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Kali Linux OS Commands

Common Terminal Commands

To print the current working directory(folder) you are in, use pwd command.

1 pwd

To view the files present in a directory (also called contents of a directory), use ls command.

1 ls

To navigate from one directory to another, use cd command.

Syntax:

cd <directory path>

1 cd /home/kali/Desktop/

To navigate to the parent directory

1 cd ..

To find the manual on how to use a particular command/tool, use man command.

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Syntax:
man <command name>

1 man ls

Note: Press
q to Quit

Users

To shift from normal user to the root(admin) user, use sudo command.

1 sudo su

To see the current user logged into the system, use whoami command.

1 whoami

To find out user and group information (such as names and numeric IDs (UID or group ID) of the current user or any other user in the system, use id command.

1 id

Note: Make sure to exit the root user using

Directories and Files

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Creating Directories and Files

To create a directory, use mkdir command.

Syntax:
mkdir <directory name>

1 mkdir testdirectory

Copying and Renaming Directories and Files

To copy the contents of a file to another file or to copy the file into a directory, use cp command.

Syntax:
cp source_file destination_file

1 cp /usr/share/wordlists/fastrack.txt mylist.txt
2 cp /usr/share/metasploit-framework/data/wordlists/unix_users.txt users.txt

To copy the one or more files into a directory

Syntax:
cp src_file src_file2 dest_directory

1 cp mylist.txt users.txt testdirectory/

To rename a file/directory, use mv command.

Syntax:
mv src_file dest_file

1 mv mylist.txt newlist.txt
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y

To move a file into a directory, use mv command.

Syntax:
mv src_file dest_directory

1 mv users.txt testdirectory/

Removing Directories and Files

To remove a file from the current directory, use rm command.

Syntax:
rm <filename>

1 rm testdirectory/users.txt

Locating the Directories and Files

To locate a file, use locate command.

Syntax:
locate <filename>

1 locate wordlists

To find files and directories and perform subsequent operations on them, use find command.

Syntax:
find [directory to search] -name <filename>

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1 find ./Debug -name sample.txt

Viewing and Editing Files from the Command Line

To view the contents of a file, use cat command.

Syntax:
cat <filename>

1 cat newlist.txt

To make small changes to an existing file or to write to a new text file, use nano command.

Syntax:
nano <filename>

1 nano newlist.txt

Note: Press
CTRL + X to exit and then press Y to Save and N to Not Save.

File Manipulation / Extracting Specific Information

To search a file for a particular pattern of characters, and displays all lines that contain that pattern, use grep command.

Syntax:
grep 'pattern' <filename>

1 grep "ball" newlist.txt

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Stopping a Command

To stop a command during its runtime

1 Press CTRL + C

Web

Downloading Files

To find out your Public IP address(System IP that is connected to Internet)

www.whatismyipaddress.com

To download the files from the web via command line(from web servers using HTTP, HTTPS and FTP protocols), use wget command.

Syntax:
wget <link to the file>

1 wget https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.1.18/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-6.1.18.vbox-extpack

To transfer data to or from a server, use the curl command.

Syntax:
curl <link to the file> --output <specify filename>

1 curl www.example.com/1.zip --output file.zip

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Network
To display current network configuration information such as IP Address, MAC Address, use ifconfig command.

1 ifconfig

To check the network connectivity between host and server/host, use the ping command.

Syntax:
ping <IP address or URL>

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