev/sda2 ext4 120367992 50171596 64082060 44% /home 26. kill command examples Use kill command to terminate a process. First get the process id using ps -ef command, then use kill -9 to kill the running Linux process as shown below. You can also use killall, pkill, xkill to terminate a unix process. $ ps -ef | grep vim ramesh 7243 7222 9 22:43 pts/2 00:00:00 vim $ kill -9 7243 More kill examples: 4 Ways to Kill a Process – kill, killall, pkill, xkill 27. rm command examples Get confirmation before removing the file. $ rm -i filename.txt It is very useful while giving shell metacharacters in the file name argument. Print the filename and get confirmation before removing the file. $ rm -i file* Following example recursively removes all files and directories under the example directory. This also removes the example directory itself. $ rm -r example 28. cp command examples Copy file1 to file2 preserving the mode, ownership and timestamp. $ cp -p file1 file2 Copy file1 to file2. if file2 exists prompt for confirmation before overwritting it. $ cp -i file1 file2 29. mv command examples Rename file1 to file2. if file2 exists prompt for confirmation before overwritting it. $ mv -i file1 file2 Note: mv -f is just the opposite, which will overwrite file2 without prompting. mv -v will print what is happening during file rename, which is useful while specifying shell metacharacters in the file name argument. $ mv -v file1 file2 30. cat command examples You can view multiple files at the same time. Following example prints the content of file1 followed by file2 to stdout. $ cat file1 file2 While displaying the file, following cat -n command will prepend the line number to each line of the output. $ cat -n /etc/logrotate.conf 1 /var/log/btmp { 2 missingok 3 monthly 4 create 0660 root utmp 5 rotate 1 6 } 31. mount command examples To mount a file system, you should first create a directory and mount it as shown below. # mkdir /u01 # mount /dev/sdb1 /u01 You can also add this to the fstab for automatic mounting. i.e Anytime system is restarted, the filesystem will be mounted. /dev/sdb1 /u01 ext2 defaults 0 2 32. chmod command examples chmod command is used to change the permissions for a file or directory. Give full access to user and group (i.e read, write and execute ) on a specific file. $ chmod ug+rwx file.txt Revoke all access for the group (i.e read, write and execute ) on a specific file. $ chmod g-rwx file.txt Apply the file permissions recursively to all the files in the sub-directories. $ chmod -R ug+rwx file.txt More chmod examples: 7 Chmod Command Examples for Beginners 33. chown command examples chown command is used to change the owner and group of a file. \ To change owner to oracle and group to db on a file. i.e Change both owner and group at the same time. $ chown oracle:dba dbora.sh Use -R to change the ownership recursively. $ chown -R oracle:dba /home/oracle 34. passwd command examples Change your password from command line using passwd. This will prompt for the old password followed by the new password. $ passwd Super user can use passwd command to reset others password. This will not prompt for current password of the user. # passwd USERNAME Remove password for a specific user. Root user can disable password for a specific user. Once the password is disabled, the user can login without entering the password. # passwd -d USERNAME 35. mkdir command examples Following example creates a directory called temp under your home directory. $ mkdir ~/temp Create nested directories using one mkdir command. If any of these directories exist already, it will not display any error. If any of these directories doesn’t exist, it will create them. $ mkdir -p dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/ 36. ifconfig command examples Use ifconfig command to view or configure a network interface on the Linux system. View all the interfaces along with status. $ ifconfig -a Start or stop a specific interface using up and down command as shown below. $ ifconfig eth0 up $ ifconfig eth0 down More ifconfig examples: Ifconfig: 7 Examples To Configure Network Interface 37. uname command examples Uname command displays important information about the system such as — Kernel name, Host name, Kernel release number, Processor type, etc., Sample uname output from a Ubuntu laptop is shown below. $ uname -a Linux john-laptop 2.6.32-24-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Thu Aug 19 01:12:52 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux 38. whereis command examples When you want to find out where a specific Unix command exists (for example, where does ls command exists?), you can execute the following command. $ whereis ls ls: /bin/ls /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1p/ls.1p.gz When you want to search an executable from a path other than the whereis default path, you can use -B option and give path as argument to it. This searches for the executable lsmk in the /tmp directory, and displays it, if it is available. $ whereis -u -B /tmp -f lsmk lsmk: /tmp/lsmk 39. whatis command examples Whatis command displays a single line description about a command. $ whatis ls ls (1) - list directory contents $ whatis ifconfig ifconfig (8) - configure a network interface 40. locate command examples Using locate command you can quickly search for the location of a specific file (or group of files). Locate command uses the database created by updatedb. The example below shows all files in the system that contains the word crontab in it. $ locate crontab /etc/anacrontab /etc/crontab /usr/bin/crontab /usr/share/doc/cron/examples/crontab2english.pl.gz /usr/share/man/man1/crontab.1.gz /usr/share/man/man5/anacrontab.5.gz /usr/share/man/man5/crontab.5.gz /usr/share/vim/vim72/syntax/crontab.vim 41. man command examples Display the man page of a specific command. $ man crontab When a man page for a command is located under more than one section, you can view the man page for that command from a specific section as shown below. $ man SECTION-NUMBER commandname Following 8 sections are available in the man page. General commands System calls C library functions Special files (usually devices, those found in /dev) and drivers File formats and conventions Games and screensavers Miscellaneous System administration commands and daemons For example, when you do whatis crontab, you’ll notice that crontab has two man pages (section 1 and section 5). To view section 5 of crontab man page, do the following. $ whatis crontab crontab (1) - maintain crontab files for individual users (V3) crontab (5) - tables for driving cron $ man 5 crontab 42. tail command examples Print the last 10 lines of a file by default. $ tail filename.txt Print N number of lines from the file named filename.txt $ tail -n N filename.txt View the content of the file in real time using tail -f. This is useful to view the log files, that keeps growing. The command can be terminated using CTRL-C. $ tail -f log-file More tail examples: 3 Methods To View tail -f output of Multiple Log Files in One Terminal 43. less command examples less is very efficient while viewing huge log files, as it doesn’t need to load the full file while opening. $ less huge-log-file.log One you open a file using less command, following two keys are very helpful. CTRL+F – forward one window CTRL+B – backward one window More less examples: Unix Less Command: 10 Tips for Effective Navigation 44. su command examples Switch to a different user account using su command. Super user can switch to any other user without entering their password. $ su - USERNAME Execute a single command from a different account name. In the following example, john can execute the ls command as raj username. Once the command is executed, it will come back to john’s account. [john@dev-server]$ su - raj -c 'ls' [john@dev-server]$ Login to a specified user account, and execute the specified shell instead of the default shell. $ su -s 'SHELLNAME' USERNAME 45. mysql command examples mysql is probably the most widely used open source database on Linux. Even if you don’t run a mysql database on your server, you might end-up using the mysql command ( client ) to connect to a mysql database running on the remote server. To connect to a remote mysql database. This will prompt for a password. $ mysql -u root -p -h 192.168.1.2 To connect to a local mysql database. $ mysql -u root -p If you want to specify the mysql root password in the command line itself, enter it immediately after -p (without any space). 46. yum command examples To install apache using yum. $ yum install httpd To upgrade apache using yum. $ yum update httpd To uninstall/remove apache using yum. $ yum remove httpd 47. rpm command examples To install apache using rpm. # rpm -ivh httpd-2.2.3-22.0.1.el5.i386.rpm To upgrade apache using rpm. # rpm -uvh httpd-2.2.3-22.0.1.el5.i386.rpm To uninstall/remove apache using rpm. # rpm -ev httpd More rpm examples: RPM Command: 15 Examples to Install, Uninstall, Upgrade, Query RPM Packages 48. ping command examples Ping a remote host by sending only 5 packets. $ ping -c 5 gmail.com More ping examples: Ping Tutorial: 15 Effective Ping Command Examples 49. date command examples Set the system date: # date -s "01/31/2010 23:59:53" Once you’ve changed the system date, you should syncronize the hardware clock with the system date as shown below. # hwclock –systohc # hwclock --systohc –utc 50. wget command examples The quick and effective method to download software, music, video from internet is using wget command. $ wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/nagios/nagios-3.2.1.tar.gz Download and store it with a different name. $ wget -O taglist.zip http://www.vim.org/scripts/download_script.php?src_id=7701 More wget examples: The Ultimate Wget Download Guide With 15 Awesome Examples Did I miss any frequently used Linux commands? Leave a comment and let me know.