Linux Commands - Q&A Notes

1. Q: Create a file named hello.dat and write “hello world” as file contents.

A: echo "hello world" > hello.dat

Note: Creates a file hello.dat and writes "hello world" into it.

2. Q: Stop any process using PID.

A: kill <PID>

Note: Replaces <PID> with the actual process ID to stop it.

3. Q: Count number of lines in a given text file.

A: wc -l filename.txt

Note: Prints the number of lines in filename.txt.

4. Q: Create a file in a sub-directory with name abc.txt

A: mkdir -p subdir && touch subdir/abc.txt

Note: Creates subdir (if not exists) and then creates abc.txt inside it.

5. Q: List all the directories using echo command only

A: echo */

Note: Prints names of directories in the current folder.

6. Q: List all the files within a directory including hidden files

A: ls -a

Note: Lists all files including hidden ones (those starting with .).
7. Q: Display a calendar for a specific month and year

A: cal 05 2023

Note: Shows calendar for May 2023.

8. Q: What will be the output for who | more

A: who | more

Note: Displays logged-in users one screen at a time.

9. Q: What will be the output for who -a

A: who -a

Note: Shows detailed info about all logged-in users.

10. Q: What will be the output for cat file name | more ls -l > temp?

A: This command is incorrect. Possibly meant:

ls -l | tee temp | more

Note: Lists files in long format, saves to temp, and paginates output.

11. Q: Create a file name greetings.txt and write “Welcome to Linux” as file contents, then
close the file.

A: echo "Welcome to Linux" > greetings.txt

Note: Creates greetings.txt with specified content.

12. Q: Find and terminate the process with PID 5678.

A: kill 5678

Note: Stops process with PID 5678.

13. Q: Determine the number of words in a text file named data.txt.

 A: wc -w data.txt

Note: Counts words in data.txt.

14. Q: Create a file name notes.txt in a sub-directory called “documents”.

A: mkdir -p documents && touch documents/notes.txt

Note: Creates documents directory and notes.txt inside it.

15. Q: Echo the name of all directories in the current location.

A: echo */

Note: Shows all directory names in current folder.

16. Q: List all files, including hidden ones, within the directory “files_archive”.

A: ls -a files_archive

Note: Lists all files, including hidden ones, in files_archive.

17. Q: Display a calendar for the month of May in the year 2023.

A: cal 05 2023

Note: Displays May 2023 calendar.

Linux Commands - Q&A Notes (Part 2)

18. Q18: What is the output of ‘ps aux | grep bash’ ?

A: ps aux | grep bash

Note: Lists processes related to "bash".

19. Q19: Retrieve the information about all users currently logged in using the ‘who -a’
command.

A: who -a

Note: Displays all login-related information of users.

20. Q20: Execute the command ‘cat file.txt | grep “pattern” | wc -l’ and interpret the output.

A: cat file.txt | grep "pattern" | wc -l

Note: Counts lines in file.txt that contain "pattern".

21. Q21: Create a symbolic link named “shortcut” to a file named “important_data.txt”.

A: ln -s important_data.txt shortcut

Note: Creates symbolic link "shortcut" to "important_data.txt".

22. Q22: Find and kill all processes associated with a user named “john_doe”.

A: pkill -u john_doe

Note: Kills all processes run by user john_doe.

23. Q23: Display the size of a file named “report.pdf” in kilobytes.

A: du -k report.pdf

Note: Displays size of report.pdf in kilobytes.

24. Q24: Archive all files in the “documents” directory into a compressed file named
“backup.tar.gz”.

A: tar -czf backup.tar.gz documents/

Note: Creates a compressed archive of the documents directory.

25. Q25: Rename a directory from “old_folder” to “new_folder”.

 A: mv old_folder new_folder

Note: Renames old_folder to new_folder.

26. Q26: List all files modified in the last 24 hours in the current directory.

A: find . -type f -mtime -1

Note: Finds files modified in the last 24 hours.

27. Q27: Create a new user named “guest_user” with home directory “/home/guest” and
assign a password.

A: sudo useradd -m -d /home/guest guest_user

sudo passwd guest_user

Note: Creates user with home and sets a password.

28. Q28: Search for the word “error” in all files within the “logs” directory.

A: grep -r "error" logs/

Note: Searches recursively for "error" in logs directory.

29. Q29: Check the disk space usage of the root file system using the ‘df’ command.

A: df -h /

Note: Shows disk usage of root filesystem in human-readable format.

30. Q30: Display the process hierarchy using the ‘pstree’ command.

A: pstree

Note: Shows running processes in tree format.

31. Q31: Change the permissions of a file named “confidential.txt” to read-only for the
owner.
 A: chmod 400 confidential.txt

Note: Gives read-only permission to owner.

32. Q32: Retrieve the IP address of the machine using the ‘hostname -I’ command.

A: hostname -I

Note: Displays the system’s IP address(es).

33. Q33: Redirect the output of a command to a file named ‘output.txt” and append the
result if the file already exists.

A: command >> output.txt

Note: Appends output to output.txt if it exists.

34. Q34: Find and replace all occurrences of “apple” with “orange” in a file named
“fruits.txt.”

A: sed -i "s/apple/orange/g" fruits.txt

Note: Replaces "apple" with "orange" in fruits.txt.

35. Q35: Sort the lines of a file named “numbers.txt” in descending order numerically.

A: sort -nr numbers.txt

Note: Sorts lines in numbers.txt in descending numeric order.

Linux Commands - Q&A Notes (Part 3)

36. Q36: Archive all JPEG files in the “photos” directory into a compressed file named
“pictures_backup.zip.”

A: zip pictures_backup.zip photos/*.jpg

Note: Compresses all .jpg files in photos directory into a zip file.
37. Q37: Print the last 10 lines of a file named “log.txt” using the ‘tail’ command

A: tail log.txt

Note: Displays last 10 lines of log.txt.

38. Q38: Search for files with the extension “.log” in the entire file system.

A: find / -type f -name "*.log" 2>/dev/null

Note: Finds all .log files, suppressing permission errors.

39. Q39: Extract the contents of a tarball named “archive.tar.gz” to a directory named
“extracted_data”

A: mkdir -p extracted_data && tar -xzf archive.tar.gz -C extracted_data

Note: Extracts archive.tar.gz into extracted_data folder.

40. Q40: Check the status of a network interface named “eth0” using the ‘ifconfig’ command.

A: ifconfig eth0

Note: Displays info about eth0 network interface.

41. Q41: Set an environment variable named “MY_VAR” with the value “hello_world”

A: export MY_VAR=hello_world

Note: Sets MY_VAR in current shell session.

42. Q42: List all users in the system sorted alphabetically using the ‘cut’ and ’sort’
commands.

A: cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd | sort

Note: Extracts usernames from passwd file and sorts them.

43. Q43: Create a backup of a directory named “important_files” using the ‘’rsync”
command.

A: rsync -av important_files/ backup/

Note: Backs up important_files to backup directory.

44. Q44: Display the current date and time using the ’date’ command.

A: date

Note: Displays system date and time.

45. Q45: Count the number of files in the current directory with a “.txt” extension.

A: ls *.txt 2>/dev/null | wc -l

Note: Counts .txt files in the current directory.

46. Q46: Monitor real-time changes in a log file named “system.log” using the ‘tail -f’
command.

A: tail -f system.log

Note: Shows real-time updates to system.log.

47. Q47: Identify the file type of a document named “resume.doc” using the ‘file’ command.

A: file resume.doc

Note: Displays the type of resume.doc.

48. Q48: Find and replace a string in multiple files within a directory using the ‘sed’
command.

A: find . -type f -name "*.txt" -exec sed -i "s/old/new/g" {} +

Note: Replaces "old" with "new" in all .txt files recursively.

49. Q49: Display the top 5 CPU-consuming processes using the ‘top’ command.

A: top -b -n1 | head -n 12

Note: Shows top processes by CPU usage (approx).

50. Q50: Rename multiple files with the extension “.jpg” to have a prefix “image_”.

A: for f in *.jpg; do mv "$f" "image_$f"; done

Note: Renames each .jpg file by adding image_ prefix.

51. Q51: Display the system information, including kernel version and architecture, using
the ‘uname -a’ command.

A: uname -a

Note: Prints detailed system information.

Linux Commands - Q&A Notes (Part 4)

52. Q53: Create a compressed tarball of a directory named “project” excluding certain files.

A: tar --exclude="*.tmp" -czf project.tar.gz project/

Note: Compresses project directory excluding .tmp files.

53. Q54: Calculate the total size of a directory named “data” and its subdirectories using the
‘du’ command.

A: du -sh data

Note: Shows total size of data directory in human-readable format.

54. Q55: Identify the process ID of a running program named “my_program” using the
‘pgrep’ command.

A: pgrep my_program

Note: Displays PID(s) of processes named my_program.

55. Q56: List all installed packages

A: dpkg -l # For Debian-based

rpm -qa # For RHEL-based

Note: Lists installed packages depending on the system.

56. Q57: Create a hard link named “hardlink” to a file named “original_file.txt”

A: ln original_file.txt hardlink

Note: Creates a hard link named hardlink.

57. Q58: Monitor the system resource usage in real-time using the ‘htop’ command.

A: htop

Note: Interactive system monitor (needs to be installed).

58. Q59: Display the contents of a file named “info.txt” excluding lines containing the word
“deprecated”.

A: grep -v "deprecated" info.txt

Note: Prints all lines that do NOT contain "deprecated".

59. Q60: Determine the file system type of a partition using the ‘blkid‘ command.

A: blkid /dev/sdX1

Note: Shows filesystem type of partition (replace sdX1 with device name).

60. Q61: Check the availability of a domain using the ‘ping’ command.

A: ping domain.com

Note: Sends ICMP packets to check connectivity to domain.com.

61. Q62: List all files in the current directory and its subdirectories recursively

A: find . -type f

Note: Recursively lists all files from the current directory.

62. Q63: Change the permissions of a file to make it executable

A: chmod +x filename.sh

Note: Makes the file executable by the user.

63. Q64: Copy a directory and its contents to another location

A: cp -r sourcedir/ targetdir/

Note: Recursively copies contents of sourcedir to targetdir.

64. Q65: Display only the unique lines from a sorted file

A: sort file.txt | uniq

Note: Sorts and filters duplicate lines from file.txt.

65. Q66: Create a new empty file with the name “newfile.txt”

A: touch newfile.txt

Note: Creates a new empty file called newfile.txt.

66. Q67: Display the size of a directory and its contents in a human-readable format

A: du -sh directory/

Note: Shows total size of directory in readable units.

67. Q68: What is the purpose of the ‘tee’ command in Linux?

A: command | tee file.txt

 Note: Saves output to a file and also prints it to the screen.

Linux Commands - Q&A Notes (Part 5)

68. Q69: How can you find and replace a specific word in a file using the command line?

A: sed -i "s/oldword/newword/g" filename.txt

Note: Replaces all occurrences of oldword with newword in filename.txt.

69. Q70: What is the purpose of the ‘head’ command in Linux?

A: head filename.txt

Note: Displays the first 10 lines of filename.txt.

70. Q71: How do you create a compressed tar archive of a directory without preserving the
directory structure?

A: tar -czf archive.tar.gz -C dir .

Note: Creates archive of contents without parent dir.

71. Q72: What command would you use to display the current user’s login shell?

A: echo $SHELL

Note: Prints the shell used by the current user.

72. Q73: How do you recursively delete all files with a specific extension in a directory?

A: find . -type f -name "*.log" -delete

Note: Deletes all .log files under current dir.

73. Q74: How can you list all open files and the processes that opened them?

A: lsof

Note: Lists all open files and associated processes.

74. Q75: What command would you use to remove a symbolic link named “symlink”?

A: rm symlink

Note: Removes the symbolic link named symlink.

75. Q76: How do you display the current date and time in a specific format using the ‘date’
command?

A: date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

Note: Shows date/time in custom format.

76. Q77: How can you change the ownership of a file to a specific user and group?

A: chown user:group filename

Note: Changes file ownership to specified user and group.

77. Q78: What is the purpose of the ‘watch’ command in Linux?

A: watch command

Note: Runs a command repeatedly at intervals and shows output.

78. Q79: How do you display the available disk space on a specific partition?

A: df -h /dev/sda1

Note: Displays space usage on a given partition.

79. Q80: What command would you use to display the contents of a file in hexadecimal
format?

A: xxd filename

Note: Shows file content in hex (xxd may need to be installed).

80. Q81: How can you create a new user without assigning a home directory?

A: useradd -M username

Note: Creates a user without creating a home dir.

81. Q82: What is the purpose of the ‘file’ command in Linux?

A: file filename

Note: Identifies file type of the specified file.

82. Q83: How do you find files modified within the last 7 days in a specific directory?

A: find /path -type f -mtime -7

Note: Finds files modified in last 7 days.

83. Q84: What is the purpose of the ‘killall’ command in Linux?

A: killall processname

Note: Terminates all processes by name.

84. Q85: How do you list all USB devices connected to the system?

A: lsusb

Note: Lists connected USB devices.

85. Q86: What command would you use to display the detailed information about a network
interface?
 A: ip addr show eth0

Note: Shows details of eth0 network interface.

86. Q87: How can you find the process ID of a running program named “my_process”?

A: pgrep my_process

Note: Displays PID(s) of my_process.

87. Q88: What is the purpose of the ‘free’ command in Linux?

A: free -h

Note: Displays memory usage in human-readable format.

88. Q89: How do you display the total number of lines in a file using the ‘wc’ command?

A: wc -l filename.txt

Note: Counts number of lines in filename.txt.

89. Q90: What command would you use to recursively copy a directory to another location?

A: cp -r sourcedir/ targetdir/

Note: Copies all contents of sourcedir to targetdir.

90. Q91: How do you create a new group named “developers”?

A: groupadd developers

Note: Creates a user group called developers.

91. Q92: What command would you use to display the current system uptime?

A: uptime

Note: Shows how long the system has been running.

92. Q93: How do you extract files from a ZIP archive using the command line?

A: unzip file.zip

Note: Extracts contents of file.zip.

93. Q94: What is the purpose of the ‘route’ command in Linux?

A: route -n

Note: Displays the routing table (deprecated in favor of ip route).

94. Q95: How can you set a specific process’s priority using the ‘renice’ command?

A: renice -n 10 -p <PID>

Note: Changes priority of a process (replace <PID> with actual one).

95. Q96: What command would you use to display the contents of a compressed file without
extracting it?

A: zcat file.gz

Note: Displays content of a compressed .gz file.

96. Q97: How do you check if a specific process is running using the command line?

A: pgrep processname

Note: Returns PID if process is running.

97. Q98: What command would you use to display the current user’s environment
variables?

A: printenv

Note: Displays environment variables.

98. Q99: How do you rename multiple files in a directory by adding a prefix “backup_”?

A: for f in *.txt; do mv "$f" "backup_$f"; done

Note: Adds backup_ prefix to each .txt file.

Linux Commands - Q&A Notes (Part 6)

99. Q105: What is the purpose of the ‘cut’ command in Linux?

A: cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

Note: Extracts specific columns/fields from text (e.g., usernames).

100. Q106: How can you view the contents of a file in reverse order using the command
line?

A: tac filename.txt

Note: Displays lines in reverse order (last to first).

101. Q107: What command would you use to display the available network interfaces on
the system?

A: ip link show

Note: Lists all network interfaces on the system.

102. Q108: How do you find and delete all empty files in a directory?

A: find . -type f -empty -delete

Note: Finds and deletes all empty files in current directory.

103. Q109: What is the purpose of the ‘du’ command in Linux?

A: du -sh folder/

Note: Shows folder size (disk usage).

104. Q110: How do you create a compressed tar archive of a directory and encrypt it with
a password?

A: tar -czf - folder/ | openssl enc -aes-256-cbc -out archive.tar.gz.enc

Note: Compresses and encrypts folder.

105. Q111: What command would you use to display the list of loaded kernel modules?

A: lsmod

Note: Shows all currently loaded kernel modules.

106. Q112: How can you recursively delete all empty directories in a directory?

A: find . -type d -empty -delete

Note: Finds and deletes empty folders under current directory.

107. Q113: How do you display the permissions of a file in octal format?

A: stat -c "%a" filename

Note: Shows permissions in octal (e.g., 755).

108. Q114: How do you create a new directory if it does not exist?

A: mkdir -p newdir

Note: Creates newdir only if it doesn’t exist.

109. Q115: How do you check if a number is positive, negative, or zero in a script?

A: [[ $num -gt 0 ]] && echo "Positive" || ([[ $num -lt 0 ]] && echo "Negative" || echo
"Zero")

Note: Checks and prints the type of number.

110. Q116: How to find the common elements between two arrays in Linux script?
 A: comm -12 <(sort file1) <(sort file2)

Note: Finds common lines in two sorted files or arrays.

111. Q117: How to calculate the area of a circle using user input in a script?

A: area=$(echo "3.14 * $r * $r" | bc)

Note: Calculates circle area with radius r.

112. Q118: How to perform a case-insensitive search in a text file?

A: grep -i "pattern" filename

Note: Searches for pattern ignoring case.

113. Q119: How to display the current day of the week?

A: date +%A

Note: Prints full weekday name (e.g., Monday).

114. Q120: How to calculate the sum of squares of numbers in a range?

A: sum=0; for i in {1..10}; do sum=$((sum + i*i)); done; echo $sum

Note: Adds square of numbers from 1 to 10.

115. Q121: How to display the top N lines of a file?

A: head -n N filename.txt

Note: Prints first N lines of a file.

116. Q122: How to create a new file with specific name and extension?

A: touch file_name.txt

Note: Creates an empty file with given name and extension.

117. Q123: How to find the number of files with each extension in a directory?

A: find . -type f | sed -n "s/.*\.\([a-zA-Z0-9]*\)$/\1/p" | sort | uniq -c

Note: Counts files by extension.

118. Q124: How to create a log file and write system information to it?

A: uname -a > sysinfo.log

Note: Saves system info to sysinfo.log.

119. Q125: How to fetch latest stock prices in terminal (e.g., with curl)?

A: curl "https://api.example.com/stocks?symbol=XYZ"

Note: Fetches data from stock API (example only).

120. Q126: How to find largest files in a directory and subdirectories?

A: find . -type f -exec du -h {} + | sort -rh | head -n 10

Note: Lists top 10 largest files.

121. Q127: How to find failed login attempts from log files?

A: grep "Failed password" /var/log/auth.log

Note: Searches for failed login attempts.

122. Q128: How to count lines, words, and characters in a file?

A: wc filename.txt

Note: Prints line, word, and character count.

123. Q129: How to display all user activity and commands?

 A: last -f /var/log/wtmp

Note: Shows login history (commands require audit setup).

124. Q130: How to search for keywords in multiple documents and generate a report?

A: grep -r "keyword" docs/ > report.txt

Note: Searches keyword and saves matches in report.txt.