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

by RA M E S H NA T A RA J A N on NO V E M B E R 8 , 2 0 1 0

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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.
Search

Did I miss any frequently used Linux commands? Leave a comment and let me know.
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1. tar command examples

COURS E

Create a new tar archive.

$ tar cvf archive_name.tar dirname/

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Linux Sysadmin CentOS 6 Course - Master the Tools,

Configure it Right, and be Lazy

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Extract from an existing tar archive.

$ tar xvf archive_name.tar

EBO O KS
Linux 101 Hacks 2nd Edition eBook - Practical
Examples to Build a Strong Foundation in Linux
Bash 101 Hacks eBook - Take Control of Your Bash
Command Line and Shell Scripting

View an existing tar archive.

Sed and Awk 101 Hacks eBook - Enhance Your UNIX /

Linux Life with Sed and Awk

$ tar tvf archive_name.tar

More tar examples: The Ultimate Tar Command Tutorial with 10 Practical Examples

Vim 101 Hacks eBook - Practical Examples for

Becoming Fast and Productive in Vim Editor
Nagios Core 3 eBook - Monitor Everything, Be Proactive,
and Sleep Well

2. grep command examples

P OP ULAR P OS TS

Search for a given string in a file (case in-sensitive search).

12 Amazing and Essential Linux Books To Enrich Your

Brain and Library
50 UNIX / Linux Sysadmin Tutorials
50 Most Frequently Used UNIX / Linux Commands (With
Examples)
How To Be Productive and Get Things Done Using GTD
30 Things To Do When you are Bored and have a
Computer
Linux Directory Structure (File System Structure)
Explained with Examples
Linux Crontab: 15 Awesome Cron Job Examples
Get a Grip on the Grep! 15 Practical Grep Command
Examples

$ grep -i "the" demo_file

Unix LS Command: 15 Practical Examples

15 Examples To Master Linux Command Line History

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Print the matched line, along with the 3 lines after it.

Top 10 Open Source Bug Tracking System

Vi and Vim Macro Tutorial: How To Record and Play

$ grep -A 3 -i "example" demo_text

Search for a given string in all files recursively

Mommy, I found it! -- 15 Practical Linux Find Command

Examples
15 Awesome Gmail Tips and Tricks
15 Awesome Google Search Tips and Tricks

$ grep -r "ramesh" *

RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10 Explained with

Diagrams

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)

Can You Top This? 15 Practical Linux Top Command

Examples
Top 5 Best System Monitoring Tools
Top 5 Best Linux OS Distributions
How To Monitor Remote Linux Host using Nagios 3.0
Awk Introduction Tutorial 7 Awk Print Examples

# find -iname "MyCProgram.c"

Execute commands on files found by the find command

How to Backup Linux? 15 rsync Command Examples

The Ultimate Wget Download Guide With 15 Awesome
Examples
Top 5 Best Linux Text Editors

$ find -iname "MyCProgram.c" -exec md5sum {} \;

Find all empty files in home directory

# find ~ -empty

Packet Analyzer: 15 TCPDUMP Command Examples

The Ultimate Bash Array Tutorial with 15 Examples
3 Steps to Perform SSH Login Without Password Using
ssh-keygen & ssh-copy-id
Unix Sed Tutorial: Advanced Sed Substitution Examples
UNIX / Linux: 10 Netstat Command Examples

More find examples: Mommy, I found it! 15 Practical Linux Find Command Examples

The Ultimate Guide for Creating Strong Passwords

6 Steps to Secure Your Home Wireless Network

4. ssh command examples

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Login to remote host

CAT EG O RI ES
ssh -l jsmith remotehost.example.com

Linux
Vim

Debug ssh client

Sed
Awk

ssh -v -l jsmith remotehost.example.com

Bash
Nagios

Display ssh client version

OpenSSH
$ ssh -V
OpenSSH_3.9p1, OpenSSL 0.9.7a Feb 19 2003

IPTables
Apache
MySQL

More ssh examples: 5 Basic Linux SSH Client Commands

Perl
Google

5. sed command examples

Ubuntu

When you copy a DOS file to Unix, you could find \r\n in the end of each line. This example

PostgreSQL

converts the DOS file format to Unix file format using sed command.

Hello World
C Programming

$sed 's/.$//' filename

C++ Programming
DELL

Print file content in reverse order

Oracle
VMware

$ sed -n '1!G;h;$p' thegeekstuff.txt

Add line number for all non-empty-lines in a file

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$ 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

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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

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$ 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.

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# 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.

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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

23709

97975

ratio uncompressed_name
75.8% asp-patch-rpms.txt

16. bzip2 command examples

To create a *.bz2 compressed file:

$ bzip2 test.txt

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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
32169
15964

11-30-98 23:50
08-25-98 21:07
08-25-98 21:07

META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
classes_
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

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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

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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

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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
Mem:
3566408
-/+ buffers/cache:

used
1580220
473272

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free
1986188
3093136

shared
0

buffers
203988

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cached
902960

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Swap:

4000176

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
Mem:
3
-/+ buffers/cache:
Swap:

used
1
0

free
1
2

shared
0

buffers
0

cached
0

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
Mem:
3566408
-/+ buffers/cache:

used
1592148
475332

free
1974260
3091076

Swap:
Total:

0
1592148

4000176
5974436

4000176
7566584

shared
0

buffers
204260

cached
912556

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:

for window 1:Def

Select sort field via field letter, type any other key to return
a: PID

= Process Id

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v: nDRT

= Dirty Pages count

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d: UID
e: USER
........

= User Id
= User Name

y: WCHAN
z: Flags

= Sleeping in Function
= 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
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda2

1K-blocks
29530400
120367992

Used Available Use% Mounted on

3233104 24797232 12% /
50171596 64082060 44% /home

df -h displays output in human readable form. i.e size will be displayed in GBs.

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

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Filesystem
/dev/sda1
/dev/sda2

Type
ext4
ext4

1K-blocks
29530400
120367992

Used Available Use% Mounted on

3233120 24797216 12% /
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.
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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

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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
4
5
6

monthly
create 0660 root utmp
rotate 1
}

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

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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.

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$ 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 doesnt exist, it will create them.
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will not display any error. If any of these directories doesnt 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

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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)

$ whatis ifconfig
ifconfig (8)

- list directory contents

- 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.

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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.

1. General commands
2. System calls
3. C library functions
4. Special files (usually devices, those found in /dev) and drivers

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5. File formats and conventions

6. Games and screensavers
7. Miscellaneous
8. System administration commands and daemons
For example, when you do whatis crontab, youll 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)
crontab (5)

- maintain crontab files for individual users (V3)

- 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

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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 doesnt 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
johns account.

[john@dev-server]$ su - raj -c 'ls'

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[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 dont 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

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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

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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 youve 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.

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$ 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.
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The focus of this course is to help you understand
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{ 136 comments read them below or add one }

Shantanu Oak

November 8, 2010 at 3:01 am

Very useful list.

But I guess the commands like du, scp and init should be included. I will also like to add that S with ls will sort on size and -f with rm will forcefully remove files. The commands like
shutdown, yum, rpm, whereis and whatis can be excluded.

mio

November 8, 2010 at 5:42 am

less is one of my most useful command. should be part of the list.

Madharasan

November 8, 2010 at 5:48 am

Hi Ramesh,

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Thank you !!!!

Hope this article is a Deepavalli treat .
Very Nice and Informative.
Please prepare one more treat for Christmas and New year 2011.

rameshkumar

November 8, 2010 at 5:49 am

Excellent article for beginners like me..thanks..

RO

November 8, 2010 at 8:52 am

I found this a good set of tips to pass on to a newbie on my team that is supporting a
corporate application package, although I had to make the following distinctions for the
Solaris servers we work on:
commands in that list of 50 that do not work in Solaris (without adding extra packages at
least):
vim (only vi is included, and a much simpler editor than vim)
shutdown (only for root Id, so you should not be able to use it do NOT try, if you can for
some reason)
service specific to root in Linux
free parts of this command info can be had from several Solaris commands: vmstat,
iostat, mpstat
top use prstat in Solaris
mount another one only for root (superuser) Id
passwd our organization uses NIS for this kind of user management, and only via special
requests

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 whereis, locate use which in Solaris, although not as powerful

mysql not installed
yum, rpm RedHat Package Manager tools, so not relevant for Solaris
ping available as /user/sbin/ping, and with significant differences from the Llinux version
the linked tutorial shows, so check the Solaris ping man page ( man ping ) to see its syntax
very useful for troubleshooting connectivity issues.
date only root Id can change the date/time normally one uses date command to view it,
and there are many format options, so check man date and man strftime for that
formatting info.
I think distinguishing at least superuser-specific commands in a separate list might be helpful,
as well as Linux-specific commands like free (thinking I might see if I can make an alias to
massage vmstat, iostat, and some others for a similar output would be useful).
RO

Geoff

November 8, 2010 at 9:39 am

Great list thanks!

I would add:
nmap -sP nnn..nnn.nnn.0/24
There might be a better way, but I use it all the time for a list of ip addresses in use.

Shashi

November 8, 2010 at 10:42 am

Very useful list Thanks

Earl Jenkins

November 8, 2010 at 11:41 am

You missed my favourite usage of ps:

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ps -ef | grep procname

Filters the ps output based on the given procname very useful to see if a particular
process is running, or to find its pid. (Similar functionality is available via pgrep as well.)
But this is a handy list, nonetheless. I suspect it will be showing up in a lot of Google
searches.

Hamilton Jimenez

November 8, 2010 at 12:59 pm

This is a really nice article for everyone. I sent the link to every friend who know Unix/Linux.
Thanks a lot!

ignazioc

November 8, 2010 at 3:09 pm

10

awesome!

dj

November 8, 2010 at 3:31 pm

11

Nice list.
Possible additions:
rsync
nano (in vi category)
sudo (in su category)
apropos (in man category)
who, whoami,groups
whois
exit or ctrl-d

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hexdump -C
A side-note on `less`. If the user finds the need to edit the file they are viewer, they could use
the `v` command. I do see in the man-page it says, The following four commands may or
may not be valid, depending on your particular installation..

Teresa

12

November 8, 2010 at 6:05 pm

A really helpful command that I use is watch.

Instead of writing a while loop to run a command repeatedly, use watch.
It runs the command you specify every 2 seconds (default interval). Running the command
with -d highlights changes between each refresh.

Wuzzy

13

November 16, 2010 at 5:03 pm

In case you dont want tar to list the files it processed (because you want a clean terminal
), simply remove the letter v (v for verbose [not vendetta

]) from the options:

for creating a tar, use tar cf instead of tar cvf

for extracting a tar, use tar xf instead of tar xvf
for viewing a tar use tar tf instead of tar tvf

krushna

December 28, 2010 at 7:28 am

14

Thanks, It is very very informative .Examples are awesome.

Thanks

sathiya

January 1, 2011 at 6:35 am

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Test comment, please remove.

tom

January 16, 2011 at 9:59 pm

16

Title of this article is kinda inaccurate. Several examples arent so much UNIX/Linux as
much as they are GNU tools.
Also, the use of ssh -l ${USER} is kind of an archaic usage style. Using ssh
$USER@${HOST} (or scp $USER@${HOST}) is a bit more common (at least in production
UNIX or Linux) shops and has the value of saving you a couple keystrokes.

Vaishali

February 8, 2011 at 3:28 am

17

Nice list

anonymous

February 8, 2011 at 10:57 pm

18

Not that service command is a Red Hat command. For any Unix or Linux (including Red Hat)
is via:
{{{
/etc/init.d/sshd status
/etc/init.d/httpd start or /etc/init.d/apache2 start
/etc/init.d/nfs restart
/etc/init.d/mysdl stop
}}}
As already mentioned since these act upon Daemons (or services) you need to be username
root (or use sudo).

BHARATH

March 9, 2011 at 11:45 pm

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THANKS FOR U.. GOOD EXPLAIN..

joey

March 24, 2011 at 2:07 pm

20

very good tools for linux apprentices

Shelly

May 18, 2011 at 9:27 am

21

Thanks Ramesh! This is a very useful list for new Linux users to use for reference. Really
gets you up to speed quickly!

highlandham

June 14, 2011 at 3:38 pm

22

Very useful to climb the cli knowledge ladder.

AR

23

June 18, 2011 at 12:19 pm

1. tutorial on chkconfig?
2. how to set up a temporary and a permanent route?
3. how to check SAN?
Thank You!!

Hima

June 23, 2011 at 7:17 am

24

Thanks for providing all useful commands as a single collection

Thank U Sir,

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joel

25

August 1, 2011 at 3:40 am

thanks very very very much please keep the good work going
am so a beginner in linux for i am a oracle11g student those command are real helping me.
please i would like to have more pleaseeeeeeeeeeeee in my email thanks alot

eliyas

September 7, 2011 at 6:34 am

26

Excellent! Very useful commands for me.TQ

Nalaka

September 12, 2011 at 9:35 pm

27

Dear Ramesh,
Pls clarify, the way how can i create a descending order file(upon numeric column), where
there are many columns in the lst file.
Regards
Nalaka

Another Brown Man

September 20, 2011 at 2:56 pm

28

You should include print commands like lpr, lpoptions, lpstat too

Dave AKA "8"

October 13, 2011 at 2:27 am

29

Thanks for a really great tute.

I first learned to program Miniwaft via punchcards (Pascal), in 1974, but didnt like command
lines, so never got round to looking at nix, or prompts.
You helped me take the first steps.

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I really wanted to say thank you for writting such a great tutorial.
Any chance of NMAP, Print, Whois topics, please
Also, a litte tute on switches would be awesome.

Mihai

October 15, 2011 at 8:57 am

30

Super useful especially for a beginner in linux like MEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Great post and thank you for your effort to create it
Its really useful

John

November 10, 2011 at 10:42 am

31

Great list, Im in college and taking a few linux admin classes, and my teacher was trying to
do a lesson on Crontab, but for whatever reason couldnt remember how to do it. I looked it
up on here and was able to look smart in front of the whole class

Asif Bin Qadir

November 18, 2011 at 11:53 pm

32

Profound Regards & Thank you so much.

Stefan

November 25, 2011 at 8:20 am

33

Dont forget the cut command.

cat /etc/passwd | cut -d: -f6
for example.

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Bob Kraus

December 2, 2011 at 1:22 pm

34

What about the grep command? Amazingly powerful and helpful.

Thanks for all the other examples

bob kraus

December 2, 2011 at 3:02 pm

35

Sorry about the previous grep comment it was at the top of your 50 and I missed it. Dooh!

prabinseth

December 7, 2011 at 3:32 am

36

i think it should be
tar -cvf archive_name.tar dirname/
instead of
tar cvf archive_name.tar dirname/
please correct me if i am wrong.

RO

December 7, 2011 at 12:02 pm

37

Re tar options format from the man page:

The first argument to tar should be a function; either one of the letters
Acdrtux, or one of the long function names. A function letter need not
be prefixed with -,
I have not used a dash prefix for a long time (maybe since it is not allowed (?) in Solaris
version, which is what I use more than Linux for work like that).

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vinayak

January 2, 2012 at 3:40 am

38

thanks you its very helpful,

sukhbir

January 19, 2012 at 5:39 am

39

Great Job!!

MYZJ forever...

January 30, 2012 at 3:46 am

40

thanks very much

very excellent!!!!

Munish

February 2, 2012 at 10:20 pm

41

well done

foyufugfogfopu

February 3, 2012 at 12:13 am

42

great help

chandrashekar

February 7, 2012 at 2:14 am

43

too good, frehsers can learn many things from this

hemant

February 7, 2012 at 10:24 pm

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thanks very much

my its very helpful,

shesh nath

February 9, 2012 at 11:20 pm

45

this is very helpful suite according to me

Chamanlal

February 17, 2012 at 9:34 am

46

Ramesh,
U r not a beginner bro..

moses chisanga

February 23, 2012 at 8:37 am

47

This is very good., am a bigginer but i know that very soon will be very far

Ramesh Velauthem

March 9, 2012 at 6:32 am

48

Really Very Usefull Commends

Thanks

pubudu

March 18, 2012 at 9:55 am

49

Thanks Bro..awesome article very useful

Tb

50

March 19, 2012 at 1:38 am

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this is awsome for begineers and thanks for that.

abhi

March 22, 2012 at 3:17 pm

51

Ramesh,
Nice list. very helpful.
Prabin seth,
you are right.

sanvi

March 30, 2012 at 4:03 am

52

sudo command

moumita

April 4, 2012 at 2:23 am

53

Hi
I have a question.How can I construct a pipe to execute the following?
Output of who should be displayed on the screen with value of total number of users who
have logged in
displayed at the bottom of the list.
Thankx
Moumita

Rajendeer

April 9, 2012 at 2:44 am

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Thnks

pathum

April 9, 2012 at 2:59 am

55

nice post i am really lucky to read this post,thanks.

Shradha

April 9, 2012 at 12:53 pm

56

too good,getting more infornation,Thx a lot

Welly

April 26, 2012 at 9:06 pm

57

thanks, really helpful.

Aslam

May 3, 2012 at 6:59 am

58

May 13, 2012 at 1:40 am

59

Thanks

Vijay

Very good explanation with examples. Can you provide just brief explanation about command
eg, awk what is mean by awk ? (remembering purpose)
Thank you!

Ashok

May 14, 2012 at 10:50 am

60

Thank u very much

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Prr Suresh

May 24, 2012 at 7:03 am

61

Very useful to beginners like me. You might have included vim editor commands with its
useful options and its subcommands

Vivek

May 27, 2012 at 5:49 pm

62

Hi, Does anyone know how I can install UNIX on my laptop to practice unix commands?
Vivek.

Elex

63

June 1, 2012 at 1:11 am

@vivek Install one of the linux distribution on your system. Ubuntu will be good for you.
If you want dual boot, Install ubuntu with WUBI that is windows based ubuntu installer.
If you do not want dual boot, install virtual box on your windows and install ubuntu into it. You
can find free ubuntu iso file on ubuntu-website.

Wes

64

June 8, 2012 at 1:36 pm

A good reference. Thanks!

If you had links to each command on an index at the beginning, it would make it easier to drill
down to each command.

b2

65

June 9, 2012 at 9:24 pm

hmmm,,,really nice collection for beginners!!!

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meena

June 12, 2012 at 11:33 pm

66

& command, nice command using linux with example

charan nm

June 22, 2012 at 6:39 am

67

very usefull

Ashok

June 27, 2012 at 7:03 am

68

Its amazing, very useful to me.. Thank u so much

Anonymous

June 27, 2012 at 11:14 pm

69

Hi Ramesh
Excellent

Mikkh

70

July 3, 2012 at 2:04 pm

Yum and rpm only really apply to Red Hat/Fedora or rpm distributions shouldnt really be in
this list IMO unless you also include the equally common apt for Debian distributions, emerge
for Gentoo etc etc.
A command I find useful is uname for finding out various bits of system info but mostly by me
for what kernel is currently installed
uname -r display kernel number installed

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uname -a display all uname info in one string

uname -h help on all switches available

sanjeev

July 5, 2012 at 5:54 am

71

very nice collection for beginners

david

72

July 9, 2012 at 7:22 am

great collection. thanks alot

Ebby

July 10, 2012 at 3:17 am

73

hi, Could please help me in getting the UNIX code to display a message box if the file size is
85% full?

Ramesh

July 17, 2012 at 3:23 am

74

awesome bro.

Yogesh Choudhary

July 19, 2012 at 1:00 pm

75

Thank,its very help for freshers

seyi

76

July 23, 2012 at 8:20 pm

Work well done.

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I wish to know if there is a command that can be used to increase the space allocated to an
application (e.g a simulator). Help with it.

Aravind Reddy Kaithy

July 25, 2012 at 8:59 am

77

Very good list, update more..

satish

September 6, 2012 at 12:58 pm

78

thank you so much sir.

OM PRAKASH SINGH

September 9, 2012 at 1:19 pm

79

Hi Dear
I found these commands are very useful and now I am studying. Actually where I am working
there Linux, AIX6 and Solaris 10 server is used. I wanted to know how to connect tata photon
in Red hat linux 5. Please help me. I shall remain thankful to
you forever.
thanks

pommuraj

September 11, 2012 at 10:22 pm

80

thank you.

Ramachandra

September 12, 2012 at 1:29 am

81

It is very use useful to all basic level unix guys..Good

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Durjoy

September 27, 2012 at 12:01 am

82

Thank U So much. It is very useful to us. More information expected.

Ramesh

September 27, 2012 at 10:32 am

83

Thanks a lot. If you write another article, please include the below commands.
netstat
tcpdump
route
ntpq
nslookup, dig, host
mail
uptime

waleed butt

October 11, 2012 at 12:44 am

84

this is very useful..i learn many commands of linux from this.Thanx

snsn

October 16, 2012 at 5:28 am

85

Thanks a lot.

vinayak

October 17, 2012 at 5:26 am

86

More useful commands:

echo
pwd
l
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whoami

MMR

October 29, 2012 at 10:14 pm

87

Great Collection
Thanks

farhad

November 2, 2012 at 12:46 am

88

thanks. very good and usefull

Subrat N

November 15, 2012 at 10:45 am

89

Really, Great Collection.!!!

Keep it up

Rahul SIngh

November 28, 2012 at 1:15 am

90

how to search in .tgz file without untar

Hareesh

December 10, 2012 at 5:54 am

91

very useful for us

Green

December 17, 2012 at 6:36 am

92

Hi Im new for unix.

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Can any one help me out how the sed and awk command working in the example 5 and 6 to
get reverse order and Remove duplicate lines using awk.

rajendar

December 19, 2012 at 3:43 am

93

i want to know the command for lm

sameer

December 24, 2012 at 3:02 am

94

hi,
Thank you for posting useful commands.

mahesh bomble

January 4, 2013 at 4:34 am

95

A post for beginers..

riten

January 8, 2013 at 3:54 am

96

pls send me how to create log file(tape wirrten is normal file, normal file format only not tar
file format)

ismail

January 10, 2013 at 1:02 pm

97

pwd print working directory

tulasi

January 21, 2013 at 5:01 am

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98

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thank you
very useful

ramac

January 23, 2013 at 11:27 pm

99

very useful & thanks

Anoop

January 24, 2013 at 5:47 pm

100

Excellent list .Thank you

Corbeaux

January 26, 2013 at 9:57 pm

101

These are often useful to me:

ps -fu user_name
kill `pidof process_name`
ll -tr `locate file_name`
rsync -avzp -e ssh /local/path/file username@remote_server:/remote/path/.

riten

January 28, 2013 at 4:29 am

102

pls anyone write commond how to create log file (text file), file written by normal format in
3592 tape.

sinjish

January 29, 2013 at 4:55 am

103

Good really helpful.

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shresta

February 4, 2013 at 5:42 am

104

thanks a lot it helped me:-)

amit

February 5, 2013 at 8:40 am

105

1.for replacement of string in single file

2. for replacemnt of stirng without opening the file

Adam

February 7, 2013 at 8:37 am

106

if you include rpm and yum, how about apt/dpkg and pacman?

octopus

February 11, 2013 at 6:07 pm

107

another really common one:

# ln -s target /path/to/link/to/

riten

February 11, 2013 at 11:56 pm

108

Mutiple files write in tape how to create log file

Milan

February 14, 2013 at 12:54 am

109

Good site for learning a gist of commands.

Thanks

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sudhakar reddy

February 15, 2013 at 5:40 am

110

Really this site helps us a lot ..!

raj

February 25, 2013 at 11:45 am

111

very very imp and usefull commands thank you

Harikrishna

February 26, 2013 at 11:38 pm

112

Hi
Thanks for thinking and sharing knowledge about collection of things required for Unix user.

Ravi

March 3, 2013 at 12:41 am

113

thankyou very much dude this really help me in making my college

assignment.thankyou once again

deepak

March 6, 2013 at 11:09 am

114

Very precise and useful like me beginners. Want to see more commands.

pGwtech

March 7, 2013 at 12:59 pm

115

A simple thank you.

Anonymous

March 8, 2013 at 9:06 am

116

list is awesome. Thank you

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Shailendra

March 10, 2013 at 3:34 pm

117

Its ok not bad for beginer

Neeraj

March 13, 2013 at 1:02 am

118

hi,
i m new, this may help me i think, I would like to know the similarity of windows / dos
commands with linux / unix commands.
It would be helpful to those who want to use linux in place of windows / dos.

siva sankar vara prasad

March 15, 2013 at 5:40 am

119

it is so nice & good for new lernars

A.Nagaraju

March 23, 2013 at 1:11 am

120

good !

Krishna

March 29, 2013 at 12:35 am

121

Good

meenu tiwari

April 14, 2013 at 2:01 am

122

thanks

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Aditya Rajawat

April 24, 2013 at 3:43 am

123

Good list

Deep

April 26, 2013 at 10:12 pm

124

This is a really nice article for everyone. I sent the link to every friend who know Unix/Linux.
Thanks a lot!

Deep

April 26, 2013 at 10:13 pm

125

This is a really nice article for beginners. Thanks

Mahesh

May 8, 2013 at 3:46 am

126

Thanks,
This is very help full for beginners,Keep on posting few more.

Subba Reddy

May 10, 2013 at 2:12 am

127

Good Work , very helpful to Freshers.

dharamvir

May 15, 2013 at 3:54 am

128

great

Anju

129

May 16, 2013 at 2:28 am

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good

Samah

May 16, 2013 at 2:54 am

130

I am a beginner, this is really very helpful , thank you.

Tarakraj bist

May 18, 2013 at 8:49 pm

131

this is helpful for me

KAnagaraj

May 19, 2013 at 6:49 am

132

How can i install exe file in linux (for ex-NHM Writer 1511.exe)

Curt

133

May 22, 2013 at 6:37 am

Thanks for the very useful information.

Im currently trying to grasp the find command.
Id like to see an explanation and examples.
man find is a huge beast and mostly incomprehensible to someone like me.

Curt

May 27, 2013 at 12:30 pm

134

Oh! Youve already written it.

Thanks again.

Naresh

July 10, 2013 at 6:12 am

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Good document along with good examples.

Priyabrata Karan

136

July 18, 2013 at 1:42 pm

i m really impressed with this type question answer thanx a lot

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Linux modprobe Command Examples to View, Install, Remove Modules

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