LinuxProfessionalInstitute

Linux & LPIC

Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Foreword
This guide stems from the notes I have been taking while working with Linux and preparing the LPIC-1 and LPIC-2
certifications. As such, it includes quite a good amount of topics for these exams, with some subjects handled in more details
than others. I started writing this guide in 2013 and it is my aim to update and integrate it periodically.
This document is an independent publication and is not affiliated with, authorized by, sponsored by, or otherwise approved by
the Linux Professional Institute. You can freely use and share this guide or the individual pages, both in electronic or in
printed form, provided that you distribute it unmodified and not-for-profit. Please feel free to contact me for any error,
inaccuracy, or unclear point so I can correct it in future editions.
Happy Linux hacking,
Daniele Raffo

Suggested readings

Adam Haeder et al., LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell, O'Reilly

Evi Nemeth et al., UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, O'Reilly
Heinrich W. Klpping et al., The LPIC-2 Exam Prep, http://lpic2.unix.nl/
Mendel Cooper, Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide, http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/
Colin Barschel, Unix Toolbox, http://cb.vu/unixtoolbox.xhtml
http://www.gnu.org/manual/
http://www.commandlinefu.com/
Linux man pages

Index
LVM...............................................1
LVM commands...............................2
System boot....................................3
SysV startup sequence.....................4
Runlevels........................................5
SysV vs Systemd init scripts..............6
/etc/inittab......................................7
Filesystem hierarchy.........................8
Partitions........................................9
Filesystem types............................10
Swap............................................11
/etc/fstab......................................12
Filesystem operations.....................13
Filesystem maintenance..................14
XFS, ReiserFS, CD-ROM fs...............15
AutoFS..........................................16
RAID............................................17
Bootloader....................................18
GRUB configuration........................19
GRUB commands...........................20
Package managers.........................21
Package management tools.............22
Backup.........................................23
Command line...............................24
Text filters.....................................25
File management...........................26
I/O streams...................................27
Processes......................................28
Signals.........................................29
vmstat..........................................30
Resource monitoring.......................31
Regexs.........................................32
File permissions.............................33
File attributes................................34
Links............................................35
Find system files............................36
Shell environment..........................37
Scripting.......................................38
Flow control...................................39
Text processors..............................40
Vi.................................................41
Vi options......................................42

SQL..............................................43
SQL SELECTs.................................44
SQL JOINs.....................................45
MySQL..........................................46
MySQL status................................47
MySQL tools..................................48
X Window......................................49
X Window tools..............................50
X11 keysim codes..........................51
User accounts................................52
User management..........................53
UID and GID..................................54
Privilege escalation.........................55
Terminals......................................56
cron.............................................57
at.................................................58
Localization...................................59
System time..................................60
Syslog..........................................61
E-mail...........................................62
SMTP............................................63
Sendmail and Exim.........................64
Postfix..........................................65
Postfix configuration.......................66
Procmail........................................67
Courier POP configuration................68
Courier IMAP configuration..............69
Dovecot login.................................70
Dovecot mailboxes.........................71
Dovecot POP and IMAP....................72
Dovecot authentication...................73
FTP..............................................74
CUPS............................................75
IP addressing.................................76
Subnetting....................................77
Network services............................78
Network configuration commands.....79
Network tools................................80
Network monitoring........................81
Network system files......................82
Network configuration files..............83
TCP Wrapper.................................84

Routing.........................................85
iptables.........................................86
NAT routing...................................87
SSH..............................................88
SSH operations..............................89
SSH configuration..........................90
GnuPG..........................................91
OpenVPN.......................................92
Key bindings..................................93
udev.............................................94
Kernel...........................................95
Kernel management.......................96
Kernel compile and patching............97
Kernel modules..............................98
/proc filesystem.............................99
System recovery..........................100
DNS............................................101
DNS configuration........................102
DNS zone file...............................103
Apache........................................104
Apache configuration....................105
Apache virtual hosts.....................106
Apache directory protection...........107
Apache SSL/TLS configuration........108
OpenSSL.....................................109
CA.pl..........................................110
Samba........................................111
Samba configuration.....................112
Samba shares..............................113
Samba macros.............................114
NFS............................................115
/etc/exports.................................116
DHCP..........................................117
PAM............................................118
LDAP..........................................119
OpenLDAP...................................120
SELinux.......................................121
HTML components........................122
HTML text....................................123
HTML images...............................124
HTML tables and lists....................125
7-bit ASCII table..........................126

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LVM
LVM

Logical Volume Management (LVM) introduces an abstraction between physical and logical storage that permits a more
versatile use of filesystems. LVM uses the Linux device mapper feature (/dev/mapper).
Disks, partitions, and RAID devices are made of Physical Volumes, which are grouped into a Volume Group.
A Volume Group is divided into small fixed-size chunks called Physical Extents.
Physical Extents are mapped one-to-one to Logical Extents.
Logical Extents are grouped into Logical Volumes, on which filesystems are created.

How to create a Logical Volume

1.

pvcreate /dev/hda2 /dev/hdb5

Initialize the Physical Volumes to be used with LVM.

Devices must be of partition type 0x8E (Linux LVM)

2.

vgcreate -s 8M myvg0 /dev/hda2 /dev/hdb5

Create a Volume Group and define the size of Physical

Extents to 8 Mb (default value is 4 Mb)

or

vgextend myvg0 /dev/hda2

or add the Physical Volume to an existing Volume

Group

3.

lvcreate -L 1024M -n mydata myvg0

Create a Logical Volume

4.

mkfs -t ext3 /dev/myvg0/mydata

Create a filesystem on the Logical Volume

5.

mount /dev/myvg0/mydata /mydata

The Logical Volume is now mounted and used

How to increase the size of a Logical Volume (only if the underlying filesystem permits it)
1.

vgextend myvg0 /dev/hdc

2.

lvextend -L 2048M /dev/myvg0/mydata

or

lvresize -L+2048M /dev/myvg0/mydata

3.

resize2fs /dev/myvg0/mydata

Extend the Volume Group using the space in hdc

Extend the Logical Volume
Extend the filesystem

How to reduce the size of a Logical Volume (only if the underlying filesystem permits it)
1.

resize2fs /dev/myvg0/mydata 900M

2.

lvreduce -L 900M /dev/myvg0/mydata

or

lvresize -L-900M /dev/myvg0/mydata

Shrink the filesystem

Shrink the Logical Volume

How to snapshot and backup a Logical Volume

1.

lvcreate -s -L 1024M -n snapshot0 /dev/myvg0/mydata

Create the snapshot just like another Logical Volume

2.

tar cvzf snapshot0.tar.gz snapshot0

Backup the snapshot with any backup tool

3.

lvremove /dev/mvvg0/snapshot0

Delete the snapshot

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

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LVM commands
LVMcommands

pvs

Report information about Physical Volumes

pvck

Check Physical Volume metadata

pvdisplay

Display Physical Volume attributes

pvscan

Scan all disks for Physical Volumes

pvremove

Remove a Physical Volume

pvmove

Move the Logical Extents on a Physical Volume to wherever there are available Physical Extents
(within the Volume Group) and then put the Physical Volume offline

vgs

Report information about Volume Groups

vgck

Check Volume Group metadata

vgmerge

Merge two Volume Groups

vgimport

Import a Volume Group into a system

vgexport

Export a Volume Group from a system

vgchange

Change Volume Group attributes

vgextend

Add a Physical Volume to a Volume Group

vgreduce

Remove a Physical Volume from a Volume Group

lvs

Report information about Logical Volumes

lvchange

Change Logical Volume attributes

lvremove

Remove a Logical Volume

lvscan

Scan all disks for Logical Volumes

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

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3/126

System boot
Systemboot

Boot sequence
POST
(Power-On Self Test)

Low-level check of PC hardware.

BIOS
(Basic I/O System)

Detection of disks and hardware.

GRUB stage 1 is loaded from the MBR and executes GRUB stage 2 from filesystem.
GRUB chooses which OS to boot on.
The chain loader hands over to the boot sector of the partition on which resides the OS.

Chain loader
GRUB
(GRand Unified
Bootloader)

The chain loader also mounts initrd, an initial ramdisk (typically a compressed ext2
filesystem) to be used as the initial root device during kernel boot; this make possible to
load kernel modules that recognize hard drives hardware and that are hence needed to
mount the real root filesystem. Afterwards, the system runs /linuxrc with PID 1.
(From Linux 2.6.13 onward, the system instead loads into memory initramfs, a cpiocompressed image, and unpacks it into an instance of tmpfs in RAM. The kernel then
executes /init from within the image.)
Kernel decompression into memory.
Kernel execution.

Linux kernel

Detection of devices.
The real root filesystem is mounted on / in place of the initial ramdisk.

init

Execution of init, the first process (PID 1).

The system tries to execute in the following order:
/sbin/init
/etc/init
/bin/init
/bin/sh
If none of these succeeds, the kernel will panic.

Startup

The system loads startup scripts and runlevel scripts.

X Server

(Optional) The X Display Manager starts the X Server.

Some newer systems use UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). UEFI does not use the MBR boot code; it has
knowledge of partition table and filesystems, and stores its application files required for launch in a EFI System Partition,
mostly formatted as FAT32.
After the POST, the system loads the UEFI firmware which initializes the hardware required for booting, then reads its Boot
Manager data to determine which UEFI application to launch. The launched UEFI application may then launch another
application, e.g. the kernel and initramfs in case of a boot loader like the GRUB.

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

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4/126

SysV startup sequence

SysVstartupsequence

OS startup sequence (SysV)

Debian

Red Hat

At startup /sbin/init executes all

instructions on /etc/inittab . This script
at first switches to the default runlevel...

id:2:initdefault:

id:5:initdefault:

... then it runs the following script (same for

all runlevels) which configures peripheral
hardware, applies kernel parameters, sets
hostname, and provides disks initialization...

/etc/init.d/rcS

/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit or
/etc/rc.sysinit

... and then, for runlevel N, it calls the script

/etc/init.d/rc N (i.e. with the runlevel
number as parameter) which launches all
services and daemons specified in the
following startup directories:

/etc/rcN.d/

/etc/rc.d/rcN.d/

The startup directories contain symlinks to the init scripts in /etc/init.d/ which are executed in numerical order.
Links starting with K are called with argument stop, links starting with S are called with argument start.
lrwxrwxrwx.
lrwxrwxrwx.
lrwxrwxrwx.
lrwxrwxrwx.
lrwxrwxrwx.
lrwxrwxrwx.

1
1
1
1
1
1

root
root
root
root
root
root

root
root
root
root
root
root

14
15
17
18
16
18

Feb
Nov
Nov
Nov
Nov
Nov

11
28
28
28
28
28

22:32
14:50
15:01
14:54
14:52
14:42

K88sssd -> ../init.d/sssd

K89rdisc -> ../init.d/rdisc
S01sysstat -> ../init.d/sysstat
S05cgconfig -> ../init.d/cgconfig
S07iscsid -> ../init.d/iscsid
S08iptables -> ../init.d/iptables

The last script to be run is S99local -> ../init.d/rc.local ; therefore, an easy way to run a specific program
upon boot is to call it from this script file.
/etc/init.d/boot.local
/etc/init.d/before.local
/etc/init.d/after.local

(SUSE)
(SUSE)

runs only at boot time, not when switching runlevel.

runs only at boot time, before the scripts in the startup directories.
runs only at boot time, after the scripts in the startup directories.

To add or remove services at boot sequence:

update-rc.d service defaults

update-rc.d -f service remove

chkconfig --add service

chkconfig --del service

Parameters (service operations) supported by the init scripts

start

Start the service

stop

Stop the service

restart

Restart the service (stop, then start)

status

Display daemon PID and execution status

force-reload

Reload configuration if the service supports this option,

otherwise restart the service

condrestart
try-restart

Restart the service only if already running

reload

Reload service configuration

Mandatory

Optional

Linux Standard Base (LSB)

LSB defines a format to specify the default values on an init script /etc/init.d/foo :
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: foo
# Required-Start: bar
# Defalt-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Description: Service Foo init script
### END INIT INFO
Default runlevels and S/K symlinks values can also be specified as such:
# chkconfig: 2345 85 15
# description: Foo service

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

5/126

Runlevels
Runlevels

Runlevel

Debian

Red Hat

Shutdown

Single user / maintenance mode

Multi-user mode
(default)

Multi-user mode without network

Multi-user mode

Multi-user mode with network

Multi-user mode

Unused, for custom use

Multi-user mode

Multi-user mode with network and X

(default)

Reboot

Single user / maintenance mode

(usually accessed through runlevel 1)
The default runlevels are 2 3 4 5

runlevel
who -r

Display the previous and the current runlevel

init runlevel
telinit runlevel

Change runlevel

init 0
telinit 0
shutdown -h now
halt
poweroff

Halt the system

init 6
telinit 6
shutdown -r now
reboot

Reboot the system

shutdown

Shut down the system in a secure way: all logged in users are notified via a
message to their terminal, and login is disabled.
This command can be run only by the root user and by those users (if any) listed in
/etc/shutdown.allow

shutdown -h 16:00 message

Schedule a shutdown for 4 PM and send a warning message to all logged in users

shutdown -a

Non-root users that are listed in /etc/shutdown.allow can use this command to
shut down the system

shutdown -f

Skip fsck on reboot

shutdown -F

Force fsck on reboot

shutdown -c

Cancel an already running shutdown

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

6/126

SysV vs Systemd init scripts

SysVvsSystemdinitscripts

System V

Systemd

/etc/init.d/service operation

Action

systemctl operation service

Perform one of these operations on

the specified service:
start
stop
restart
status
force-reload
condrestart
try-restart
reload

service service operation

(Red Hat)

rcservice operation

(SUSE)

update-rc.d service defaults

chkconfig --add service

(Debian)
(Red Hat)

Add a service at boot

update-rc.d -f service remove

chkconfig --del service

(Debian)
(Red Hat)

Remove a service at boot

When adding or removing a service at boot, startup directories will be updated by creating or deleting symlinks for the
default runlevels: K symlinks for runlevels 0 1 6, and S symlinks for runlevels 2 3 4 5.
In System V, the service will be run via the xinetd super server.
update-rc.d -f service \
start 30 2 3 4 5 . stop 70 0 1 6 .

Add a service on the default

runlevels; create S30 symlinks for
starting the service and K70
symlinks for stopping it

chkconfig --levels 245 service on

Add the service on runlevels 2 4 5

chkconfig service on

systemctl enable service

Add the service on default runlevels

chkconfig service off

systemctl disable service

Remove the service on default

runlevels

chkconfig service

systemctl is-enabled service

Check if the service is enabled on

the current runlevel

chkconfig service reset

Reset the on/off state of the

service for all runlevels to whatever
the Linux Standard Base specifies
in the init script

chkconfig service resetpriorities

Reset the start/stop priorities of

the service for all runlevels to
whatever the Linux Standard Base
specifies in the init script

chkconfig --list service

Display current configuration of

service (its status and the runlevels
in which it is active)

chkconfig --list

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

systemctl list-unit-files \
--type=service

3rd ed.

2015-07

List all active services and their

current configuration

Daniele Raffo

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/etc/inittab
/etc/inittab

/etc/inittab
# The default runlevel.
id:2:initdefault:
# Boot-time system configuration/initialization script.
# This is run first except when booting in emergency (-b) mode.
si::sysinit:/etc/init.d/rcS
# What to do in single-user mode.
~~:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin
# /etc/init.d executes the S and K scripts upon change of runlevel.
l0:0:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 3
l4:4:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 4
l5:5:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 5
l6:6:wait:/etc/init.d/rc 6
# Normally not reached, but fall through in case of emergency.
z6:6:respawn:/sbin/sulogin
# /sbin/getty invocations for the runlevels.
# Id field must be the same as the last characters of the device (after "tty").
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
/etc/inittab describes which processes are started at bootup and during normal operation; it is read and executed by
init at bootup.
All its entries have the form id:runlevels:action:process
id
runlevels

action

process

1-4 characters, uniquely identifies an entry.

For gettys and other login processes it should be equal to the suffix of the corresponding tty
Runlevels for which the specified action must be performed.
If empty, action is performed on all runlevels
respawn

Process will be restarted when it terminates

wait

Process is started at the specified runlevel and init will wait for its termination
(i.e. execution of further lines of /etc/inittab stops until the process exits)

once

Process is executed once at the specified runlevel

boot

Process is executed at system boot. Runlevels field is ignored

bootwait

Process is executed at system boot and init will wait for its termination.
Runlevels field is ignored

off

Does nothing

ondemand

Process is executed when an on-demand runlevel (A, B, C) is called

initdefault

Specifies the default runlevel to boot on. Process field is ignored

sysinit

Process is executed at system boot, before any boot or bootwait entries.

Runlevels field is ignored

powerfail

Process is executed when power goes down and an UPS kicks in.
init will not wait for its termination

powerwait

Process is executed when power goes down and an UPS kicks in.
init will wait for its termination

powerfailnow

Process is executed when power is down and the UPS battery is almost empty

powerokwait

Process is executed when power has been restored from UPS

ctrlaltdel

Process is executed when init receives a SIGINT via

kbdrequest

Process is executed when a special key combination is pressed on console

CTRL

ALT

DEL

Process to execute. If prepended by a +, utmp and wtmp accounting will not be done

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

8/126

Filesystem hierarchy
Filesystemhierarchy

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS)

/bin

Essential command binaries

/boot

Bootloader files (e.g. OS loader, kernel image, initrd)

/dev

Devices and partitions

/etc

System configuration files and scripts

/home

Home directories for users

/lib

Libraries for the binaries in /bin and /sbin, kernel modules

/lost+found

Storage directory for recovered files in this partition

/media

Mount points for removable media

/mnt

Mount points for temporary filesystems

/net

Access to directory tree on different external NFS servers

/opt

Optional, large add-on application software packages

/proc

Virtual filesystem providing kernel and processes information

/root

Home directory for the root user

/sbin

Essential system binaries, system administration commands

/srv

Data for services provided by the system

/tmp

Temporary files

/usr

User utilities and applications

/usr/bin

Non-essential command binaries (for all users)

/usr/lib

Libraries for the binaries in /usr/bin and /usr/sbin

/usr/sbin

Non-essential system binaries (daemons and services)

/usr/src

Source code

/usr/local

Software installed locally

Local software binaries

/usr/local/games

Local game binaries

/usr/local/include

Local C header files

/usr/local/lib

Local libraries for the binaries in /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin

/usr/local/man

Local manuals

/usr/local/sbin

Local system binaries

/usr/local/share

Local architecture-independent hierarchy

/usr/local/src

Local source code

/var

/usr/local/bin

Variable files (e.g. logs, caches, mail spools)

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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9/126

Partitions
Partitions

first, second, third IDE hard drive

first, second, third SATA hard drive
first, second, third partition of the first SATA drive

/dev/hda, /dev/hdb, /dev/hdc

/dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc
/dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, /dev/sda3

Partitioning limits for Linux:

Max 4 primary partitions per hard disk, or 3 primary partitions + 1 extended partition
Max 11 logical partitions (inside the extended partition) per hard disk

Partition numbers: 1-4

Partition numbers: 5-15

The superblock contains information relative to the filesystem: e.g. filesystem type, size, status, metadata structures.
The Master Boot Record (MBR) is a 512-byte program located in the first sector of the hard disk; it contains information
about hard disk partitions and has the duty of loading the OS.
Most modern filesystems use journaling; in a journaling filesystem, the journal logs changes before committing them to the
filesystem, which ensures faster recovery and less corruption in case of a crash.

fdisk /dev/sda

Disk partitioning interactive tool

sfdisk /dev/sda

Disk partitioning non-interactive tool

cfdisk

Text-based UI fdisk

gparted

GUI fdisk

fdisk -l /dev/sda

List the partition table of /dev/sda

partprobe

After fdisk operations, this command can be run to notify the OS of partition table
changes. Otherwise, these changes will take place only after reboot

mkfs -t fstype device

Create a filesystem of the specified type on a partition (i.e. format the partition).
mkfs is a wrapper utility for the actual filesystem-specific maker commands:
mkfs.ext2
aka mke2fs
mkfs.ext3
aka mke3fs
mkfs.ext4
mkfs.msdos
aka mkdosfs
mkfs.reiserfs aka mkreiserfs
mkfs.jfs
mkfs.xfs

mkfs -t ext2 /dev/sda

mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda
mke2fs /dev/sda

Create a ext2 filesystem on /dev/sda

mke2fs -j /dev/sda
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda
mke3fs /dev/sda

Create a ext3 filesystem (ext2 with journaling) on /dev/sda

mkfs -t msdos /dev/sda

mkfs.msdos /dev/sda
mkdosfs /dev/sda

Create a MS-DOS filesystem on /dev/sda

mount
cat /proc/mounts
cat /etc/mtab

Display the currently mounted filesystems.

The commands mount and umount maintain in /etc/mtab a database of currently
mounted filesystems, but /proc/mounts is authoritative

mount -a

Mount all devices listed in /etc/fstab (except those indicated as noauto)

mount -t ext3 /dev/sda /foobar

Mount a Linux-formatted disk. The mount point (directory) must exist

mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /mnt

Mount a MS-DOS filesystem floppy disk to mount point /mnt

mount /dev/fd0

Mount a floppy disk. /etc/fstab must contain an entry for /dev/fd0

umount /dev/fd0
umount /mnt

Unmount a floppy disk that was mounted on /mnt (device must not be busy)

umount -l /dev/fd0

Unmount the floppy disk as soon as it is not in use anymore

mount -o remount,rw /

Remount the root directory as read-write (supposing it was mounted read-only).

Useful to change flags (in this case, read-only to read-write) for a mounted
filesystem that cannot be unmounted at the moment

mount -o nolock 10.7.7.7:/export/ /mnt/nfs

Mount a NFS share without running NFS daemons.

Useful during system recovery

mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 cd.img /mnt/cdrom

Mount a CD-ROM ISO9660 image file like a CD-ROM

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

10/126

Filesystem types
Filesystemtypes

Partition types
0x00
0x01
0x02
0x03
0x04
0x05
0x06
0x07
0x08
0x09
0x0a
0x0b
0x0c
0x0e
0x0f
0x10
0x11
0x12
0x14
0x16
0x17
0x18
0x1b
0x1c
0x1e
0x24
0x27
0x39
0x3c
0x40
0x41
0x42
0x4d

Empty
FAT12
XENIX root
XENIX usr
FAT16 <32M
Extended
FAT16
HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
AIX
AIX bootable
OS/2 Boot Manager
W95 FAT32
W95 FAT32 (LBA)
W95 FAT16 (LBA)
W95 extended (LBA)
OPUS
Hidden FAT12
Compaq diagnostics
Hidden FAT16 <32M
Hidden FAT16
Hidden HPFS/NTFS
AST SmartSleep
Hidden W95 FAT32
Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA)
Hidden W95 FAT16 (LBA)
NEC DOS
Hidden NTFS WinRE
Plan 9
PartitionMagic recovery
Venix 80286
PPC PReP Boot
SFS
QNX4.x

0x4e
0x4f
0x50
0x51
0x52
0x53
0x54
0x55
0x56
0x5c
0x61
0x63
0x64
0x65
0x70
0x75
0x80
0x81
0x82
0x83
0x84
0x85
0x86
0x87
0x88
0x8e
0x93
0x94
0x9f
0xa0
0xa5
0xa6
0xa7

QNX4.x 2nd part

QNX4.x 3rd part
OnTrack DM
OnTrack DM6 Aux1
CP/M
OnTrack DM6 Aux3
OnTrackDM6
EZ-Drive
Golden Bow
Priam Edisk
SpeedStor
GNU HURD or SysV
Novell Netware 286
Novell Netware 386
DiskSecure Multi-Boot
PC/IX
Old Minix
Minix / old Linux
Linux swap / Solaris
Linux
OS/2 hidden C: drive
Linux extended
NTFS volume set
NTFS volume set
Linux plaintext
Linux LVM
Amoeba
Amoeba BBT
BSD/OS
IBM Thinkpad hibernation
FreeBSD
OpenBSD
NeXTSTEP

0xa8
0xa9
0xab
0xaf
0xb7
0xb8
0xbb
0xbe
0xbf
0xc1
0xc4
0xc6
0xc7
0xda
0xdb
0xde
0xdf
0xe1
0xe3
0xe4
0xeb
0xee
0xef
0xf0
0xf1
0xf4
0xf2
0xfb
0xfc
0xfd
0xfe
0xff

Darwin UFS
NetBSD
Darwin boot
HFS / HFS+
BSDI fs
BSDI swap
Boot Wizard hidden
Solaris boot
Solaris
DRDOS/sec (FAT-12)
DRDOS/sec (FAT-16 < 32M)
DRDOS/sec (FAT-16)
Syrinx
Non-FS data
CP/M / CTOS / ...
Dell Utility
BootIt
DOS access
DOS R/O
SpeedStor
BeOS fs
GPT
EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
Linux/PA-RISC boot
SpeedStor
SpeedStor
DOS secondary
VMware VMFS
VMware VMKCORE
Linux raid autodetect
LANstep
BBT

List of partition IDs and their names, as obtained by the command sfdisk -T

Most used Linux-supported filesystems

Filesystem

Properties

ext2

Linux default filesystem, offering the best performances

ext3

ext2 with journaling

ext4

Linux journaling filesystem, upgrade from ext3

Reiserfs

Journaling filesystem

XFS

Journaling filesystem, developed by SGI

JFS

Journaling filesystem, developed by IBM

Btrfs

B-tree filesystem, developed by Oracle

msdos

DOS filesystem, supporting only 8-char filenames

umsdos

Extended DOS filesystem used by Linux, compatible with DOS

fat32

MS-Windows FAT filesystem

vfat

Extended DOS filesystem, with support for long filenames

ntfs

Replacement for fat32 and vfat filesystems

minix

Native filesystem of the MINIX OS

iso9660

CD-ROM filesystem

cramfs

Compressed RAM disk

nfs

Network filesystem, used to access files on remote machines

SMB

Server Message Block, used to mount Windows network shares

proc

Pseudo filesystem, used as an interface to kernel data structures

swap

Pseudo filesystem, Linux swap area

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Swap
Swap

In Linux, the swap space is a virtual memory area (a file or a partition) used as RAM extension. Usually a partition is
preferred because of better performances concerning fragmentation and disk speed. Although listed as filesystem type
0x82, the swap partition is not a filesystem but a raw addressable memory with no structure.

fdisk

The fdisk tool can be used to create a swap partition

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024 count=512000

Create a 512-Mb swap file

mkswap /swapfile

Initialize a (already created) swap file or partition

swapon /swapfile

Enable a swap file or partition, thus telling the kernel that it can use it now

swapoff /swapfile

Disable a swap file or partition

swapon -s
cat /proc/swaps
cat /proc/meminfo
free
top

Any of these commands can be used to show the sizes of total and used swap areas

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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/etc/fstab
/etc/fstab

/etc/fstab
# <filesystem>

<mount point>

Filesystems information
<type>

<options>

<dump> <pass>

/dev/sda2
/
ext2
defaults
0 1
/dev/sdb1
/home
ext2
defaults
1 2
/dev/cdrom
/media/cdrom
auto
ro,noauto,user,exec
0 0
/dev/fd0
/media/floppy
auto
rw,noauto,user,sync
0 0
proc
/proc
proc
defaults
0 0
/dev/hda1
swap
swap
pri=42
0 0
nfsserver:/dirs
/mnt
nfs
intr
0 0
//smbserver/jdoe
/shares/jdoe
cifs
auto,credentials=/etc/smbcreds 0 0
LABEL=/boot
/boot
ext2
defaults
0 0
UUID=652b786e-b87f-49d2-af23-8087ced0c667 /test ext4 errors=remount-ro,noatime 0 0
filesystem

Device or partition. The filesystem can be identified either by its name, its label, or its UUID (Universal
Unique Identifier) which is a 128-bit hash number that is associated to the partition at its initialization

mount point

Directory on which the partition must be mounted

type

Filesystem type, or auto if detected automatically

options

dump
pass

defaults

Use the default options: rw, suid, dev, exec, auto, nouser, async

ro

Mount read-only

rw

Mount read-write

suid

Permit SUID and SGID bit operations

nosuid

Do not permit SUID and SGID bit operations

dev

Interpret block special devices on the filesystem

nodev

Do not interpret block special devices on the filesystem

auto

Mount automatically at bootup, or when the command mount -a is given

noauto

Mount only if explicitly demanded

user

Partition can be mounted by any user

nouser

Partition can be mounted only by the root user

exec

Binaries contained on the partition can be executed

noexec

Binaries contained on the partition cannot be executed

sync

Write files immediately to the partition

async

Buffer write operations and commit them later, or when device is unmounted

rsize=nnn

NFS: Size for read transfers (from server to client)

wsize=nnn

NFS: Size for write transfers (from client to server)

nfsvers=n

NFS: Version of NFS to use for transport

retry=n

NFS: Time to keep retrying a mount attempt before giving up, in minutes

timeo=n

NFS: Time after a mount attempt times out, in tenths of a second

intr

NFS: User can interrupt a mount attempt

nointr

NFS: User cannot interrupt a mount attempt (default)

hard

NFS: The system will try a mount indefinitely (default)

soft

NFS: The system will try a mount until an RPC timeout occurs

bg

NFS: The system will try a mount in the foreground, all retries occur in the background

fg

NFS: All mount attempts occur in the foreground (default)

tcp

NFS: Connect using TCP

udp

NFS: Connect using UDP

Dump (backup utility) options.

0 = do not backup
Fsck (filesystem check utility) options.
Defines in which order the filesystems should be checked; 0 = do not check

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Filesystem operations
Filesystemoperations

df

Report filesystem disk space usage

df -h

Report filesystem disk space usage in human-readable output

df /path/mydir

Shows on which device the specified directory is mounted

lsblk

List information about all available block devices

lsscsi

List information about all SCSI devices

blockdev --getbsz /dev/sda1

Get the block size of the specified partition

sync

Flush the buffer and commit all pending writes.

To improve performance of Linux filesystems, many write operations are buffered in RAM
and written at once; writes are done in any case before unmount, reboot, or shutdown

chroot /mnt/sysimage

Start a shell with /mnt/sysimage as filesystem root.

Useful during system recovery when the machine has been booted from a removable
media (which hence is defined as the filesystem root)

mknod /dev/sda

Create a directory allocating the proper inode.

Useful during system recovery when experiencing filesystem problems

hdparm

Get/set drive parameters for SATA/IDE devices

hdparm -g /dev/hda

Display drive geometry (cylinders, heads, sectors) of /dev/hda

hdparm -i /dev/hda

Display identification information for /dev/hda

hdparm -tT /dev/hda

Perform benchmarks on the /dev/hda drive

hdparm -p 12 /dev/hda

Reprogram IDE interface chipset of /dev/hda to mode 4. Use with caution!

sdparm

Access drive parameters for SCSI devices

blkid -U 652b786e-b87f-49d2-af23-8087ced0c667

Print the name of the specified partition, given its UUID

blkid -L /boot

Print the UUID of the specified partition, given its label

findfs UUID=652b786e-b87f-49d2-af23-8087ced0c667

Print the name of the specified partition, given its UUID

findfs LABEL=/boot

Print the name of the specified partition, given its label

e2label /dev/sda1

Print the label of the specified partition, given its name

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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Filesystem maintenance
Filesystemmaintenance

fsck device

Check and repair a Linux filesystem (which must be unmounted).

Corrupted files will be placed into the /lost+found of the partition.
The exit code returned is the sum of the following conditions:
0
1
2
4

No errors
File system errors corrected
System should be rebooted
File system errors left uncorrected

8
16
32
128

Operational error
Usage or syntax error
Fsck canceled by user
Shared library error

fsck is a wrapper utility for the actual filesystem-specific checker commands:

fsck.ext2 aka e2fsck
fsck.ext3
fsck.ext4
fsck.msdos
fsck.vfat
fsck.cramfs
fsck
fsck -As

Check and repair serially all filesystems listed in /etc/fstab

fsck -f /dev/sda1

Force a filesystem check on /dev/sda1 even if it thinks is not necessary

fsck -y /dev/sda1

During filesystem repair, do not ask questions and assume that the answer is
always yes

fsck.ext2 -c /dev/sda1
e2fsck -c /dev/sda1

Check a ext2 filesystem, running the badblocks command to mark all bad blocks
and add them to the bad block inode to prevent them from being allocated to
files or directories

tune2fs [options] device

Adjust tunable filesystem parameters on ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystems

tune2fs -j /dev/sda1

Add a journal to this ext2 filesystem, making it a ext3

tune2fs -C 4 /dev/sda1

Set the mount count of the filesystem to 4

tune2fs -c 20 /dev/sda1

Set the filesystem to be checked by fsck after 20 mounts

tune2fs -i 15d /dev/sda1

Set the filesystem to be checked by fsck each 15 days

Both mount-count-dependent and time-dependent checking are enabled by default for all hard drives on Linux, to avoid the
risk of filesystem corruption going unnoticed.

dumpe2fs [options] device

Dump ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem information

dumpe2fs -h /dev/sda1

Display filesystem's superblock information (e.g. number of mounts, last

checks, UUID)

dumpe2fs /dev/sda1 | grep -i superblock

Display locations of superblock (primary and backup) of filesystem

dumpe2fs -b /dev/sda1

Display blocks that are marked as bad in the filesystem

debugfs device

Interactive ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem debugger

debugfs -w /dev/sda1

Debug /dev/sda1 in read-write mode

(by default, debugfs accesses the device in read-only mode)

Many hard drives feature the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) whose purpose is to monitor the
reliability of the drive, predict drive failures, and carry out different types of drive self-tests.
The smartd daemon attempts to poll this information from all drives every 30 minutes, logging all data to syslog.
smartctl -a /dev/sda

Print SMART information for drive /dev/sda

smartctl -s off /dev/sda

Disable SMART monitoring and log collection for drive /dev/sda

smartctl -t long /dev/sda

Begin an extended SMART self-test on drive /dev/sda

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XFS, ReiserFS, CD-ROM fs

XFS,ReiserFS,CDROMfs

xfs_growfs [options] mountpoint

Expand an XFS filesystem (there must be at least one spare new disk
partition available)

xfs_info /dev/sda1
xfs_growfs -n /dev/sda1

Print XFS filesystem geometry

xfs_check [options] device

Check XFS filesystem consistency

xfs_repair [options] device

Repair a damaged or corrupt XFS filesystem

xfsdump -v silent -f /dev/tape /

Dump the root of a XFS filesystem to tape, with lowest level of verbosity.
Incremental and resumed dumps are stored in the inventory database
/var/lib/xfsdump/inventory

xfsrestore -f /dev/tape /

Restore a XFS filesystem from tape

xfsdump -J - / | xfsrestore -J - /new

Copy the contents of a XFS filesystem to another directory (without

updating the inventory database)

reiserfstune [options] device

Adjust tunable filesystem parameters on ReiserFS filesystem

debugreiserfs device

Interactive ReiserFS filesystem debugger

mkisofs -r -o cdrom.img data/

Create a CD-ROM image from the contents of the target directory.

Enable Rock Ridge extension and set all content on CD to be public
readable (instead of inheriting the permissions from the original files)

CD-ROM filesystems
Filesystem

Commands

ISO9660

mkisofs

Create a ISO9660 filesystem

mkudffs

Create a UDF filesystem

udffsck

Check a UDF filesystem

wrudf

Maintain a UDF filesystem

cdrwtool

Manage CD-RW drives (disk format, read/write speed, ...)

UDF (Universal Disk Format)

HFS (Hierarchical File System)

CD-ROM filesystem extensions
Rock Ridge

Contains the original file information (e.g. permissions, filename) for MS Windows 8.3 filenames

MS Joliet

Used to create more MS Windows friendly CD-ROMs

El Torito

Used to create bootable CD-ROMs

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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AutoFS
AutoFS

AutoFS permits automounting of filesystems, even for nonprivileged users.

AutoFS is composed of the autofs kernel module that monitors specific directories for attempts to access them, and in this
case signals the automount userspace daemon which mounts the directory when it needs to be accessed and unmounts it
when no longer accessed.

/etc/auto.master

Primary configuration file for AutoFS.

Each line is an indirect map; each map file stores the configuration for the automounting of the
subdir.
# mount point
/misc
/home

/etc/auto.misc

options
--timeout=60

Configuration file for automounting of directory /misc .

# subdir
public
cd

/etc/auto.home

map
/etc/auto.misc
/etc/auto.home

options
-ro,soft,intr
-fstype=iso9660,ro,nosuid,nodev

filesystem
ftp.example.org:/pub
:/dev/cdrom

Configuration file for automounting of directory /home .

The * wildcard matches any subdir the system attepts to access, and the & variable takes the
value of the match.
# subdir
*

options
-rw,soft,intr

filesystem
nfsserver.example.org:/home/&

The /net/nfsserver/ tree allows nonprivileged users to automatically access any nfsserver.

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RAID
RAID

RAID levels
Level

Description

Storage capacity

RAID 0

Striping (data is written across all member disks).

High I/O but no redundancy

Sum of the capacity of member disks

RAID 1

Mirroring (data is mirrored on all disks).

High redundancy but high cost

Capacity of the smaller member disk

RAID 4

Parity on a single disk.

I/O bottleneck unless coupled to write-back caching

Sum of the capacity of member disks,

minus one

RAID 5

Parity distributed across all disks.

Can sustain one disk crash

Sum of the capacity of member disks,

minus one

RAID 6

Double parity distributed across all disks.

Can sustain two disk crashes

Sum of the capacity of member disks,

minus two

RAID 10 (1+0)

Striping + mirroring.
High redundancy but high cost

Capacity of the smaller member disk

Linear RAID

Data written sequentially across all disks.

No redundancy

Sum of the capacity of member disks

mdadm -C /dev/md0 -l 5 \
-n 3 /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1 \
-x 1 /dev/sde1

Create a RAID 5 array from three partitions and a spare.

Partitions type must be set to 0xFD.
Once the RAID device has been created, it must be formatted e.g. via
mke2fs -j /dev/md0

mdadm --manage /dev/md0 -f /dev/sdd1

Mark a drive as faulty, before removing it

mdadm --manage /dev/md0 -r /dev/sdd1

Remove a drive from the RAID array.

The faulty drive can now be physically removed

mdadm --manage /dev/md0 -a /dev/sdd1

Add a drive to the RAID array.

To be run after the faulty drive has been physically replaced

mdadm --misc -Q /dev/sdd1

Display information about a device

mdadm --misc -D /dev/md0

Display detailed information about the RAID array

mdadm --misc -o /dev/md0

Mark the RAID array as readonly

mdadm --misc -w /dev/md0

Mark the RAID array as read & write

/etc/mdadm.conf

Configuration file for mdadm .

DEVICE /dev/sdb1 /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdd1 /dev/sde1
ARRAY /dev/md0 level=raid5 num-devices=3
UUID=0098af43:812203fa:e665b421:002f5e42
devices=/dev/sdb1,/dev/sdc1,/dev/sdd1,/dev/sde1

cat /proc/mdstat

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Bootloader
Bootloader

Non-GRUB bootloaders
LILO
(Linux Loader)

Obsolete. Small bootloader that can be placed in the MBR or the boot sector of a partition.
The configuration file is /etc/lilo.conf (run /sbin/lilo afterwards to validate changes).

SYSLINUX

Able to boot from FAT and NTFS filesystems e.g. floppy disks and USB drives.
Used for boot floppy disks, rescue floppy disks, and Live USBs.

ISOLINUX

Able to boot from CD-ROM ISO 9660 filesystems.

Used for Live CDs and bootable install CDs.
The CD must contain the following files:
isolinux/isolinux.bin

ISOLINUX image, from the SYSLINUX distro

boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg

ISOLINUX configuration

images/

Floppy images to boot

kernel/memdisk
The CD can be burnt with the command:
mkisofs -o output.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \
-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table [CD root dir]
PXELINUX
SYSLINUX

Able to boot from PXE (Pre-boot eXecution Environment). PXE uses DHCP or BOOTP to enable
basic networking, then uses TFTP to download a bootstrap program that loads and configures
the kernel.
Used for Linux installations from a central server or network boot of diskless workstations.
The boot TFTP server must contain the following files:

EXTLINUX

/tftpboot/pxelinux.0

PXELINUX image, from the SYSLINUX distro

/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/

Directory containing a configuration file for each machine.

A machine with Ethernet MAC address 88:99:AA:BB:CC:DD
and IP address 192.0.2.91 (C000025B in hexadecimal) will
search for its config filename in this order:
01-88-99-aa-bb-cc-dd
C000025B
C000025
C00002
C0000
C000
C00
C0
C
default

General-purpose bootloader like LILO or GRUB. Now merged with SYSLINUX.

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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GRUB configuration
GRUBconfiguration

GRUB (Grand Unified Bootloader) is the standard boot manager on modern Linux distros, which may use either version:
GRUB Legacy or GRUB 2.
GRUB Stage 1 (446 bytes), as well as the partition table (64 bytes) and the boot signature (2 bytes), is stored in the 512byte MBR. It then accesses the GRUB configuration and commands available on the filesystem, usually on /boot/grub .

/boot/grub/menu.lst or /boot/grub/grub.conf
timeout 10
default 0

GRUB Legacy configuration file

# Boot the default kernel after 10 seconds

# Default kernel is 0

# Section 0: Linux boot

title Debian
# Menu item to show on GRUB bootmenu
root
(hd0,0)
# root filesystem is /dev/hda1
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=/dev/hda1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
# Section 1: Windows boot
title
Microsoft Windows XP
root
(hd0,1)
# root filesystem is /dev/hda2
savedefault
makeactive
# set the active flag on this partition
chainloader +1
# read 1 sector from start of partition and run
# Section 2: Firmware/BIOS update from floppy disk
title
Firmware update
kernel /memdisk
# boot a floppy disk image
initrd /floppy-img-7.7.7

Common
kernel
parameters:

root=

Specify the location of the filesystem root. This is a required parameter

ro

Mount read-only on boot

quiet

Disable non-critical kernel messages during boot

debug

Enable kernel debugging

splash

Show splash image

emergency

Emergency mode: after the kernel is booted, run sulogin (single-user login)
which asks for the root password for system maintenance, then run a Bash. Does
not load init or any daemon or configuration setting.

init=/bin/bash

Run a Bash shell (may also be any other executable) instead of init

/boot/grub/grub.cfg

GRUB 2 configuration file

# Linux Red Hat

menuentry "Fedora 2.6.32" {
# Menu item to show on GRUB bootmenu
set root=(hd0,1)
# root filesystem is /dev/hda1
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.32 ro root=/dev/hda5 mem=2048M
initrd /initrd-2.6.32
}
# Linux Debian
menuentry "Debian 2.6.36-experimental" {
set root=(hd0,1)
linux (hd0,1)/bzImage-2.6.36-experimental ro root=/dev/hda6
}
# Windows
menuentry "Windows" {
set root=(hd0,2)
chainloader +1
}
This file must not be edited manually. Instead, edit the files in /etc/grub.d/ (these are scripts that will be run in order)
and the file /etc/default/grub (the configuration file for menu display settings), then run update-grub .

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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GRUB commands
GRUBcommands

The GRUB menu, presented at startup, permits to choose the OS or kernel to boot:
ENTER

Boot the selected GRUB entry

Get a GRUB command line

Edit the selected GRUB entry (e.g. to edit kernel parameters in order to boot in single-user emergency mode,
or to change IRQ or I/O port of a device driver compiled in the kernel)

Boot the GRUB entry once it has been modified

Bring up the GRUB password prompt (necessary if a GRUB password has been set)

grub-install /dev/sda

Install GRUB on first SATA drive

grub

Access the GRUB shell

/boot/grub/device.map

This file can be created to map Linux device filenames to BIOS drives:
(fd0)
(hd0)

/dev/fd0
/dev/hda

GRUB Legacy shell commands

blocklist file

Print the block list notation of a file kernel file

boot

Boot the loaded OS

lock

Lock a GRUB menu entry

cat file

Show the contents of a file

makeactive

Set active partition on root disk to

GRUB's root device

chainloader file

Chainload another bootloader

map drive1 drive2

Map a drive to another drive

cmp file1 file2

Compare two files

md5crypt

Encrypt a password in MD5 format

configfile file

Load a configuration file

module file

Load a kernel module

debug

Toggle debugging mode

modulenounzip file

Load a kernel module without

decompressing it

displayapm

Display APM BIOS information

pause message

Print a message and wait for a key

press

displaymem

Display memory configuration

quit

Quit the GRUB shell

embed stage device

Embed Stage 1.5 in the device

reboot

Reboot the system

find file

Find a file

read address

Read a 32-bit value from memory

and print it

fstest

Toggle filesystem test mode

root device

Set the current root device

geometry drive

Print information on a drive

geometry

rootnoverify device

Set the current root device without

mounting it

halt

Shut down the system

savedefault

Save current menu entry as the

default entry

help command

Show help for a command, or the

available commands

setup device

Install GRUB automatically on the

device

impsprobe

Probe the Intel Multiprocessor

Specification

testload file

Test the filesystem code on a file

initrd file

Load an initial ramdisk image file

testvbe mode

Test a VESA BIOS EXTENSION

mode

install options

Install GRUB (deprecated, use

setup instead)

uppermem kbytes

Set the upper memory size (only

for old machines)

ioprobe drive

Probe I/O ports used for a drive

vbeprobe mode

Probe a VESA BIOS EXTENSION

mode

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Package managers
Packagemanagers

Low-level package managers

Debian

Red Hat

Install a package file

dpkg -i package.deb

rpm -i package.rpm
rpm -i ftp://host/package.rpm
rpm -i http://host/package.rpm

Remove a package

dpkg -r package

rpm -e package

Upgrade a package
(and remove old versions)

rpm -U package.rpm

Upgrade a package
(only if an old version is already installed)

rpm -F package.rpm

List installed packages and their state

dpkg -l

rpm -qa

List the content of an installed package

dpkg -L package

rpm -ql package

List the content of a package file

dpkg -c package.deb

rpm -qpl package.rpm

Show the package containing a specific file

dpkg -S file

rpm -qf file

Verify an installed package

rpm -V package

Reconfigure a package

dpkg-reconfigure package

Install a package source file

rpm -i package.src.rpm

Compile a package source file

rpm -ba package.spec

High-level package managers

Install a package

apt-get install package

yum install package

yum install package.rpm
yum localinstall package.rpm

Install a package file

Remove a package

apt-get remove package

Upgrade an installed package

yum remove package

yum update package

Upgrade all installed packages

apt-get upgrade

Upgrade all installed packages and handle

dependencies with new versions

apt-get dist-upgrade

Get the source code for a package

apt-get source package

Check for broken dependencies and update

package cache

apt-get check

Fix broken dependencies

apt-get install -f

Update information on available packages

apt-get update

List all available packages

yum update

yum list

Search for a package

apt-cache search package

yum search package

Show package dependencies

apt-cache depends package

yum deplist package

Show package records

apt-cache show package

yum list package

Show information about a package

apt-cache showpkg package

yum info package

Update information about package contents

apt-file update

List the content of an uninstalled package

apt-file list package

Show the package containing a specific file

apt-file search file

Add a CD-ROM to the sources list

apt-cdrom add

yum whatprovides file

Download package and resolve dependencies

yumdownloader --resolve package

Show URLs that would be downloaded

yumdownloader --urls package

Print list of available repositories

cat /etc/apt/sources.list

yum repolist
cat /etc/yum.repos.d/*.repo

Package format

compressed with ar

compressed with cpio

High-level package managers are able to install remote packages and automatically solve dependencies.

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Package management tools

Packagemanagementtools

Text-based UI or graphical tools

Debian
aptitude

Manage packages and dependencies

Red Hat
pirut

dselect
synaptic

Other tools
Convert a RPM package to DEB and install it.
Might break the package system!

alien -i package.rpm

Convert a RPM package to cpio archive

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Backup
Backup

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

Copy the content of one hard disk over another, byte by byte

dd if=/dev/sda1 of=sda1.img

Create the image of a partition

dd if=/dev/cdrom of=cdrom.iso bs=2048

Create an ISO file from a CD-ROM, using a block size of 2 Kb

rsync -rzv /home /tmp/bak

rsync -rzv /home/ /tmp/bak/home

Synchronize the content of the home directory with the temporary

backup directory. Use recursion, compression, and verbosity.
For all transfers subsequent to the first, rsync only copies the blocks that
have changed, making it a very efficient backup solution in terms of
speed and bandwidth

rsync -avz /home [email protected]:/backup/

Synchronize the content of the home directory with the backup directory
on the remote server, using SSH. Use archive mode (operates
recursively and preserves owner, group, permissions, timestamps, and
symlinks)
Archive formats

ls | cpio -o > myarchive.cpio

ls | cpio -oF myarchive.cpio

Create a cpio archive of all files that are on the current directory

find /home/ | cpio -o > homedirs.cpio

Create a cpio archive of all users' home directories

cpio -id < myarchive.cpio

Extract all files from a cpio archive, recreating the directory structure

cpio -i -t < myarchive.cpio

List the contents of a cpio archive file without extracting it

gzip myfile

Compress a file with gzip

gunzip myfile.gz

Decompress a gzip-compressed file

gunzip -tv myfile.gz

Test the integrity of a gzip-compressed file

zcat myfile.gz

Read a gzip-compressed text file

bzip2 myfile

Compress a file with bzip2

bunzip2 myfile.bz2

Decompress a bzip2-compressed file

bzcat myfile.bz2

Read a bzip2-compressed text file

tar cvf myarc.tar mydir/

Create a tarred archive

tar cvzf myarc.tar.gz mydir/

Create a tarred gzip-compressed archive

tar xvzf myarc.tar.gz

Extract a tarred gzip-compressed archive

tar cvjf myarc.tar.bz2 mydir/

Create a tarred bzip2-compressed archive

tar xvjf myarc.tar.bz2

Extract a tarred bzip2-compressed archive

tar cvJf myarc.tar.xz mydir/

Create a tarred xz-compressed archive

tar xvJf myarc.tar.xz

Extract a tarred xz-compressed archive

tar tvf myarc.tar

List the contents of the tarred archive without extracting it

rar a myarc.rar mydir/

Create a RAR archive

unrar x myarc.rar

Extract a RAR archive

Tape libraries

Devices
Utility for magnetic tapes

Utility for tape libraries

/dev/st0

First SCSI tape device

/dev/nst0

First SCSI tape device (no-rewind device file)

mt -f /dev/nst0 asf 3

Position the tape at the start of 3rd file

mtx -f /dev/sg1 status

Display status of tape library

mtx -f /dev/sg1 load 3

Load tape from slot 3 to drive 0

mtx -f /dev/sg1 unload

Unload tape from drive 0 to original slot

mtx -f /dev/sg1 transfer 3 4

Transfer tape from slot 3 to slot 4

mtx -f /dev/sg1 inventory

Force robot to rescan all slots and drives

mtx -f /dev/sg1 inquiry

Inquiry about SCSI media device

(Medium Changer = tape library)

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Command line
Commandline

man command

Show the man page for a command

man 7 command

Show section 7 of the command man page

man man

Show information about man pages' sections:

1 Executable programs or shell commands
2 System calls (functions provided by the kernel)
3 Library calls (functions within program libraries)
4 Special files
5 File formats and conventions
6 Games
7 Miscellaneous
8 System administration commands (usually only for root)
9 Kernel routines

cd directory

Change to the specified directory

cd -

Change to the previously used directory

pwd

Print the current working directory

pushd directory

Adds the directory to the top of the directory stack, making it the new current
working directory

popd

Removes the top directory from the directory stack and changes to the new
top directory

history

Show the history of command lines executed up to this moment.

Commands prepended by a space will be executed but will not show up in the
history.
After the user logs out from Bash, history is saved into ~/.bash_history

!n

Execute command number n in the command line history

history -c

Delete command line history

watch command

Execute command every 2 seconds

watch -d -n 1 command

Execute command every second, highlighting the differences in the output

cat /etc/debian_version
cat /etc/fedora-release
cat /etc/redhat-release

(Debian)
(Fedora)
(Red Hat)

Print the version of the Linux distribution

vlock
away

Lock the virtual console (terminal)

Almost all Linux commands accept the option -v (verbose), and many commands also accept the option -vv (very verbose).

Bash directory shortcuts

.

Current directory

..

Parent directory

Home directory of current user

~jdoe

Home directory of user jdoe

~-

Previously used directory

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Text filters
Textfilters

cat myfile

Print a text file

cat myfile1 myfile2 > myfile3

Concatenate text files

cat > myfile <<EOF

line 1
line 2
line 3
EOF

Creates a Here Document, storing the lines entered in input to a file

head myfile
head -n 10 myfile

Print the first 10 lines of a text file

tail myfile
tail -n 10 myfile

Print the last 10 lines of a text file

tail -f myfile

Output appended data as the text file grows; useful to read logs in realtime

tac myfile

Print a text file in reverse, from last line to first line

fmt -w 75 myfile

Format a text file so that each line has a max width of 75 chars

pr myfile

Format a text file for a printer

nl myfile

Prepend line numbers to a text file

wc myfile

Print the number of lines, words, and bytes of a text file

join myfile1 myfile2

Join lines of two text files on a common field

paste myfile1 myfile2

Merge lines of text files

split -l 1 myfile

Split a text file into 1-line files (named xaa, xab, xac, and so on)

uniq myfile

Print the unique lines of a text file, omitting consecutive identical lines

sort myfile

Sort alphabetically the lines of a text file

expand myfile

Convert tabs into spaces

unexpand myfile

Convert spaces into tabs

od myfile

Dump a file into octal

grep foo myfile

Print the lines of a file containing foo

grep -v foo myfile

Print the lines of a file not containing foo

grep -v -e foo -e bar myfile

Print the lines of a file not containing neither foo nor bar

cut -d: -f3 myfile

Cut the lines of a file, considering : as the delimiter and printing only the 3rd field

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

Print the list of user accounts in the system

cut -c3-50 myfile

Print character 3 to 50 of each line of a file

sed s/foo/bar/ myfile

Stream Editor: Replace the first occurrence of foo with bar

sed s/foo/bar/g myfile

Replace all occurrences of foo with bar

sed -n '7,13p' myfile

Print line 7 to 13 of a text file

tr a-z A-Z <myfile

tr [:lower:] [:upper:] <myfile

Translate characters: Convert all lowercase into uppercase in a text file

tr -d 0-9 <myfile
tr -d [:digit:] <myfile

Delete all digits from a text file

zcat

Print a gzipped file on stdout

zgrep

grep search in a gzipped file

zless

less for gzipped files

zmore

more for gzipped files

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File management
Filemanagement

cp myfile myfile2

Copy a file

cp myfile mydir/

Copy a file to a directory

mv myfile myfile2

Rename a file

mv myfile mydir/

Move a file to a directory

rm myfile

Delete a file

pv myfile > myfile2

Copy a file, monitoring the progress of data through the pipe

mkdir mydir

Create a directory

mkdir -m 777 mydir

Create a directory with 777 permission

mkdir -p /tmp/mydir1/mydir2

Create a directory, and create also the parent directories if they don't exist

rmdir mydir

Delete a directory (must be empty)

touch myfile

Change access/modification timestamp on a file, creating it if it doesn't exist

ls

List the contents of the current directory

ls -d */

List directories only

stat myfile

Display file or filesystem status

stat -c %A myfile

Display file permissions

stat -c %s myfile

Display file size, in bytes

lsof

List all open files

lsof -u jdoe

List all files currently open by user jdoe

lsof -i

List open files and their sockets (equivalent to netstat -ap)

lsof -i :80

List connections of local processes on port 80

lsof [email protected]

List connections of local processes to remote host 10.0.0.3

lsof [email protected]:80

List connections of local processes to remote host 10.0.0.3 on port 80

lsof -c mysqld

List all files opened by the MySQL daemon

lsof /var/lib/mysql/mysqld.pid

List all processes which are using a specific file

Common options:
-i Prompt before overwriting/deleting files (interactive)
-f Don't ask before overwriting/deleting files (force)

File-naming wildcards (globbing)

Brace expansion

Matches zero or more characters

cp myfile.{txt,bak}

Copy myfile.txt to myfile.bak

Matches one character

touch myfile_{a,b,c}

Create myfile_a, myfile_b, myfile_c

[kxw]

Matches k, x, or w

touch {a..h}

Create 8 files named a b c d e f g h

[!kxw]

Matches any character except k, x, or w

[a-z]

Matches any character between a and z

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I/O streams
I/Ostreams

In Linux, everything is (displayed as) a file. File descriptors are automatically associated to any process launched.

File descriptors
#

Name

Type

Default device

Standard input (stdin)

Input text stream

Keyboard

Standard output (stdout)

Output text stream

Terminal

Standard error (stderr)

Output text stream

Terminal

ls | sort

Pipe the stdout of command ls to stdin of command sort

(i.e. generate a sorted list of the files on the current directory).
Piped commands run concurrently

ls > myfile
ls 1> myfile

Redirect the stdout of command ls to a file

(i.e. write on a file the content of the current directory).
File is overwritten if it already exists; to prevent this, set the Bash noclobber option
via set -o noclobber

ls >| myfile

Redirect the stdout of command ls to a file, even if noclobber is set

ls >> myfile
ls 1>> myfile

Append the stdout of command ls to a file

df 2> myfile

Redirect the stderr of command df to a file

(i.e. write any error encountered by the command df to a file)

df 2>> myfile

Append the stderr of command df to a file

mail [email protected] < myfile

Redirect a file to the stdin of command mail

(i.e. mail a file to the specified email address)

ls > myfile 2>&1

ls &> myfile

Redirect both stdout and stderr of command ls to a file

ls | tee myfile

tee reads from stdin and writes both to stdout and a file
(i.e. write content of current directory to screen and to a file at the same time)

ls | tee -a myfile

tee reads from stdin and appends both to stdout and a file

ls foo* | xargs cat

xargs calls the cat command multiple times for each argument found on stdin
(i.e. print the content of every file whose filename starts by foo)

read MYVAR

Read a variable from standard input

read -n 8 MYVAR

Read only max 8 chars from standard input

read -t 60 MYVAR

Read a variable from standard input, timing out after one minute

read -s MYVAR

Read a variable from standard input without echoing to terminal (silent mode)

echo $MYVAR

Print a variable on screen

echo -n "message"
printf "message"

Print on screen without a trailing line feed

while read -r line; do echo "Hello $line"; done < myfile

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Processes
Processes

Any application/program/script that runs on the system is a process. Signals are used for inter-process communication.
Each process has an unique PID (Process ID) and a PPID (Parent Process ID); when a process spawns a child, the process
PID is assigned to the child's PPID.
The /sbin/init process, run at bootup, has PID 1. It is the ancestor of all processes and becomes the parent of any
orphaned process. It is also unkillable; should it die, the kernel will panic.
When a child process dies, its status becomes EXIT_ZOMBIE and a SIGCHLD is sent to the parent. The parent should then
call the wait() system call to read the dead process' exit status and other info; until that moment, the child process
remains a zombie.

ps -ef
ps aux

(UNIX options)
(BSD options)

List all processes

pstree PID

Display all processes in hierarchical format.

The process tree is rooted at PID, or at init if PID is omitted

top
htop

Monitor processes in realtime

kill -9 1138

Send a signal 9 (SIGKILL) to process 1138, hence killing it

killall -9 sshd

Kill processes whose name is sshd

pgrep -u root sshd

Show processes whose name is sshd and are owned by root

pkill -9 -u root sshd

Kill processes whose name is sshd and are owned by root

jobs

List all jobs (i.e. processes whose parent is a Bash shell)

CTRL

Note: pgrep and pkill

accept the same options

Suspend a job, putting it in the stopped state (send a SIGTSTP)

bg %1

Put job #1 in the background (send a SIGCONT)

fg %1

Resume job #1 in the foreground and make it the current job (send a SIGCONT)

kill %1

Kill job #1

When a Bash shell is terminated cleanly via exit, its jobs will became child of the Bash's parent and will continue running.
When a Bash is killed instead, it issues a SIGHUP to his children which will terminate.
nohup myscript.sh

Prevent a process from terminating (receiving a SIGHUP) when its parent Bash dies

To each process is associated a niceness value: the lower the niceness, the higher the priority.
The niceness value ranges from -20 to 19, and a newly created process has a default niceness of 0.
Unprivileged users can modify a process' niceness only within the range from 1 to 19.
nice -n -5 command

Start a command with a niceness of -5. If niceness is omitted, a default value of 10 is used

renice -5 command

Change the niceness of a running command to -5

strace command

Trace the execution of a command, intercepting and printing the system calls called by a
process and the signals received by a process

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Signals
Signals

Most frequently used signals

Signal number

Signal name

Meaning

SIGHUP

Used by many daemons to reload their configuration

SIGINT

Interrupt, stop

SIGKILL

Kill unconditionally (this signal cannot be ignored)

15

SIGTERM

Terminate gracefully

18

SIGCONT

Continue execution

20

SIGTSTP

Stop execution

man 7 signal

Manual page about signals

kill -l

List all available signal names

kill -l 1

Print the name of signal number 1

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vmstat
vmstat

vmstat
procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- -----cpu----r b
swpd
free
buff cache
si
so
bi
bo
in
cs us sy id wa st
0 0
0 296724 267120 3393400
0
0
17
56
0
3 2 2 95 1 0
procs

Number of runnable processes (running or waiting for run time)

Number of processes in uninterruptible sleep

swpd
memory

free

Free memory (idle)

buff

Memory used as buffers

cache
swap

io

system

cpu

Virtual memory used (swap)

Memory used as cache

si

Memory swapped in from disk

so

Memory swapped out to disk

bi

Blocks received in from a block device

bo

Blocks sent out to a block device

in

Number of interrupts

cs

Number of context switches

us

Time spent running user code (non-kernel)

sy

Time spent running system code (kernel)

id

Time spent idle

wa
st

in Kb

in Kb/second

in blocks/second

per second

in percentage of total CPU time

Time spent waiting for I/O

Time stolen from a virtual machine

vmstat

Print a report about virtual memory statistics: processes, memory, paging, block I/O,
traps, disks, and CPU activity

vmstat 1 5

Print a report every second, for 5 times

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Resource monitoring
Resourcemonitoring

iostat

Print a report about CPU utilization, device utilization, and network filesystem.
The first report shows statistics since the system boot; subsequent reports will show
statistics since the previous report

iostat -dx 1 5

Print a detailed report for all devices every second, for 5 times

mpstat

Print a report about processor activities

mpstat 1 5

Print a report of global statistics among all processors every second, for 5 times

top

Process viewer

htop

Process viewer (ncurses UI)

iotop

Display I/O usage by processes in the system

free

Show the amount of free and used memory in the system

uptime

Show how long the system has been up, how many users are connected, and the system
load averages for the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes

sar

Show reports about system activity.

Reports are generated from data collected via the cron job sysstat and stored in
/var/log/sa/sn, where n is the day of the month

sar -n DEV

Show reports about network activity (received and transmitted packets per second)

sar -f /var/log/sa/s19 \
-s 06:00:00 -e 06:30:00

Show reports for system activity from 6 to 6:30 AM on the 19th of the month

powertop

Power consumption and power management diagnosis tool

Linux monitoring tools

collectd

System statistics collector

Nagios

System monitor and alert

MRTG

Network load monitor

Cacti

Network monitor

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Regexs
Regexs

Regular expressions
^

Beginning of a line

End of a line

\< \>

Word boundaries (beginning of line, end of line, space, or punctuation mark)

Any character, except newline

[abc]

Any of the characters specified

[a-z]

Any of the characters in the specified range

[^abc]

Any character except those specified

Zero or more times the preceding regex

One or more times the preceding regex

Zero or one time the preceding regex

{5}

Exactly 5 times the preceding regex

{3,6}

Between 3 and 6 times the preceding regex

The regex either before or after the vertical bar

( )

Grouping, to be used for back-references.

\1 expands to the first match, \2 for the second, and so on until \9

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File permissions
Filepermissions

--==regular
regularfile
file
dd==directory
directory
ll==symbolic
symboliclink
link
ss==Unix
Unixdomain
domainsocket
socket
pp==named
namedpipe
pipe
cc==character
characterdevice
devicefile
file
bb==block
blockdevice
devicefile
file

Permission

r w x

group
group

others
others

rr==read
read
ww==write
write
xx==execute
execute
ss==setUID
setUIDand
andexecute
execute
SS==setUID
setUIDand
andnot
notexecute
execute

rr==read
read
ww==write
write
xx==execute
execute
ss==setGID
setGIDand
andexecute
execute
SS==setGID
setGIDand
andnot
notexecute
execute

rr==read
read
ww==write
write
xx==execute
execute
tt==sticky
stickyand
andexecute
execute
TT==sticky
stickyand
andnot
notexecute
execute

Command

user: 400

chmod u+r

group: 40

chmod g+r

others: 4

chmod o+r

user: 200

chmod u+w

group: 20

chmod g+w

others: 2

chmod o+w

user: 100

chmod u+x

group: 10

chmod g+x

others: 1

chmod o+x

SetUID (SUID)

4000

SetGID (SGID)
Sticky

Write

Execute

r w x

user
user(owner)
(owner)

Octal value

Read

r w x

Effect on file

Effect on directory

Can open and read the file

Can list directory content

Can modify the file

Can create, delete, and rename files in

the directory

Can execute the file (binary

or script)

Can enter the directory, and search files

within (by accessing a file's inode)

chmod u+s

Executable is run with the

privileges of the file's owner

No effect

2000

chmod g+s

Executable is run with the

privileges of the file's group

All new files and subdirectories inherit

the directory's group ID

1000

chmod +t

No effect

Only the file's or the directory's owner

can delete or rename a file inside

chmod 710 file

chmod u=rwx,g=x file

Set read, write, and execute permission to user; set execute permission to group

chmod 660 file

chmod ug=rw file

Set read and write permission to user and group

chmod +wx file

Add write and execute permission to everybody (user, group, and others)

chmod -R o+r file

Add recursively read permission to others

chmod o-x file

Remove execute permission from others

chown root file

Change the owner of file to root

chown root:mygroup file

Change the owner of file to root, and the group of file to mygroup

chgrp mygroup file

Change the group of file to mygroup

The chmod, chown, and chgrp commands accept the option -R to recursively change properties of files and directories.

umask 022

Set the permission mask to 022, hence masking write permission for group and others.
Linux default permissions are 0666 for files and 0777 for directories. These base permissions are
ANDed with the inverted umask value to calculate the final permissions of a new file or directory.

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File attributes
Fileattributes

chattr +mode file

Add a file or directory attribute

chattr -mode file

Remove a file or directory attribute

chattr =mode file

Set a file or directory attribute, removing all other attributes

lsattr file

List file or directory attributes

Mode

Effect

File can only be open in append mode for writing

When file is accessed, its atime record is not modified

File is automatically compressed on-the-fly on disk by the kernel

File is not subject to copy-on-write updates (only for filesystems which perform copy-on-write)

File will not be backed up by the dump program

When directory is modified, changes are written synchronously on disk (equivalent to dirsync mount option)

File is using extents for mapping the blocks on disk

Compression error on file (attribute is used by experimental compression patches)

File is storing its blocks in units of filesystem blocksize instead of in units of sectors, and was larger than 2 Tb

File is immutable: cannot be modified, linked, or changed permissions

Directory is being indexed using hashed trees

All file data is written to the ext3 or ext4 journal before being written to the file itself

File has data stored inline within the inode itself

File will be securely wiped by zeroing when deleted

When file is modified, changes are written synchronously on disk (equivalent to sync mount option)

File won't have EOF partial block fragment merged with other files (only for filesystems supporting tail-merging)

Directory is the top of directory hierarchies for the purpose of the Orlov block allocator

After file is deleted, it can be undeleted

Raw contents of compressed file can be accessed directly (attribute is used by experimental compression patches)

Compressed file is dirty (attribute is used by experimental compression patches)

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Links
Links

A Linux directory contains a list of structures which are associations between a filename and an inode.
An inode contains all file metadata: file type, permissions, owner, group, size, access/change/modification/deletion times,
number of links, attributes, ACLs, and address where the actual file content (data) is stored.
An inode does not contain the name of the file; this information is stored in the directory the file is in.

ls -i

Show a listing of the directory with the files' inode numbers

df -i

Report filesystem inode usage

Hard link

Symbolic or soft link

Definition

A link to an already existing inode

A path to a filename; a shortcut

Command to create it

ln myfile hardlink

ln -s myfile symlink

Is the link still valid if the original

file is moved or deleted?

Yes (because the link references the

inode the original file pointed to)

No (the path now references a nonexistent file)

Can link to a file in another

filesystem?

No (because inode numbers make sense

Yes
only within a determinate filesystem)

Can link to a directory?

No

Yes

Link permissions

Reflect the original file's permissions,

even when these are changed

rwxrwxrwx

Link attributes

- (regular file)

l (symbolic link)

Inode number

The same as the original file

A new inode number

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Find system files

Findsystemfiles

find / -name "foo*"

Find all files, starting from the root dir, whose name start with foo

find / -name "foo*" -print

Find all files whose name start with foo and print their path

find / -name "foo*" -exec chmod 700 {} \;

Find all files whose name start with foo and apply permission 700 to
all of them

find / -name "foo*" -ok chmod 700 {} \;

Find all files whose name start with foo and apply permission 700 to
all of them, asking for confirmation before each file

find / -perm -4000 -type f

Find all files with SUID set

(a possible security risk, because a shell with SUID root is a backdoor)

find / -perm -2000 -type f

Find all files with SGID set

locate ls
slocate ls

Locate the command ls by searching the file index, not by actually

walking the filesystem. The search is quick but will only held results
relative to the last rebuilding of the file index (/etc/updatedb.conf)

updatedb

Build the file index (/etc/updatedb.conf)

which command

Locate a binary executable command within the PATH

which -a command

Locate all matches of command, not only the first one

whereis command

Locate the binary, source, and manpage files for command

whereis -b command

Locate the binary files for command

whereis -s command

Locate the source files for command

whereis -m command

Locate the manpage files for command

file myfile

Analyze the content of a file or directory

type command

Determine if command is a program or a builtin (i.e. a feature internal

to the shell)

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Shell environment
Shellenvironment

Bash shell event

Files run

When a login shell is launched

/etc/profile
~/.bash_profile
~/.bash_login
~/.profile

When a login shell exits

~/.bash_logout

When a non-login shell is launched

/etc/bash.bashrc
/etc/bashrc
~/.bashrc

The shell executes the

system-wide profile file, then
the first of the 3 user files
that exists and is readable

MYVAR=value
((MYVAR=value))

Set a variable

MYVAR=$((MYVAR+1))
((MYVAR=MYVAR+1))
((MYVAR+=1))
((MYVAR++))
let "MYVAR=MYVAR+1"
let "MYVAR+=1"
let MYVAR++

Increment a numeric variable

unset MYVAR

Delete a variable

export MYVAR

Export a variable so it can be seen by Bash child processes

set ${MYVAR:=value}
MYVAR=${MYVAR:-value}

Set a variable, if it is not already set (i.e. does not exist) or is null

echo $MYVAR

Print the value of a variable

echo ${MYVAR:-message}

If variable exists and is not null, print its value, otherwise print a message

echo ${MYVAR:+message}

If variable exists and is not null, print a message, otherwise print nothing

echo $((3+3))

Evaluate an expression and print the result

set

Display all Bash variables

set -o

Show the status of all Bash options

set -option
set -o long_option

Enable a Bash option

set +option
set +o long_option

Disable a Bash option

set -v
set -o verbose

Enable printing of shell input lines as they are read

set -x
set -o xtrace

Enable printing of command traces before execution of each command

env

Display all environment variables

typeset -f

Show functions defined in the current Bash session

alias ls='ls -lap'

Set up an alias for the ls command

alias

Show defined aliases

\ls
/bin/ls

Run the non-aliased version of the ls command

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Scripting
Scripting

Scripts must start with the shebang line #!/bin/bash indicating the location of the script interpreter.
Script execution
source myscript.sh
. myscript.sh

Script execution takes place in the same shell. Variables defined and
exported in the script are seen by the shell when the script exits

bash myscript.sh
./myscript.sh (file must be executable)

Script execution spawns a new shell

command &

Execute a command in the background

command1; command2

Execute command 1 and then command 2

command1 && command2

Execute command 2 only if command 1 executed successfully (exit status = 0)

command1 || command2

Execute command 2 only if command 1 did not execute successfully (exit status > 0)

(command1 && command2)

Group commands together for evaluation priority

exit

Terminate a script

exit n

Terminate a script with the specified exit status number n. By convention, a 0 exit
status is used if the script executed successfully, non-zero otherwise

if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
echo "Success"
else
echo "Fail"
fi

Evaluate whether the last executed command exited successfully or failed

function myfunc { commands }

myfunc() { commands }

Define a function

myfunc arg1 arg2 ...

Call a function

MYVAR=`date`
MYVAR=$(date)

Assign to a variable the output resulting from a command

for DIR in `ls`

do
rmdir $DIR
done

Loop through a list of directories

zenity

Display GTK+ graphical dialogs for user messages and input

command | ts

Prepend a timestamp to each line of a command's output

Bash built-in variables

$0

Script name

$n

nth argument passed to the script or function

$#

Number of arguments passed to the script or function

$?

Exit status of the last executed command

${PIPESTATUS[n]}

Exit status of the nth command in the executed pipeline

$$

PID of the script in which this variable is called

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Flow control
Flowcontrol

test $MYVAR = "value" && command

[ $MYVAR = "value" ] && command
if [ $MYVAR = "value" ]; then command; fi

Perform a test; if it holds true, the command is executed

Test operators
Integer operators

File operators

Expression operators

-eq

Equal to

-e or -a

Exists

-a

Logical AND

-ne

Not equal to

-d

Is a directory

-o

Logical OR

-lt

Less than

-b

Is a block special file

Logical NOT

-le

Less than or equal to

-c

Is a character special file

\(

-gt

Greater than

-f

Is a regular file

Greater than or equal to

-r

Is readable

String operators

-w

Is writable

-z

Is zero length

-x

Is executable

-n or nothing

Is non-zero length

-s

Is non-zero length

=or ==

Is equal to

-u

Is SUID

!=

Is not equal to

-g

Is SGID

<

Is alphabetically before

-k

Is sticky

>

Is alphabetically after

-h

Is a symbolic link

-ge

expr $MYVAR = "39 + 3"

Evaluate an expression (i.e. the variable will hold the value 42)

expr string : regex

Return the length of the substring matching the regex

expr string : \(regex\)

Return the substring matching the regex

\)

Priority

Evaluation operators
=

Equal to

Plus

!=

Not equal to

Minus

string : regex
match string regex

String matches regex

<

Less than

\*

Multiplied by

substr string pos length

Substring

<=

Less than or equal to

Divided by

index string chars

Index of any chars in string

>

Greater than

Remainder

length string

String length

>=

Greater than or equal to

Tests
if [test 1]
then
[command block 1]
elif [test 2]
then
[command block 2]
else
[command block 3]
fi

case $VAR in
[pattern 1]) [command 1] ;;
[pattern 2]) [command 2] ;;
*) [command 3]
esac

Loops
while [test]
do [command block]
done

for I in [list]
do [command operating on $I]
done

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

break

Terminate a loop

continue

Jump to the next iteration

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Text processors
Textprocessors

vi

Vi, text editor

vim

Vi Improved, an advanced text editor

vimdiff file1 file2

Compare two text files

pico

Pico, simple text editor

nano

Nano, simple text editor (GNU clone of Pico)

emacs

GNU Emacs, a GUI text editor

more

Text pager (obsolete)

less

Text pager

less pager commands

h

Help

Go to first line in the file

Go to last line in the file

Print the end of the file, moving forward as the file grows

-N

Show line numbers

-n

Don't show line numbers

Show information about the file

Quit

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Vi
Vi

Go to Command mode

ESC

Insert text before cursor

Insert text after line

Append text after cursor

Append text after line

and go to Insert mode

Move to next word

Move to end of line

Move to beginning of word

1G

Move to beginning of file i.e. to line 1

Move to end of word

Move to end of file

Move to beginning of line

CTRL

RETURN

Make current line the top line of the screen

Show current line and column number

yy

Copy current line

Paste buffer after current line

Paste buffer before current line

yyp

Duplicate current line

Delete current character

Delete before current character

Delete from current character to end of line

dd

Delete current line

7dd

Delete 7 lines (almost any command can be prepended by a number to repeat it a number of times)

Undo last command (Vi can undo the last command only, Vim is able to undo several commands)

Repeat last text-changing command

/string

Search for string forward

Search for next match of string

?string

Search for string backwards

Search for previous match of string

:5,40s/^/#/

Add a hash character at the beginning of each line, from line 5 to 40

!!program

Replace line with output from program

:r file

Read file and insert it after current line

:X

Encrypt current document (when opening it again, Vi will prompt for the key to encrypt it)

:w file

Write to file

:wq
:x

Save changes and quit

:q

Quit (only if there are no changes)

:q!

Abandon all changes and quit

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Vi options
Vioptions

Option

Effect

ai

Turn on auto indentation

all

Print all option to screen

ap

Print line after commands d c J m :s t u

aw

Automatic write on commands :n ! e# ^^ :rew ^} :tag

bf

Discard control characters from input

dir=tmpdir

Set tmpdir as directory for temporary work files

eb

Precede error messages with a bell

ht=8

Set terminal tab as 8 spaces

ic

Ignore case when searching

lisp

Modify brackets for Lisp compatibility

list

Show tabs and end-of-line characters

magic

Allow pattern matching with special characters

mesg

Enable UNIX terminal messaging

nu

Show line numbers

opt

Speeds output by eliminating automatic Return

para=LIlPLPPPQPbpP

Set macro to start paragraphs for { } operators

prompt

Prompt : for command input

re

Simulate smart terminal on dumb terminal

remap

Accept macros within macros

report

Show largest size of changes on status line

ro

Make file readonly

scroll=11

Set screen size as 11 lines

sh=/bin/bash

Set shell escape to /bin/bash

showmode

Show current mode on status line

slow

Postpone display updates during inserts

sm

Show matching parentheses when typing

sw=8

Set shift width to 8 characters

tags=/usr/lib/tags

Set path for files checked for tags

term

Print terminal type

terse

Print terse messages

timeout

Eliminate 1-second time limit for macros

tl=3

Set significance of tags beyond 3 characters (0 = all)

ts=8

Set tab stops to 8 for text input

wa

Inhibit normal checks before write commands

warn

Warn "No write since last change"

window=24

Set text window as 24 lines

wm=0

Set automatic wraparound 0 spaces from right margin

:set option
turn on an option
:set nooption
turn off an option
Options can also be set permanently by including them in ~/.exrc

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www.crans.org/~raffo

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SQL
SQL

SHOW DATABASES;

Show all existing databases

SHOW TABLES;

Show all tables from the selected database

USE CompanyDatabase;

Choose which database to use

SELECT DATABASE();

Show which database is currently selected

CREATE TABLE customers (

cusid INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
firstname VARCHAR(32), lastname VARCHAR(32), dob DATE,
city VARCHAR(24), zipcode VARCHAR(5));

Create tables

CREATE TABLE payments (

payid INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
date DATE, fee INT, bill VARCHAR(128), cusid INT,
CONSTRAINT FK1 FOREIGN KEY (cusid) REFERENCES customers(cusid));

CREATE INDEX lastname_index ON customers(lastname);

ALTER TABLE customers ADD INDEX lastname_index (lastname);

Create a field index for fast search

DESCRIBE customers;

Describe the columns of a table

DROP TABLE payments;

Delete a table

DROP DATABASE CompanyDatabase;

Delete a database

ALTER TABLE customers MODIFY city VARCHAR(32);

Modify the type of a field

INSERT INTO customers (firstname,lastname,dob)

VALUES ('Arthur','Dent',1959-08-01), ('Trillian','',1971-03-19);

Insert a new record in a table

DELETE FROM customers WHERE firstname LIKE 'Zaphod';

Delete some records in a table

UPDATE customers SET city = 'London' WHERE zipcode = '00789';

Modify data

CREATE VIEW cust_view AS

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE city != 'London';

Create a view

COMMIT;

Commit changes to the database

ROLLBACK;

Rollback the current transaction, canceling

any changes done during it

START TRANSACTION;
BEGIN;

Disable autocommit for this transaction,

until a COMMIT or ROLLBACK is issued

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SQL SELECTs
SQLSELECTs

SELECT * FROM customers;

Select all columns from the

customers table

SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers LIMIT 5;

Select first and last name of

customers, showing 5 records only

SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers WHERE zipcode = '00123';

Select first and last name of

customers whose zip code is 00123

SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers WHERE zipcode IS NOT NULL;

Select first and last name of

customers with a recorded zip code

SELECT * FROM customers ORDER BY lastname, firstname;

Select customers in alphabetical

order by last name, then first name

SELECT * FROM customers ORDER by zipcode DESC;

Select customers, sorting them by

zip code in reverse order

SELECT firstname, lastname, TIMESTAMPDIFF(YEAR,dob,CURRENT_DATE) as AGE

FROM customers;

Select first name, last name, and

calculated age of customers

SELECT DISTINCT city FROM customers;

Show all cities but retrieving each

unique output record only once

SELECT city, COUNT(*) FROM customers GROUP BY city;

Show all cities and the number of

customers in each city. NULL
values are not counted

SELECT cusid, SUM(fee) FROM payments GROUP BY cusid;

Show all fee payments grouped by

customer ID, summed up

SELECT cusid, AVG(fee) FROM payments GROUP BY cusid

HAVING AVG(fee)<50;

Show the average of fee payments

grouped by customer ID, where this
average is less than 50

SELECT MAX(fee) FROM payments;

Show the highest fee in the table

SELECT cusid FROM payments t1 WHERE fee =

(SELECT MAX(t2.fee) FROM payments t2 WHERE t1.cusid=t2.cusid);

Show the customer ID that pays the

highest fee (via a subquery)

SELECT @maxfee:=MAX(fee) FROM payments;

SELECT cusid FROM payments t1 WHERE fee = @maxfee;

Show the customer ID that pays the

highest fee (via a user set variable)

SELECT cusid FROM payments WHERE fee >

ALL (SELECT fee FROM payments WHERE cusid = 4242001;

Show the customer IDs that pay

fees higher than the highest fee
paid by customer ID 4242001

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE firstname LIKE 'Trill%';

Select customers whose first name

starts with "Trill"

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE firstname LIKE 'F_rd';

Select matching customers;

the _ matches a single character

SELECT * FROM customers WHERE firstname REGEXP '^Art.*r$';

Select customers whose first name

matches the regex

SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers WHERE zipcode = '00123'

UNION
SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers WHERE cusid > 4242001;

Select customers that satisfy any of

the two requirements

SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers WHERE zipcode = '00123'

INTERSECT
SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers WHERE cusid > 4242001;

Select customers that satisfy both

of the two requirements

SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers WHERE zipcode = '00123'

EXCEPT
SELECT firstname, lastname FROM customers WHERE cusid > 4242001;

Select customers that satisfy the

first requirement but not the second

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SQL JOINs
SQLJOINs

SELECT customers.lastname, payments.bill

FROM customers, payments WHERE customers.cusid = payments.cusid;

Perform a join (aka inner join) of

two tables to select data that are in
a relationship

SELECT customers.lastname, payments.bill

FROM customers NATURAL JOIN payments;
SELECT customers.lastname, payments.bill
FROM customers JOIN payments USING (cusid);
SELECT customers.lastname, payments.bill
FROM customers JOIN payments ON customers.cusid = payments.cusid;

SELECT * FROM customers CROSS JOIN payments;

Perform a Cartesian product (aka

cross join) of two tables

SELECT customers.lastname, payments.bill

FROM customers LEFT JOIN payments ON customers.cusid = payments.cusid;

Perform a left join (aka left outer

join) of two tables, returning
records matching the join condition
and also records in the left table
with unmatched values in the right
table

SELECT customers.lastname, payments.bill

FROM customers RIGHT JOIN payments ON customers.cusid = payments.cusid;

Perform a right join (aka right outer

join) of two tables, returning
records matching the join condition
and also records in the right table
with unmatched values in the left
table

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MySQL
MySQL

SELECT Host,User FROM mysql.user;

List MySQL users

CREATE USER 'john'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'p4ssw0rd';

Create a MySQL user, setting his

password

DROP USER 'john'@'localhost';

Delete a MySQL user

SET PASSWORD FOR 'john'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('p4ssw0rd');

Set a password for a MySQL user

SET PASSWORD FOR 'john'@'localhost' = '*7E684A3DF6273CD1B6DE53';

Set a password for a MySQL user,

specifying its hash instead of the plaintext

SHOW GRANTS FOR 'john'@'localhost';

Show permissions for a user

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON MyDatabase.* TO 'john'@'localhost';

Grant permissions to a user

REVOKE ALL PRIVILEGES FROM 'john'@'localhost';

Revoke permissions from a user

GRANT SELECT ON *.* TO 'john'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'p4ssw0rd';

Create a MySQL user and set his grants

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Reload and commit the grant tables; to be

used after any GRANT command

USE MyDatabase; SOURCE mydbbak.sql;

Restore a database from a dump file

USE MyDatabase; LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'foofile' INTO TABLE foo;

Populate a table with data from file (one

record per line, values separated by tabs)

SELECT * FROM MyDatabase.mytable;

SELECT * FROM MyDatabase.mytable\g

Send a statement to the server

SELECT * FROM MyDatabase.mytable\G

Display result in vertical format, showing

each record in multiple rows

SELECT /*!99999 my comment*/ * FROM MyDatabase.mytable;

Insert a comment in the statement

\s

Print status information about the server

and the current connection

\c

Cancel current input

SELECT VERSION();

Show version of MySQL server

SELECT CURDATE();
SELECT CURRENT_DATE;

Show current date

SELECT CURTIME();
SELECT CURRENT_TIME;

Show current time

SELECT NOW();

Show current date and time

SELECT USER();

Show current logged-in user@host

\! command

Run a shell command

TEE logfile

Log all I/O of the current MySQL session

to the specified logfile

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MySQL status
MySQLstatus

SHOW VARIABLES;
SHOW SESSION VARIABLES;
SHOW LOCAL VARIABLES;

Print session variables (affecting the current connection only)

SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES;

Print global variables (affecting the global operations on the server)

SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'sort_buffer_size';

Print session variables that match the given pattern

SET
SET
SET
SET
SET
SET

Set a session variable

sort_buffer_size=10000;
SESSION sort_buffer_size=10000;
LOCAL sort_buffer_size=10000;
@@sort_buffer_size=10000;
@@session.sort_buffer_size=10000;
@@local.sort_buffer_size=10000;

SET GLOBAL sort_buffer_size=10000;

SET @@global.sort_buffer_size=10000;

Set a global variable

SHOW STATUS;
SHOW SESSION STATUS;
SHOW LOCAL STATUS;

Print session status (concerning the current connection only)

SHOW GLOBAL STATUS;

Print global status (concerning the global operations on the server)

SHOW WARNINGS;

Print warnings, errors and notes resulting from the most recent
statement in the current session that generated messages

SHOW ERRORS;

Print errors resulting from the most recent statement in the current
session that generated messages

SHOW TABLE STATUS;

Print information about the database e.g. engine (InnoDB or

MyISAM), rows, indexes, data

SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS;

Print statistics concerning the InnoDB engine

SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST;

Print the list of threads running on the system

SELECT table_schema "Name",

sum(data_length+index_length)/1024 "Size Kb"
FROM information_schema.TABLES
GROUP BY table_schema;

Display the sizes of all databases in the system

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MySQL tools
MySQLtools

mysqld_safe

Start the MySQL server (mysqld) with safety features

such as restarting the server if errors occur and logging
runtime information to the error logfile. Recommended

mysql_install_db (deprecated)
mysqld --initialize

Initialize the MySQL data directory, create system tables,

and set up an administrative account

mysql_secure_installation

Set password for root, remove anonymous users, disable

remote root login, and remove test database

mysql -u root -p

Login to MySQL as root and prompt for the password

mysql -u root -ps3cr3t

Login to MySQL as root with password s3cr3t

mysql -u root -p -e 'CREATE DATABASE MyDatabase'

Run a SQL command via MySQL

mysqldump -u root -p --all-databases > alldbsbak.sql

Backup all databases to a dump file

mysqldump -u root -p MyDatabase > mydbbak.sql

Backup a database to a dump file

mysql -u root -p < alldbsbak.sql

Restore all databases from a dump file

mysql -u root -p MyDatabase < mydbbak.sql

Restore a database from a dump file

mysql_upgrade -u root -p

Check all tables in all databases for incompatibilities with

the current version of MySQL

mysqlcheck [options]

Perform table maintenance. Each table is locked while is

being processed. Options are:
--check
Check table for errors (default)
--analyze
Analyze table
--optimize Optimize table
--repair
Repair table; this can fix almost anything
except unique keys that are not unique

mysqlcheck --check db table

Check the specified table of the specified database

mysqlcheck --check --databases db1 db2

Check the specified databases

mysqlcheck --check --all-databases

Check all databases

mysqltuner.pl

Review the current MySQL installation for performances

and stability

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X Window
XWindow

Display Managers
Display Manager

xdm

Configuration files
/etc/x11/xdm/Xaccess

Control inbound requests from

remote hosts

/etc/x11/xdm/Xresources

Configuration settings for X

applications and the login screen

/etc/x11/xdm/Xservers

X
Display
Manager

Display Manager greeting screen

/etc/x11/xdm/Xsession

Association of X displays with

local X server software, or with X Defined in /etc/x11/xdm/Xresources
by the line:
terminals via XDMCP
xlogin*greeting: \
Script launched by xdm after
Debian GNU/Linux (CLIENTHOST)
login

/etc/x11/xdm/Xsetup_0

Script launched before the

graphical login screen

/etc/x11/xdm/xdm-config

Association of all xdm

configuration files

gdm

GNOME
Display
Manager

/etc/gdm/gdm.conf or /etc/gdm/custom.conf

Configured via gdmsetup

kdm

KDE
Display
Manager

/etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc

Configured via kdm_config

/etc/init.d/xdm start
/etc/init.d/gdm start
/etc/init.d/kdm start
xorgconfig
Xorg -configure

Start the X Display Manager

(Debian)
(Red Hat)

xorgcfg
system-config-display

(Debian)
(Red Hat)

Configure X (text mode)

Configure X (graphical mode)

X -version

Show which version of X is running

xdpyinfo

Display information about the X server

xwininfo

Display information about windows

xhost + 10.3.3.3
xhost - 10.3.3.3

Add or remove 10.3.3.3 to the list of hosts allowed to make X connections to

the local machine

switchdesk gde

Switch to the GDE Display Manager at runtime

/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Configuration file for X

~/.Xresources

Configuration settings for X applications, in the form

program*resource: value

$DISPLAY

Environment variable defining the display name of the X server, in the form
hostname:displaynumber.screennumber

/etc/inittab instructs init to launch XDM at runlevel 5:

x:5:respawn:/usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon

/etc/sysconfig/desktop defines GNOME as the default

Display Environment and Display Manager:

desktop="gde"
displaymanager="gdm"

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X Window tools
XWindowtools

xdotool

X automation tool

xdotool getwindowfocus

Get the ID of the currently focused window (usually the terminal where
this command is typed)

xdotool selectwindow

Pop up a X cursor and get the ID of the window selected by it

xdotool key --window 12345678 Return

Simulate a Return keystroke inside window ID 12345678

xprop

X property displayer

xrandr --output eDP1 --right-of VGA1

Extend the screen on an additional VGA physical screen situated to the left

xsel

Manipulate the X selection (primary, secondary, and clipboard)

xsel -b < file

Put the contents of a file in the X clipboard

xsel -b -a < file2

Append the contents of a file to the X clipboard

xsel -b -o

Output onscreen the contents of the X clipboard

mkfontdir

Catalog the newly installed fonts in the new directory

xset fp+ /usr/local/fonts

Dynamically add the new installed fonts in /usr/local/fonts to the X

server

xfs

Start the X font server

fc-cache

Install fonts and build font information cache

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

51/126

X11 keysim codes

X11keysimcodes

Main
BackSpace
Tab
Linefeed
Clear
Return
Pause
Scroll_Lock
Sys_Req
Escape
Delete

Latin 1
ff08
ff09
ff0a
ff0b
ff0d
ff13
ff14
ff15
ff1b
ffff

Cursor control
Home
Left
Up
Right
Down
Prior
Page_Up
Next
Page_Down
End
Begin

ff50
ff51
ff52
ff53
ff54
ff55
ff55
ff56
ff56
ff57
ff58

Misc functions
Select
Print
Execute
Insert
Undo
Redo
Menu
Find
Cancel
Help
Break
Mode_switch
script_switch
Num_Lock

ff60
ff61
ff62
ff63
ff65
ff66
ff67
ff68
ff69
ff6a
ff6b
ff7e
ff7e
ff7f

Modifiers
Shift_L
Shift_R
Control_L
Control_R
Caps_Lock
Shift_Lock
Meta_L
Meta_R
Alt_L
Alt_R
Super_L
Super_R
Hyper_L
Hyper_R

ffe1
ffe2
ffe3
ffe4
ffe5
ffe6
ffe7
ffe8
ffe9
ffea
ffeb
ffec
ffed
ffee

space
exclam
quotedbl
numbersign
dollar
percent
ampersand
apostrophe
quoteright
parenleft
parenright
asterisk
plus
comma
minus
period
slash
0 - 9
colon
semicolon
less
equal
greater
question
at
A - Z
bracketleft
backslash
bracketright
asciicircum
underscore
grave
quoteleft
a - z
braceleft
bar
braceright
asciitilde
nobreakspace
exclamdown
cent
sterling
currency
yen
brokenbar
section
diaeresis
copyright
ordfeminine
guillemotleft
notsign
hyphen
registered
macron
degree
plusminus
twosuperior
threesuperior
acute
mu
paragraph
periodcentered
cedilla
onesuperior
masculine
guillemotright
onequarter
onehalf
threequarters

0020
0021
0022
0023
0024
0025
0026
0027
0027
0028
0029
002a
002b
002c
002d
002e
002f
0030 - 0039
003a
003b
003c
003d
003e
003f
0040
0041 - 005a
005b
005c
005d
005e
005f
0060
0060
0061 - 007a
007b
007c
007d
007e
00a0
00a1
00a2
00a3
00a4
00a5
00a6
00a7
00a8
00a9
00aa
00ab
00ac
00ad
00ae
00af
00b0
00b1
00b2
00b3
00b4
00b5
00b6
00b7
00b8
00b9
00ba
00bb
00bc
00bd
00be

Latin 2
questiondown
Agrave
Aacute
Acircumflex
Atilde
Adiaeresis
Aring
AE
Ccedilla
Egrave
Eacute
Ecircumflex
Ediaeresis
Igrave
Iacute
Icircumflex
Idiaeresis
ETH
Eth
Ntilde
Ograve
Oacute
Ocircumflex
Otilde
Odiaeresis
multiply
Oslash
Ooblique
Ugrave
Uacute
Ucircumflex
Udiaeresis
Yacute
THORN
Thorn
ssharp
agrave
aacute
acircumflex
atilde
adiaeresis
aring
ae
ccedilla
egrave
eacute
ecircumflex
ediaeresis
igrave
iacute
icircumflex
idiaeresis
eth
ntilde
ograve
oacute
ocircumflex
otilde
odiaeresis
division
oslash
ooblique
ugrave
uacute
ucircumflex
udiaeresis
yacute
thorn
ydiaeresis

00bf
00c0
00c1
00c2
00c3
00c4
00c5
00c6
00c7
00c8
00c9
00ca
00cb
00cc
00cd
00ce
00cf
00d0
00d0
00d1
00d2
00d3
00d4
00d5
00d6
00d7
00d8
00d8
00d9
00da
00db
00dc
00dd
00de
00de
00df
00e0
00e1
00e2
00e3
00e4
00e5
00e6
00e7
00e8
00e9
00ea
00eb
00ec
00ed
00ee
00ef
00f0
00f1
00f2
00f3
00f4
00f5
00f6
00f7
00f8
00f8
00f9
00fa
00fb
00fc
00fd
00fe
00ff

Aogonek
breve
Lstroke
Lcaron
Sacute
Scaron
Scedilla
Tcaron
Zacute
Zcaron
Zabovedot
aogonek
ogonek
lstroke
lcaron
sacute
caron
scaron
scedilla
tcaron
zacute
doubleacute
zcaron
zabovedot
Racute
Abreve
Lacute
Cacute
Ccaron
Eogonek
Ecaron
Dcaron
Dstroke
Nacute
Ncaron
Odoubleacute
Rcaron
Uring
Udoubleacute
Tcedilla
racute
abreve
lacute
cacute
ccaron
eogonek
ecaron
dcaron
dstroke
nacute
ncaron
odoubleacute
rcaron
uring
udoubleacute
tcedilla
abovedot

01a1
01a2
01a3
01a5
01a6
01a9
01aa
01ab
01ac
01ae
01af
01b1
01b2
01b3
01b5
01b6
01b7
01b9
01ba
01bb
01bc
01bd
01be
01bf
01c0
01c3
01c5
01c6
01c8
01ca
01cc
01cf
01d0
01d1
01d2
01d5
01d8
01d9
01db
01de
01e0
01e3
01e5
01e6
01e8
01ea
01ec
01ef
01f0
01f1
01f2
01f5
01f8
01f9
01fb
01fe
01ff

This is an excerpt of keysymdef.h which defines keysym codes (i.e. characters or functions associated with each key in X11)
as XK_key and the key hex value. These keys can be used as argument for the xdotool key command.

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

52/126

User accounts
Useraccounts

User accounts

/etc/passwd

root:x:0:0:/root:/bin/bash
bin:x:1:1:/bin:/bin/bash
jdoe:x:500:100:John Doe,,555-1234,,:/home/jdoe:/bin/bash
1

Login name

Encrypted password (obsolete), or x if password is in /etc/shadow

UID User ID

GID Default Group ID

GECOS field Information about the user: Full name, Room number, Work phone, Home phone, Other

Home directory of the user

Login shell (can be set to /bin/false to prevent a user from logging in)

(UID 0 is superuser; by convention UIDs 1-99 are system accounts, UIDs above are regular users)

/etc/shadow

User passwords (readable only by root)

root:fZPe54/Kldu6D32pl0X/A:15537:0:99999:7:::
bin:*:15637:0:99999:7:::
jdoe:!hsp\8e3jCUdw9Ru53:15580:0:99999:7::15766:
1

6 7 8

Login name

Encrypted password (a ! prefix if the account is locked, * if account is disabled, ! or !! if no password)

Date of last password change (in number of days since 1 January 1970)

Days before password may be changed; if 0, user can change the password at any time

Days after which password must be changed

Days before password expiration that user is warned

Days after password expiration that account is disabled

Date of account disabling (in number of days since 1 January 1970)

Reserved field

Group accounts

/etc/group

root:x:0:root
jdoe:x:501
staff:x:530:jdoe,asmith
1

/etc/gshadow

3 4

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

Group name

Encrypted password, or x if password is in /etc/gshadow

GID Group ID

Group members (if this is not their Default Group)

Group passwords (readable only by root)

root::root:root
jdoe:!::
staff:0cfz7IpLhW19i::root,jdoe
1

3rd ed.

Group name

Encrypted password, or ! if no password set (default)

Group administrators

Group members

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

53/126

User management
Usermanagement

useradd -m jdoe

Create a user account, creating and populating his homedir from /etc/skel

useradd -mc "John Doe" jdoe

Create a user account, specifying his full name

useradd -ms /bin/ksh jdoe

Create a user account, specifying his login shell

useradd -D

Show default values (specified in /etc/login.defs) for user account creation

usermod -c "Jonas Doe" jdoe

Modify the GECOS field of a user account

usermod -L jdoe

Lock a user account

usermod -U jdoe

Unlock a user account

userdel -r jdoe

Delete a user and his homedir

chfn jdoe

Change the GECOS field of a user

chsh jdoe

Change the login shell of a user

passwd jdoe

Change the password of a user

passwd -l jdoe

Lock a user account

passwd -S jdoe

Get information about a user account.

Prints username, account status (L=locked, P=password, NP=no password), date of
last password change, min age, max age, warning period, inactivity period in days

chage -E 2013-02-14 jdoe

Change the password expiration date, locking the account at that date

chage -d 13111 jdoe

Change the date (in number of days since 1 January 1970) of last password change

chage -d 0 jdoe

Force the user to change password at his next login

chage -M 30 jdoe

Change the max number of days during which a password is valid

chage -m 7 jdoe

Change the min number of days between password changes

chage -W 15 jdoe

Change the number of days before password expiration that the user will be warned

chage -I 3 jdoe

Change the number of days after password expiration before the account is locked

chage -l jdoe

List password aging information for a user

groupadd staff

Create a group

groupmod -n newstaff staff

Change a group name

groupdel staff

Delete a group

gpasswd staff

Set or change the password of a group

gpasswd -a jdoe staff

Add a user to a group

gpasswd -d jdoe staff

Delete a user from a group

gpasswd -A jdoe staff

Add a user to the list of administrators of the group

adduser
deluser
addgroup
delgroup

User-friendly front-ends for user and group management

(Debian)

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

(usermod accepts many

useradd options)

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

54/126

UID and GID

UIDandGID

The Linux Standard Base Core Specification specifies that UIDs from 0 to 99 should be statically allocated by the system and
not be created by applications, and UIDs from 100 to 499 should be reserved for dynamic allocation by system
administrators and post install scripts. User account UIDs start from 500 (Red Hat) or 1000 (SUSE, Debian).
A process has an effective, saved, and real UID and GID:
Effective UID

Used for most access checks, and as the owner for files created by the process. An unprivileged process
can change its effective UID only to either its saved UID or its real UID.

Saved UID

Used when a process running with elevated privileges needs to temporarily lower its privileges. The
process changes its effective UID (usually root) to a unprivileged one, and its privileged effective UID is
copied to the saved UID. Later, the process can resume its elevated privileges by resetting its effective
UID back to the saved UID.

Real UID

Used to identify the real owner of the process and affect the permissions for sending signals. An
unprivileged process can signal another process only if the senders real or effective UID matches the
receiver's real or saved UID. Child processes inherit the credentials from the parent, so they can signal
each other.

/etc/nologin

If this file exists, login and sshd deny login to the system.
Useful to prevent users to log in when doing system maintenance

/etc/login.defs

Definition of default values (UID and GID ranges, mail directory, account validity,
password encryption method, and so on) for user account creation

whoami

Print your effective UID

id user

Print real and effective UID and GID of the user

who

Print the list of users logged into the system

Print the list of users logged into the system, and what they are doing

last

Print the list of users that logged in and out. Searches through the file /var/log/wtmp

lastb

Print the list of bad login attempts. Searches through the file /var/log/btmp

fail2ban

Scan authentication logs and temporarily ban IP addresses (via firewall rules) that
have too many failed password logins

/var/log/auth.log

Logfile containing user logins and authentication mechanisms

/var/log/pwdfail

Logfile containing failed authentication attempts

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

55/126

Privilege escalation
Privilegeescalation

runuser -u jdoe command

Run a command as user jdoe. Can be launched only by the superuser

su jdoe

Run a shell as user jdoe. If user is not specified, assume root

su -c "fdisk -l"

Pass a single command to the shell

su su -l

Ensure that the spawned shell is a login shell, hence running login scripts and setting
the correct environment variables. Recommended option

sudo fdisk -l
sudo -uroot fdisk -l

Run a command as root. Sudo commands are logged via syslog on

/var/log/auth.log (Debian) or /var/log/secure (Red Hat)

sudo !!

Run again the last command, but this time as root

sudoedit /etc/passwd
sudo -e /etc/passwd

Edit a protected file. It is recommended to use this instead of allowing users to sudo
text editors as root, which will cause security problems if the editor spawns a shell

visudo

Edit /etc/sudoers, the configuration file that specifies access rights to sudo

gksu -u root -l
gksudo -u root gparted

GUI front-ends to su and sudo used to run a X Window command as root. Will pop up
a requester prompting the user for root's password

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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Daniele Raffo

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56/126

Terminals
Terminals

write jdoe

Write interactively a message to the terminal of user jdoe (must be logged in)

wall

Write interactively a message to the terminal of all logged in users

echo "Hello" | write jdoe

Write a message to the terminal of user jdoe (must be logged in)

echo "Hello" | wall

Write a message to the terminal of all logged in users

talk jdoe

Open an interactive chat session with user jdoe (must be logged in)

mesg y
chmod g+w $(tty)

Allow the other users to message you via write, wall, and talk

mesg n
chmod g-w $(tty)

Disallow the other users to message you via write, wall, and talk

mesg

Display your current message permission status

mesg works by enabling/disabling the group write permission of your terminal device, which is owned by system group tty.
The superuser is always able to message users.

screen

Screen manager that multiplexes a virtual VT100/ANSI terminal between

processes.
This command creates a screen session; this is useful to be able later to
reattach to a remote SSH session lost because of timeout

screen -list

Show the list of detached screen sessions

screen -r pid.tty.host
screen -r sessionowner/pid.tty.host

Resume a detached screen session

screen -R

Resume the last detached screen session

echo $(tty)

Print your terminal device (e.g. /dev/tty1, /dev/pts/1)

/etc/issue

Message to be printed before the login prompt. Can contain these escape
codes:
\b
\d
\s
\l
\m
\n

Baudrate of line
Date
System name and OS
Terminal device line
Architecture identifier of machine
Nodename aka hostname

\o
\r
\t
\u
\U
\v

Domain name
OS release number
Time
Number of users logged in
"n users" logged in
OS version and build date

/etc/issue.net

Message to be printed before the login prompt on a remote session

/etc/motd

Message to be printed after a successful login, before execution of the login

shell

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

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57/126

cron
cron

cron permits repeated scheduled execution.

If /etc/cron.allow exists, only users listed therein can access the service.
If /etc/cron.deny exists, all users except those listed therein can access the service.
If none of these files exist, all users can access the service.

crontab -e

Edit your user crontab file

crontab -l

List the contents of your crontab file

crontab -e -u jdoe

Edit the crontab file of another user (command available only to the superuser)

/etc/cron.hourly
/etc/cron.daily
/etc/cron.weekly
/etc/cron.monthly

Scripts placed in these directories will be automatically executed with the specified periods

/etc/crontab
# m

dom mon dow

user

command

25

root

foo.sh

every Monday at 6:25 AM

*/5 16

root

/opt/myscript.sh

from 4:00 to 4:55 PM every 5 minutes everyday

0,30 7

25

12

jdoe

/home/jdoe/bar.sh

at 7:00 and 7:30 AM on 25th December

3 17

1-5

root

baz.sh

at 5:03 PM everyday, from Monday to Friday

minutes

hours

dom

day of month (1-31)

mon

month (1-12 or jan-dec)

dow

day of week (0-7 or sun-sat; 0=7=Sunday)

user

User as whom the command will be executed

command

Command that will be executed at the specified times

The crond daemon checks the /etc/crontab system-wide file every minute and executes the command as the specified
user at the specified times.
Each user may also set his own crontab scheduling, which will result in a file /var/spool/cron/username. A user' crontab
file has the same format, except that the user field is not present.

/etc/anacrontab
# period
7

delay

job-identifier

command

10

cron-weekly

/opt/myscript.sh

If the job has not been run in the last 7 days,

wait 10 minutes and then execute the command

period

period, in days, during which the command was not executed

delay

delay to wait, in minutes, before execution of the command

job-identifier

job identifier in anacron messages

command

command that will be executed

Anacron jobs are run by crond, and permit the execution of periodic jobs on a machine that is not always powered on, such
as a laptop.

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

58/126

at
at

at permits scheduled execution once.

If /etc/at.allow exists, only users listed therein can access the service.
If /etc/at.deny exists, all users except those listed therein can access the service.
If none of these files exist, no user except root can access the service.

at 5:00pm tomorrow myscript.sh

at -f mylistofcommands.txt 5:00pm tomorrow
echo "rm file" | at now+2 minutes

Execute a command once at the specified time (absolute or relative)

at -l
atq

List the scheduled jobs

at -d 3
atrm 3

Remove job number 3 from the list

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

59/126

Localization
Localization

Locale environment variables

LANG
LANGUAGE

Language, stored in /etc/default/locale .

When scripting, LANG=C should be set because this
specifies the minimal locale environment for C
translation, and guarantees a standard collation and
formats for the execution of scripts

LC_CTYPE

Character classification and case conversion

LC_NUMERIC

Non-monetary numeric formats

LC_TIME

Date and time formats

LC_COLLATE

Alphabetical order

LC_MONETARY

Monetary formats

These locale variables are in the format

language_territory.encoding
e.g. en_US.UTF-8

LC_MESSAGES

Language and encoding of system messages and user

input

The list of supported locales is stored in

/usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED

LC_PAPER

Paper size

LC_NAME

Personal name formats

LC_ADDRESS

Geographic address formats

LC_TELEPHONE

Telephone number formats

LC_MEASUREMENT

Measurement units (metric or others)

LC_IDENTIFICATION

Metadata about locale

LC_ALL

Special variable overriding all others

locale

Show locale environment variables

locale-gen it_IT.UTF-8

Generate a locale by compiling a list of locale definition files

apt-get install manpages-it language-pack-it

Install a different locale (system messages and manpages)

iconv -f IS6937 -t IS8859 filein > fileout

Convert a text file from a codeset to another

ISO/IEC-8859 is a standard for 8-bit encoding of printable characters.

The first 256 characters in ISO/IEC-8859-1 (Latin-1) are identical to those in Unicode.
UTF-8 encoding can represent every character in the Unicode set, and was designed for backward compatibility with ASCII.

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

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60/126

System time
Systemtime

tzselect
tzconfig
dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

(Debian)

Set the timezone, stored in/etc/timezone

Timezone is also set as a symbolic link from /etc/localtime to the correct timezone file in /usr/share/zoneinfo/

date

Show current date and time

date -d "9999 days ago"

Calculate a date and show it

date -d "1970/01/01 + 4242"

Convert the number of days passed since 1 January 1970 in a canonical date

date +"%F %H:%M:%S"

Show current date in the format specified

date -s "20130305 23:30:00"

Set the date

date 030523302013

Set the date, in the format MMDDhhmmYYYY

ntpd

NTP daemon, keeps the clock in sync with Internet time servers

ntpd -q

Synchronize the time once and quit

ntpd -g

Force NTP to start even if clock is off by more than the panic threshold (1000 secs)

ntpd -n -g -q

Start NTP as a non-daemon, force set the clock, and quit

ntpq -p timeserver

Query the time server for a list of peers

ntpdate timeserver

Synchronizes the clock with the specified time server

ntpdate -b timeserver

Brutally set the clock, without waiting for a slow adjusting

ntpdate -q timeserver

Query the time server without setting the clock

hwclock --show
hwclock -r

Show the hardware clock

hwclock --hctosys
hwclock -s

Set the system time from the hardware clock

hwclock --systohc
hwclock -w

Set the hardware clock from system time

hwclock --utc

Indicate that the hardware clock is kept in Coordinated Universal Time

hwclock --localtime

Indicate that the hardware clock is kept in local time

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

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61/126

Syslog
Syslog

Syslog logging facility:

syslogd

Daemon logging events from user processes

klogd

Daemon logging events from kernel processes

/etc/syslog.conf
# facility.level
*.info;mail.none;authpriv.none
authpriv.*
mail.*
*.alert
*.emerg
local5.*
local7.*
Facility
Creator of the message
auth or security
authpriv
cron
daemon
kern
lpr
mail
mark (for syslog internal use)
news
syslog
user
uucp
local0 ... local7 (custom)

action
/var/log/messages
/var/log/secure
/var/log/maillog
root
*
@10.7.7.7
/var/log/boot.log

Level
Severity of the message
emerg or panic (highest)
alert
crit
err or error
warning or warn
notice
info
debug (lowest)
none

Action
Destination of the message
filename

message is written into a logfile

@hostname

message is sent to a logger

server (via UDP port 514)

user1,user2,user3

message is sent to users'

consoles

message is sent to all logged-in

users' consoles

(facility disabled)

= deprecated

logger -p auth.info "Message"

Send a message to syslogd with the specified facility and priority

man 3 syslog

Syslog manpage listing facilities and levels

logrotate

Rotate logs (by gzipping, renaming, and eventually deleting old logfiles) according to
/etc/logrotate.conf

tail -f /var/log/messages
less +F /var/log/messages

Print the end of the message log file, moving forward as the file grows (i.e. read logs
in real-time)

/var/log/messages
/var/log/syslog
/var/log/kern.log

System and kernel logfiles

journalctl

(Red Hat)

Query the systemd journal (replacement for /var/log/messages)

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

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62/126

E-mail
Email
MTA
(Mail Transfer Agent)
SMTP server of sender

MUA
(Mail User Agent)
mailclient of sender
e.g. Alpine, Mutt

MTA
(Mail Transfer Agent)
remote host

e.g. Sendmail, Exim, Postfix, qmail

MDA
(Mail Delivery Agent)
mailserver of recipient

MUA
(Mail User Agent)
mailclient of recipient

e.g. Procmail, SpamAssassin

~/.forward

Mail address(es) to forward the user's mail to, or mail commands

/etc/aliases
/etc/mail/aliases

Aliases database for users on the local machine. Each line has syntax alias: user

/var/spool/mail/user

Inbox for user on the local machine

/var/log/mail.log
/var/log/maillog

(Debian)
(Red Hat)

Mail logs

mail -s "Subject" [email protected] < message.txt

Send a mail message to [email protected]

uuencode binaryfile | mail [email protected]

Send a binary file to [email protected] (not recommended,

many mailclients will display the received attachment inline)

mutt -a binaryfile -- [email protected] < /dev/null

Send a binary file to [email protected] using the Mutt MUA

newaliases
sendmail -bi

Update the aliases database; must be run after any change to /etc/aliases

mailq
exim4 -bp

Examine the mail queue

exim4 -M messageID

Attempt delivery of message

exim4 -Mrm messageID

Remove a message from the mail queue

exim4 -Mvh messageID

See the headers of a message in the mail queue

exim4 -Mvb messageID

See the body of a message in the mail queue

exim4 -Mvc messageID

See a message in the mail queue

exim4 -qf domain

Force a queue run of all queued messages for a domain

exim4 -Rff domain

Attempt delivery of all queued messages for a domain

exim4 -bV

Show version and other info

Mailbox formats
Each mail folder is a single file, storing multiple email messages.
mbox

Advantages: universally supported, fast search inside a mail folder.

Disadvantages: issues with file locking, possible mailbox corruption.

$HOME/Mail/myfolder

Each mail folder is a directory, and contains the subdirectories /cur, /new, and /tmp.
Each email message is stored in its own file with an unique filename ID.

Maildir

The process that delivers an email message writes it to a file in the tmp/ directory,
and then moves it to new/. The moving is commonly done by hard linking the file to
new/ and then unlinking the file from tmp/, which guarantees that a MUA will not see
a partially written message as it never looks in tmp/.
When the MUA finds mail messages in new/ it moves them to cur/.

$HOME/Mail/myfolder/

Advantages: fast location/retrieval/deletion of a specific mail message, no file locking

needed, can be used with NFS.
Disadvantages: some filesystems may not efficiently handle a large number of small
files, searching text inside all mail messages is slow

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

63/126

SMTP
SMTP

SMTP commands
220 smtp.example.com ESMTP Postfix
HELO abc.example.org
250 Hello abc.example.org, glad to meet you
MAIL FROM: [email protected]
250 Ok
RCPT TO [email protected]
250 Ok
RCPT TO [email protected]
250 Ok
DATA
354 End data with <CR><LF>.<CR><LF>
From: Alice <[email protected]>
To: Bob <[email protected]>
Cc: Eve <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 13 August 2014 18:02:43 -0500
Subject: Test message
This is a test message.
.
250 OK id=1OjReS-0005kT-Jj
QUIT
221 Bye

HELO abc.example.org

Initiate the conversation and

identify client host to server

EHLO abc.example.org

Like HELO, but tell server to

use Extended SMTP

MAIL FROM: [email protected]

Specify mail sender

RCPT TO: [email protected]

Specify mail recipient

DATA

Specify data to send. Ended

with a dot on a single line

QUIT
RSET

Disconnect

HELP

List all available commands

NOOP

Empty command

VRFY [email protected]

Verify the existence of an email address (this command

should not be implemented,
for security reasons)

EXPN mailinglist

Check mailing list membership

SMTP response codes

first digit

second digit

third digit
211
214
220
221
250
251
354
421
450
451
452
500
501
502
503
504
550
551
552
553
554

Command accepted, but not processed until client sends confirmation

Command successfully completed

Command accepted, but not processed until client sends more information

Command failed due to temporary errors

Command failed due to permanent errors

Syntax error or command not implemented

Informative response in reply to a request for information

Connection response in reply to a data transmission

Status response in reply to a mail transfer operation

Specifies further the response

System status or help reply

Help message
The server is ready
The server is ending the conversation
The requested action was completed
The specified user is not local, but the server will forward the mail message
Reply to the DATA command. After getting this, start sending the message body
The mail server will be shut down, try again later
The mailbox that you are trying to reach is busy, try again later
The requested action was not done. Some error occurred in the mail server
The requested action was not done. The mail server ran out of system storage
The last command contained a syntax error or the command line was too long
The parameters or arguments in the last command contained a syntax error
The last command is not implemented in the mail server
The last command was sent out of sequence
One of the parameters of the last command is not implemented by the server
The mailbox that you are trying to reach can't be found or you don't have access rights
The specified user is not local; part of message text will contain a forwarding address
The mailbox that you are trying to reach has run out of space, try again later
The mail address that you specified was not syntactically correct
The mail transaction has failed for unknown causes

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

64/126

Sendmail and Exim

SendmailandExim

Sendmail is distributed as a monolithic binary file.

It used to run SUID root, which caused many security problems; recent versions run SGID smmsp, the group that has write
access on the mail queue. Sendmail uses smrsh, a restricted shell, to run some external programs.

/etc/mail/submit.cf

Sendmail local mail transfer configuration file

/etc/mail/sendmail.cf

Sendmail MTA configuration file

The .cf configuration files are generated from edited .mc text files via the m4 command, e.g.
m4 /etc/mail/submit.mc > /etc/mail/submit.cf

/etc/mail/access.db

Access control file to allow or deny access to systems or users

/etc/mail/local-host-names.db

List of domains that must be considered as local accounts

/etc/mail/virtusertable.db

Map for local accounts, used to distribute incoming email

/etc/mail/mailertable.db

Routing table, used to dispatch emails from remote systems

/etc/mail/domaintable.db

Domain table, used for transitions from an old domain to a new one

/etc/mail/genericstable.db

Map for local accounts, used to specify a different sender for outgoing mail

/etc/mail/genericsdomain.db

Local FQDN

The .db database files are generated from edited text files via the makemap command, e.g.
makemap hash /etc/mail/access.db < /etc/mail/access

sendmail -bt

Run Sendmail in test mode

hoststat

Print statistics about remote hosts usage

purgestat

Clear statistics about remote host usage

mailstats

Print statistics about the mailserver

praliases

Display email aliases

Exim is a free MTA, distributed under open source GPL license.

/etc/exim.conf
/usr/local/etc/exim/configure

(FreeBSD)

Exim4 configuration file

exinext

Give the times of the next queue run

exigrep

Search through Exim logfiles

exicyclog

Rotate Exim logfiles

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

65/126

Postfix
Postfix

Postfix is a fast, secure, easy to configure, open source MTA intended as a replacement for Sendmail. It is implemented as
a set of small helper daemons, most of which run in a chroot jail with low privileges. The main ones are:
master

Postfix master daemon, always running; starts the other daemons when necessary

nqmgr

Queue manager for incoming and outgoing mail, always running

smtpd

SMTP daemon for incoming mail

smtp

SMTP daemon for outgoing mail

bounce

Manager of bounce messages

cleanup

Daemon that verifies the syntax of outgoing messages before they are handed to the queue manager

local

Daemon that handles local mail delivery

virtual

Daemon that handles mail delivery to virtual users

/var/spool/postfix/incoming

Incoming queue.
All new mail entering the Postfix queue is written here by the cleanup daemon.
Under normal conditions this queue is nearly empty

/var/spool/postfix/active

Active queue.
Contains messages ready to be sent. The queue manager places messages here
from the incoming queue as soon as they are available

/var/spool/postfix/deferred

Deferred queue.
A message is placed here when all its deliverable recipients are delivered, and for
some recipients delivery failed for a transient reason. The queue manager scans
this queue periodically and puts some messages into the active queue for a retry

/var/spool/postfix/bounce

Message delivery status report about why mail is bounced (non-delivered mail)

/var/spool/postfix/defer

Message delivery status report about why mail is delayed (non-delivered mail)

/var/spool/postfix/trace

Message delivery status report (delivered mail)

postfix reload

Reload configuration

postconf -e 'mydomain = example.org'

Edit a setting in the Postfix configuration

postconf -l

List supported mailbox lock methods

postconf -m

List supported database types

postconf -v

Increase logfile verbosity

postmap dbtype:textfile

Manage Postfix lookup tables, creating a hashed map file of database

type dbtype from textfile

postmap hash:/etc/postfix/transport

Regenerate the transport database

postalias
newaliases

Convert /etc/aliases into the aliases database file /etc/aliases.db

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

66/126

Postfix configuration
Postfixconfiguration

/etc/postfix/main.cf

Postfix configuration file

mydomain = example.org

This system's domain

myorigin = $mydomain

Domain from which all sent mail will appear to originate

myhostname = foobar.$mydomain

This system's hostname

inet_interfaces = all

Network interface addresses that this system receives mail on.

Value can also be localhost, all, or loopback-only

proxy_interfaces = 1.2.3.4

Network interface addresses that this system receives mail on

by means of a proxy or NAT unit

mynetworks = 10.3.3.0/24 !10.3.3.66

Networks the SMTP clients are allowed to connect from

mydestination = $myhostname localhost

$mydomain example.com
hash:/etc/postfix/otherdomains

Domains for which Postfix will accept received mail.

Value can also be a lookup database file e.g. a hashed map

relayhost = 10.6.6.6

Relay host to which Postfix should send all mail for delivery,
instead of consulting DNS MX records

relay_domains = $mydestination

Sources and destinations for which mail will be relayed.

Can be empty if Postfix is not intended to be a mail relay

virtual_alias_domains = virtualex.org
virtual_alias_maps = /etc/postfix/virtual

virtual_alias_domains = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual

Set up Postfix to handle mail for virtual domains too.

The /etc/postfix/virtual file is a hashed map, each line of
the file containing the virtual domain email address and the
destination real domain email address:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected] kim.smith
@virtualex.org
root
The last line is a catch-all specifying that all other email
messages to the virtual domain are delivered to the root user
on the real domain

mailbox_command = /usr/bin/procmail

Use Procmail as MDA

or

A line beginning with whitespace or tab is a continuation of the previous line.

A line beginning with a # is a comment. The # is not a comment delimiter if it is not placed at the beginning of a line.

/etc/postfix/master.cf
# service
smtp
pickup
cleanup
qmgr
rewrite
bounce
defer
flush
smtp
showq
error
local
virtual
lmtp
service
type
private
unprivileged
chroot

type
inet
fifo
unix
fifo
unix
unix
unix
unix
unix
unix
unix
unix
unix
unix

private
n
n
n
n
n
n
-

unpriv
n
n
-

Postfix master daemon configuration file

chroot
n
n
n

wakeup
60
300
1000?
-

maxproc
1
0
1
0
0
0
-

command + args
smtpd
pickup
cleanup
qmgr
trivial-rewrite
bounce
bounce
flush
smtp
showq
error
local
virtual
lmtp

Name of the service

Transport mechanism used by the service
Whether the service is accessible only by Postfix daemons and not by the whole system. Default is yes
Whether the service is unprivileged i.e. not running as root. Default is yes
Whether the service is chrooted. Default is yes

wakeup

How often the service needs to be woken up by the master daemon. Default is never

maxproc

Max number of simultaneous processes providing the service. Default is 50

command

Command used to start the service

The - indicates that an option is set to its default value.

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

67/126

Procmail
Procmail

Procmail is a regex-based MDA whose main purpose is to preprocess and sort incoming email messages.
It is able to work both with the standard mbox format and the Maildir format.
To have all email processed by Procmail, the ~/.forward file may be edited to contain:
"|exec /usr/local/bin/procmail || exit 75"

/etc/procmailrc

System-wide recipes

~/.procmailrc

User's recipes

procmail -h

List all Procmail flags for recipes

formail

Utility for email filtering and editing

lockfile

Utility for mailbox file locking

mailstat

Utility for generation of reports from Procmail logs

/etc/procmailrc and ~/.procmailrc

Procmail recipes

PATH=$HOME/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail
DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/Inbox
LOGFILE=$HOME/.procmaillog

Common parameters, non specific to Procmail

:0h: or :0:
* ^From: .*(alice|bob)@foobar\.org
$DEFAULT

Flag: match headers (default) and use file locking (highly

recommended when writing to a file or a mailbox in mbox format)
Condition: match the header specifying the sender address
Destination: default mailfolder

:0:
* ^From: .*owner@listserv\.com
* ^Subject:.*Linux
$MAILDIR/Geekstuff1

Conditions: match sender address and subject headers

Destination: specified mailfolder, in mbox format

:0
* ^From: .*owner@listserv\.com
* ^Subject:.*Linux
$MAILDIR/Geekstuff2/

Flag: file locking not necessary because using Maildir format

Conditions: match sender address and subject headers
Destination: specified mailfolder, in Maildir format

# Blacklisted by SpamAssassin
:0
* ^X-Spam-Status: Yes
/dev/null

Flag: file locking not necessary because blackholing to /dev/null

Condition: match SpamAssassin's specific header
Destination: delete the message

:0B:
* hacking
$MAILDIR/Geekstuff

Flag: match body of message instead of headers

:0HB:
* hacking
$MAILDIR/Geekstuff

Flag: match either headers or body of message

:0:
* > 256000
| /root/myprogram

Condition: match messages larger than 256 Kb

Destination: pipe message through the specified program

:0fw
* ^From: .*@foobar\.org
| /root/myprogram

Flags: use the pipe as a filter (modifying the message), and tell
Procmail to wait that the filter finished processing the message

:0c
* ^Subject:.*administration
! [email protected]

Flag: copy the message and proceed with next recipe

Destination: forward to specified email address, and (as ordered
by the next recipe) save in the specified mailfolder

:0:
$MAILDIR/Forwarded

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

68/126

Courier POP configuration

CourierPOPconfiguration

The Courier MTA provides modules for ESMTP, IMAP, POP3, webmail, and mailing list services in a single framework.
The courier-authlib service must be launched first, then the desired mail service e.g. courier-imap for the IMAP service.

/usr/lib/courier-imap/etc/
or
/etc/courier/

imapd

Courier IMAP daemon configuration

imapd-ssl

Courier IMAPS daemon configuration

pop3d

Courier POP3 daemon configuration

pop3d-ssl

Courier POP3S daemon configuration

/usr/lib/courier-imap/share/

Directory for public and private keys

mkimapdcert

Generate a certificate for the IMAPS service

mkpop3dcert

Generate a certificate for the POP3 service

makealiases

Create system aliases in /usr/lib/courier/etc/aliases.dat , which is

made by processing a /usr/lib/courier/etc/aliases/system text file:
root
: postmaster
mailer-daemon : postmaster
MAILER-DAEMON : postmaster
uucp
: postmaster
postmaster
: admin

/usr/lib/courier-imap/etc/pop3d

Courier POP configuration file

ADDRESS=0

Address to listen on. 0 means all addresses

PORT=127.0.0.1.900,192.168.0.1.900

Port number connections are accepted on. Accept connections on

port 900 on IP addresses 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.0.1

POP3AUTH="LOGIN CRAM-MD5 CRAM-SHA1"

POP authentication advertising SASL (Simple Authentication and

Security Layer) capability, with CRAM-MD5 and CRAM-SHA1

POP3AUTH_TLS="LOGIN PLAIN"

Also advertise SASL PLAIN if SSL is enabled

MAXDAEMONS=40

Maximum number of POP3 servers started

MAXPERIP=4

Maximum number of connections to accept from the same IP address

PIDFILE=/var/run/courier/pop3d.pid

PID file

TCPDOPTS="-nodnslookup -noidentlookup"

Miscellaneous couriertcpd options that shouldn't be changed

LOGGEROPTS="-name=pop3d"

courierlogger options

POP3_PROXY=0

Enable or disable proxying

PROXY_HOSTNAME=myproxy

Override value from gethostname() when checking if a proxy

connection is required

DEFDOMAIN="@example.com"

Optional default domain. If the username does not contain the first
character of DEFDOMAIN, then it is appended to the username. If
DEFDOMAIN and DOMAINSEP are both set, then DEFDOMAIN is appended
only if the username does not contain any character from DOMAINSEP

POP3DSTART=YES

Flag intended to be read by the system startup script

MAILDIRPATH=Maildir

Name of the maildir directory

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

69/126

Courier IMAP configuration

CourierIMAPconfiguration

/usr/lib/courier-imap/etc/imapd

Courier IMAP configuration file

ADDRESS=0

Address to listen on. 0 means all addresses

PORT=127.0.0.1.900,192.168.0.1.900

Port number connections are accepted on. Accept connections on

port 900 on IP addresses 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.0.1

AUTHSERVICE143=imap

Authenticate using a different service parameter depending on the

connection's port. This only works with authentication modules that
use the service parameter, such as PAM

MAXDAEMONS=40

Maximum number of IMAP servers started

MAXPERIP=20

Maximum number of connections to accept from the same IP address

PIDFILE=/var/run/courier/imapd.pid

File where couriertcpd will save its process ID

TCPDOPTS="-nodnslookup -noidentlookup"

Miscellaneous couriertcpd options that shouldn't be changed

LOGGEROPTS="-name=imapd"

courierlogger options

DEFDOMAIN="@example.com"

Optional default domain. If the username does not contain the first
character of DEFDOMAIN, then it is appended to the username. If
DEFDOMAIN and DOMAINSEP are both set, then DEFDOMAIN is appended
only if the username does not contain any character from DOMAINSEP

IMAP_CAPABILITY="IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS \
CHILDREN NAMESPACE THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT \
THREAD=REFERENCES SORT QUOTA IDLE"

Specifies what most of the response should be to the CAPABILITY

command

IMAP_KEYWORDS=1

Enable or disable custom IMAP keywords. Possible values are:

0
disable keywords
1
enable keywords
2
enable keywords with a slower algorithm

IMAP_ACL=1

Enable or disable IMAP ACL extension

SMAP_CAPABILITY=SMAP1

Enable the experimental Simple Mail Access Protocol extensions

IMAP_PROXY=0

Enable or disable proxying

IMAP_PROXY_FOREIGN=0

Proxying to non-Courier servers. Re-sends the CAPABILITY command

after logging in to remote server. May not work with all IMAP clients

IMAP_IDLE_TIMEOUT=60

How often, in seconds, the server should poll for changes to the folder
while in IDLE mode

IMAP_CHECK_ALL_FOLDERS=0

Enable or disable server check for mail in every folder

IMAP_UMASK=022

Set the umask of the server process. This value is passed to the
umask command. This feature is mostly useful for shared folders,
where the file permissions of the messages may be important

IMAP_ULIMITD=131072

Set the upper limit of the size of the data segment of the server
process, in Kb. This value is passed to the ulimit -d command.
This feature is used as an additional safety check that should stop any
potential DoS attacks that exploit any kind of a memory leak to
exhaust all the available memory on the server

IMAP_USELOCKS=1

Enable or disable dot-locking to support concurrent multiple access to

the same folder. Strongly recommended when using shared folders

IMAP_SHAREDINDEXFILE=\
/etc/courier/shared/index

Index of all accessible folders.

Normally, this setting should not be changed

IMAP_TRASHFOLDERNAME=Trash

Name of the trash folder

IMAP_EMPTYTRASH=Trash:7,Sent:30

Purge folders i.e. delete all messages from the specified folders after
the specified number of days

IMAP_MOVE_EXPUNGE_TO_TRASH=0

Enable or disable moving expunged messages to the trash folder

(instead of straight deleting them)

HEADERFROM=X-IMAP-Sender

Make the return address, $SENDER, being saved in the

X-IMAP-Sender mail header. This header gets added to the sent
message (but not in the copy of the message saved in the folder)

MAILDIRPATH=Maildir

Name of the mail directory

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

70/126

Dovecot login
Dovecotlogin

Dovecot is an open source, security-hardened, fast and efficient IMAP and POP3 server.
By default it uses PAM authentication. The script mkcert.sh can be used to create self-signed SSL certificates.

/etc/dovecot.conf

Dovecot configuration file

base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/

Base directory where to store runtime data

protocols = imaps pop3s

Protocols to serve. If Dovecot should use dovecot-auth, this can be set

to none

listen = *, [::]

Network interfaces to accept connections on.

Here, listen to all IPv4 and IPv6 interfaces

disable_plaintext_auth = yes

Disable LOGIN command and all other plaintext authentications unless

SSL/TLS is used (LOGINDISABLED capability)

shutdown_clients = yes

Kill all IMAP and POP3 processes when Dovecot master process shuts
down. If set to no, Dovecot can be upgraded without forcing existing
client connections to close

log_path = /dev/stderr

Log file to use for error messages, instead of sending them to syslog.
Here, log to stderr

info_log_path = /dev/stderr

Log file to use for informational and debug messages. Default value is
the same as log_path

syslog_facility = mail

Syslog facility to use if logging to syslog

login_dir = /var/run/dovecot/login

Directory where the authentication process places authentication UNIX

sockets, to which the login process needs to be able to connect

login_chroot = yes

Chroot login process to the login_dir

login_user = dovecot

User to use for the login process. This user is used to control access for
authentication process, and not to access mail messages

login_process_size = 64

Maximum login process size, in Mb

login_process_per_connection = yes

If yes, each login is processed in its own process (more secure); if no,
each login process processes multiple connections (faster)

login_processes_count = 3

Number of login processes to keep for listening for new connections

login_max_processes_count = 128

Maximum number of login processes to create

login_max_connections = 256

Maximum number of connections allowed per each login process.

This setting is used only if login_process_per_connection = no; once
the limit is reached, the process notifies master so that it can create a
new login process

login_greeting = Dovecot ready.

Greeting message for clients

login_trusted_networks = \
10.7.7.0/24 10.8.8.0/24

Trusted network ranges (usually IMAP proxy servers).

Connections from these IP addresses are allowed to override their IP
addresses and ports, for logging and authentication checks.
disable_plaintext_auth is also ignored for these networks

mbox_read_locks = fcntl
mbox_write_locks = dotlock fcntl

Locking methods to use for locking mailboxes in mbox format.

Possible values are:
dotlock
Create mailbox.lock file; oldest and NSF-safe method
dotlock_try
Same as dotlock, but skip if failing
fcntl
Recommended; works with NFS too if lockd is used
flock
May not exist in all systems; doesn't work with NFS
lockf
May not exist in all systems; doesn't work with NFS

maildir_stat_dirs = no

Option for mailboxes in Maildir format. If no (default), the LIST

command returns all entries in the mail directory beginning with a dot.
If yes, returns only entries which are directories

dbox_rotate_size = 2048
dbox_rotate_min_size = 16

Maximum and minimum file size, in Kb, of a mailbox in dbox format

until it is rotated

!include /etc/dovecot/conf.d/*.conf

Include configuration file

!include_try /etc/dovecot/extra.conf

Include optional configuration file, do not give error if file not found

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

71/126

Dovecot mailboxes
Dovecotmailboxes

/etc/dovecot.conf

Dovecot configuration file

mail_location = \
mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u
or
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir

Mailbox location, in mbox or Maildir format. Variables:

%u
username
%n
user part in user@domain, same as %u if there is no domain
%d
domain part in user@domain, empty if there is no domain
%h
home directory

namespace shared {

Definition of a shared namespace, for accessing other users' mailboxes

that have been shared.
Private namespaces are for users' personal emails.
Public namespaces are for shared mailboxes managed by root user

separator = /

Hierarchy separator to use. Should be the same for all namespaces; it

depends on the underlying mail storage format

prefix = shared/%%u/

Prefix required to access this namespace; must be different for each.

Here, mailboxes are visible under shared/user@domain/ ; the variables
%%n, %%d and %%u are expanded to the destination user

location = maildir:%%h/Maildir:\
INDEX=~/Maildir/shared/%%u

Mailbox location for other users' mailboxes; it is in the same format as

mail_location which is also the default for it.
%variable and ~/ expand to the logged in user's data;
%%variable expands to the destination user's data

inbox = no

There can be only one INBOX, and this setting defines which
namespace has it

hidden = no

Define whether the namespace is hidden i.e. not advertised to clients

via NAMESPACE extension

subscriptions = no

Namespace handles its own subscriptions; if set to no, the parent

namespace handles them and Dovecot uses the default namespace for
saving subscriptions. If prefix is empty, this should be set to yes

list = children

Show the mailboxes under this namespace with LIST command,

making the namespace visible for clients that do not support the
NAMESPACE extension.
Here, lists child mailboxes but hide the namespace prefix; list the
namespace only if there are visible shared mailboxes

}
mail_uid = 666
mail_gid = 666

UID and GID used to access mail messages

mail_privileged_group = mail

Group to enable temporarily for privileged operations; currently this is

used only with INBOX when its initial creation or a dotlocking fails

mail_access_groups = tmpmail

Supplementary groups to grant access to for mail processes; typically

these are used to set up access to shared mailboxes

lock_method = fcntl

Locking method for index files. Can be fcntl, flock, or dotlock

first_valid_uid = 500
last_valid_uid = 0

Valid UID range for users; default is 500 and above. This makes sure
that users cannot login as daemons or other system users.
Denying root login is hardcoded to Dovecot and cannot be bypassed

first_valid_gid = 1
last_valid_gid = 0

Valid GID range for users; default is non-root/wheel. Users having

non-valid primary GID are not allowed to login

max_mail_processes = 512

Maximum number of running mail processes. When this limit is

reached, new users are not allowed to login

mail_process_size = 256

Maximum mail process size, in Mb

valid_chroot_dirs =

List of directories under which chrooting is allowed for mail processes

mail_chroot =

Default chroot directory for mail processes. Usually not needed as

Dovecot does not allow users to access files outside their mail directory

mailbox_idle_check_interval = 30

When IDLE command is running, mailbox is checked once in a while to

see if there are any new mails or other changes. This setting defines
the minimum time to wait between these checks, in seconds

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72/126

Dovecot POP and IMAP

DovecotPOPandIMAP

/etc/dovecot.conf

Dovecot configuration file

protocol pop3 {

Block with options for the POP3 protocol

listen = *:110

Network interfaces to accept POP3 connections on

login_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3-login

Location of the POP3 login executable

mail_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3

Location of the POP3 mail executable

pop3_no_flag_updates = no

If set to no, do not try to set mail messages non-recent

or seen with POP3 sessions, to reduce disk I/O.
With Maildir format do not move files from new/ to cur/,
with mbox format do not write Status- headers

pop3_lock_session = no

Whether to keep the mailbox locked for the whole POP3

session

pop3_uidl_format = %08Xu%08Xv

POP3 UIDL (Unique Mail Identifier) format to use

}
protocol imap {

Block with options for the IMAP protocol

listen = *:143
ssl_listen = *:993

Network interfaces to accept IMAP and IMAPS

connections on

login_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login

Location of the IMAP login executable

mail_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap

Location of the IMAP mail executable

mail_max_userip_connections = 10

Maximum number of IMAP connections allowed for a

user from each IP address

imap_idle_notify_interval = 120

How many seconds to wait between "OK Still here"

notifications when client is IDLE

}
ssl = yes

SSL/TLS support.
Possible values are yes, no, required

ssl_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/dovecot-cert.pem

Location of the SSL certificate

ssl_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/dovecot-key.pem

Location of private key

ssl_key_password = b1gs3cr3t

Password of private key, if it is password-protected.

Since /etc/dovecot.conf is usually world-readable, it is
better to place this setting into a root-owned 0600 file
instead and include it via the setting
!include_try /etc/dovecot/dovecot-passwd.conf .
Alternatively, Dovecot can be started with
dovecot -p b1gs3cr3t

ssl_ca_file = /etc/dovecot/cafile.pem

List of trusted SSL certificate authorities; the file

contains the CA certificates followed by the CRLs

ssl_verify_client_cert = yes

Request client to send a certificate

ssl_cipher_list = ALL:!LOW:!SSLv2

List of SSL ciphers to use

verbose_ssl = yes

Show protocol level SSL errors

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73/126

Dovecot authentication
Dovecotauthentication

/etc/dovecot.conf

Dovecot configuration file

auth_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-auth

Location of the authentication executable

auth_process_size = 256

Max authentication process size, in Mb

auth_username_chars = abcde ... VWXYZ01234567890.-_@

List of allowed characters in the username. If the

username entered by user contains a character not listed
in here, the login automatically fails. This is to prevent
an user exploiting any potential quote escaping
vulnerabilities with SQL/LDAP databases

auth_realms =

List of realms for SASL authentication mechanisms that

need them. If empty, multiple realms are not supported

auth_default_realm = example.org

Default realm/domain to use if none was specified

auth_anonymous_username = anonymous

Username to assign to users logging in with ANONYMOUS

SASL mechanism

auth_verbose = no

Whether to log unsuccessful authentication attempts and

the reasons why they failed

auth_debug = no

Whether to enable more verbose logging (e.g. SQL

queries) for debugging purposes

auth_failure_delay = 2

Delay before replying to failed authentications, in seconds

auth default {
mechanisms = plain login cram-md5

Accepted authentication mechanisms

passdb passwd-file {
args = /etc/dovecot.deny
deny = yes
}

Deny login to the users listed in /etc/dovecot.deny (file

contains one user per line)

passdb pam {
args = cache_key=%u%r dovecot
}

PAM authentication block.

Enable authentication matching (username and remote IP
address) for PAM.

passdb passwd {
blocking = yes
args =
}

System users e.g. NSS or /etc/passwd

passdb shadow {
blocking = yes
args =
}

Shadow passwords for system users e.g. NSS or

/etc/passwd

passdb bsdauth {
cache_key = %u
args =
}

PAM-like authentication for OpenBSD

passdb sql {
args = /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf
}

SQL database

passdb ldap {
args = /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf
}

LDAP database

socket listen {
master {
path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master
mode = 0600
user =
group =
}
client {
path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-client
mode = 0660
}
}

Export the authentication interface to other programs.

Master socket provides access to userdb information; it is
typically used to give Dovecot's local delivery agent
access to userdb so it can find mailbox locations. The
default user/group is the one who started dovecot-auth
(i.e. root).
The client socket is generally safe to export to everyone.
Typical use is to export it to the SMTP server so it can do
SMTP AUTH lookups using it

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74/126

FTP
FTP

Active mode (default)

1. Client connects to FTP server on port 21 (control channel) and sends second unprivileged port number
2. Server acknowledges
3. Server connects from port 20 (data channel) to client's second unprivileged port number
4. Client acknowledges
Passive mode (more protocol-compliant, because it is the client that initiates the connection)
1. Client connects to FTP server on port 21 and requests passive mode via the PASV command
2. Server acknowledges and sends unprivileged port number via the PORT command
3. Client connects to server's unprivileged port number
4. Server acknowledges

Very Secure FTP is a hardened and high-performance FTP implementation.

The vsftpd daemon operates with multiple processes that run as a non-privileged user in a chrooted jail.
/etc/vsftpd/vsftpd.conf
listen=NO

Run vsftpd in standalone mode (i.e. not via inetd)?

local_enable=YES

Allow local system users (i.e. in /etc/passwd) to log in?

chroot_local_user=YES

Chroot local users in their home directory?

write_enable=YES

Allow FTP commands that write on the filesystem (i.e. STOR,

DELE, RNFR, RNTO, MKD, RMD, APPE and SITE)?

anonymous_enable=YES

Allow anonymous logins? If yes, anonymous and ftp are

accepted as logins

anon_root=/var/ftp/pub

After anonymous login, go to directory /var/ftp/pub

anon_upload_enable=YES

Allow anonymous uploads?

chown_uploads=YES

Change ownership of anonymously uploaded files?

chown_username=ftp

Change ownership of anonymously uploaded files to user ftp

anon_world_readable_only=NO

Allow anonymous users to only download files which are

world readable?

ssl_enable=YES

Enable SSL?

force_local_data_ssl=NO

Encrypt local data?

force_local_logins_ssl=YES

Force encrypted authentication?

allow_anon_ssl=YES

Allow anonymous users to use SSL?

ssl_tlsv1=YES
ssl_tlsv2=NO
ssl_tlsv3=NO

Versions of SSL/TLS to allow

rsa_cert_file=/etc/pki/tls/certs/vsftpd.pem

Location of certificate file

rsa_private_key_file=/etc/pki/tls/certs/vsftpd.pem

Location of private key file

Pure-FTP is a free, easy-to-use FTP server.

pure-ftpd

Pure-FTP daemon

pure-ftpwho

Show clients connected to the Pure-FTP server

pure-mrtginfo

Show connections to the Pure-FTP server as a MRTG graph

pure-statsdecode

Show Pure-FTP log data

pure-pw

Manage Pure-FTP virtual accounts

pure-pwconvert

Convert the system user database to a Pure-FTP virtual accounts database

pure-quotacheck

Manage Pure-FTP quota database

pure-uploadscript

Run a command on the Pure-FTP server to process an uploaded file

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75/126

CUPS
CUPS

cupsd

CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) daemon.

Administration of printers is done via web interface on http://localhost:631

/etc/cups/cupsd.conf

CUPS configuration file

/etc/cups/printers.conf

Database of available local CUPS printers

/etc/printcap

Database of printer capabilities, for old printing applications

/var/spool/cups/

Printer spooler for data awaiting to be printed

/var/log/cups/error_log

CUPS error log

/var/log/cups/page_log

Information about printed pages

/etc/init.d/cupsys start

Start the CUPS service

gnome-cups-manager

Run the CUPS Manager graphical application

cupsenable printer0

Enable a CUPS printer

cupsdisable printer0

Disable a CUPS printer

cupsaccept printer0

Accept a job sent on a printer queue

cupsreject -r "Rejected" printer0

Reject a job sent on a printer queue, with an informational message

cupstestppd LEXC510.ppd

Test the conformance of a PPD file to the format specification

cupsaddsmb printer0

Export a printer to SAMBA (for use with Windows clients)

cups-config --cflags

Show the necessary compiler options

cups-config --datadir

Show the default CUPS data directory

cups-config --ldflags

Show the necessary linker options

cups-config --libs

Show the necessary libraries to link to

cups-config --serverbin

Show the default CUPS binaries directory that stores filters and backends

cups-config --serverroot

Show the default CUPS configuration file directory

lpstat

Show CUPS status information

lpadmin

Administer CUPS printers

lpadmin -p printer0 -P LEXC750.ppd

Specify a PPD (Adobe PostScript Printer Description) file to associate to a printer

lp -d printer0 file

Print a file on the specified printer

lpq

View the default print queue

lpq -P printer0

View a specific print queue

lpq jdoe

View the print queue of a specific user

lprm -P printer0 5

Delete a specific job from a printer queue

lprm -P printer0 jdoe

Delete all jobs from a specific user from a printer queue

lprm -P printer0 -

Delete all jobs from a printer queue

lpc

Manage print queues

a2ps file.txt

Convert a text file to PostScript

ps2pdf file.ps

Convert a file from PostScript to PDF

mpage file.ps

Print a PostScript document on multiple pages per sheet on a PostScript printer

gv file.ps

View a PostScript document (the gv software is derived from GhostView)

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76/126

IP addressing
IPaddressing

IPv4

193.22.33.44

IPv6

32-bit
divided in 4 octets
(dotted-quad)

2130:0000:0000:0000:0007:0040:15bc:235f

4 billion addresses

2130::7:40:15bc:235f

128-bit
divided in 8 16-bit sections

2130:0:0:0:7:40:15bc:235f
3 1038 addresses

IPv4 classful addressing (assigned by IANA)

Classful

Private

Reserved

Address range

Prefix

Number of addresses

Reference

Class A (Unicast)

0.0.0.0 127.255.255.255
first octet: 0XXX XXXX

/8

128 networks
16,777,216 addresses

RFC 791

Class B (Unicast)

128.0.0.0 191.255.255.255
first octet: 10XX XXXX

/16

16,384 networks
65,536 addresses

RFC 791

Class C (Unicast)

192.0.0.0 223.255.255.255
first octet: 110X XXXX

/24

2,097,152 networks
256 addresses

RFC 791

Class D (Multicast)

224.0.0.0 239.255.255.255
first octet: 1110 XXXX

/4

268,435,456

RFC 3171

Class E (Experimental)

240.0.0.0 255.255.255.255
first octet: 1111 XXXX

/4

268,435,456

RFC 1166

Private Class A

10.0.0.0 10.255.255.255

10.0.0.0/8

16,777,216

RFC 1918

Private Class B

172.16.0.0 172.31.255.255

172.16.0.0/12

1,048,576

RFC 1918

Private Class C

192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255

192.168.0.0/16

65,536

RFC 1918

Source

0.0.0.0 0.255.255.255

0.0.0.0/8

16,777,216

RFC 1700

Loopback

127.0.0.0 127.255.255.255

127.0.0.0/8

16,777,216

RFC 1700

Autoconf

169.254.0.0 169.254.255.255

169.254.0.0/16

65,536

RFC 3330

TEST-NET

192.0.2.0 192.0.2.255

192.0.2.0/24

256

RFC 3330

6to4 relay anycast

192.88.99.0 192.88.99.255

192.88.99.0/24

256

RFC 3068

Device benchmarks

198.18.0.0 198.19.255.255

198.18.0.0/15

131,072

RFC 2544

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77/126

Subnetting
Subnetting

VLSM chart - Last octet subnetting (CIDR notation)

Prefix:
/24
Netmask:
.0
00000000
1 subnet
254 hosts each
254 total hosts

Prefix:
/25
Netmask: .128
10000000
2 subnets
126 hosts each
252 total hosts

Prefix:
/26
Netmask: .192
11000000
4 subnets
62 hosts each
248 total hosts

Prefix:
/27
Netmask: .224
11100000
8 subnets
30 hosts each
240 total hosts

Prefix:
/28
Netmask: .240
11110000
16 subnets
14 hosts each
224 total hosts

Prefix:
/29
Netmask: .248
11111000
32 subnets
6 hosts each
192 total hosts

Prefix:
/30
Netmask: .252
11111100
64 subnets
2 hosts each
128 total hosts
.0
.4
.8
.12
.16
.20
.24
.28
.32
.36
.40
.44
.48
.52
.56
.60
.64
.68
.72
.76
.80
.84
.88
.92
.96
.100
.104
.108
.112
.116
.120
.124
.128
.132
.136
.140
.144
.148
.152
.156
.160
.164
.168
.172
.176
.180
.184
.188
.192
.196
.200
.204
.208
.212
.216
.220
.224
.228
.232
.236
.240
.244
.248
.252

.0
.0
.8
.0
.16
.16
.24
.0
.32
.32
.40
.32
.48
.48
.56
.0
.64
.64
.72
.64
.80
.80
.88
.64
.96
.96
.104
.96
.112
.112
.120
.0
.128
.128
.136
.128
.144
.144
.152
.128
.160
.160
.168
.160
.176
.176
.184
.128
.192
.192
.200
.192
.208
.208
.216
.192
.224
.224
.232
.224
.240
.240
.248
Each block of a column identifies a subnet, whose range of valid hosts addresses is [network address +1 broadcast address -1] inclusive.
The network address of the subnet is the number shown inside a block.
The broadcast address of the subnet is the network address of the block underneath -1 or, for the bottom block, .255.

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78/126

Network services
Networkservices

Most common well-known ports

Port number

Service

20

TCP

FTP (data)

21

TCP

FTP (control)

22

TCP

SSH

23

TCP

Telnet

25

TCP

SMTP

53

TCP/UDP

DNS

67

UDP

BOOTP/DHCP (server)

68

UDP

BOOTP/DHCP (client)

80

TCP

HTTP

110

TCP

POP3

119

TCP

NNTP

139

TCP/UDP

Microsoft NetBIOS

143

TCP

IMAP

161

UDP

SNMP

443

TCP

HTTPS (HTTP over SSL/TLS)

465

TCP

SMTP over SSL

993

TCP

IMAPS (IMAP over SSL)

995

TCP

POP3S (POP3 over SSL)

1-1023: privileged ports, used server-side

1024-65535: unprivileged ports, used client-side
The full list of well-known ports is in /etc/services

Protocol stack models

ISO/OSI
7

Application

Presentation

TCP/IP
Application

Session

Transport

Transport

Network

Internet

Data Link

Physical

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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Network Access

e.g. HTTP, SMTP, POP, SSH

e.g. TCP, UDP
e.g. IPv4, IPv6, ICMP
e.g. Ethernet, Wi-Fi, PPP

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Network configuration commands

Networkconfigurationcommands

ip addr show
ifconfig -a

Display configuration of all network

interfaces

ip link show eth0

ifconfig eth0

Display configuration of eth0

ip addr add dev eth0 10.1.1.1/8

ifconfig eth0 10.1.1.1 netmask 255.0.0.0 broadcast 10.255.255.255

Configure IP address of eth0

ifconfig eth0 hw ether 45:67:89:ab:cd:ef

Configure MAC address of eth0

ip link set eth0 up

ifconfig eth0 up
ifup eth0

Activate eth0

ip link set eth0 down

ifconfig eth0 down
ifdown eth0

Shut down eth0

dhclient eth0
pump
dhcpcd eth0 (SUSE)

Request an IP address via DHCP

ip neigh
arp -a

Show the ARP cache table

ip neigh show 10.1.0.6

arp 10.1.0.6

Show the ARP cache entry for a host

ip neigh add 10.1.0.7 lladdr 01:23:45:67:89:ab dev eth0

arp -s 10.1.0.7 01:23:45:67:89:ab

Add a new ARP entry for a host

ip neigh del 10.1.0.7 dev eth0

arp -d 10.1.0.7

Delete a ARP entry

ip neigh flush all

Delete the ARP table for all interfaces

iwlist wlan0 scan

List all wireless devices in range, with their quality of signal and other information

iwlist wlan0 freq

Display transmission frequency settings

iwlist wlan0 rate

Display transmission speed settings

iwlist wlan0 txpower

Display transmission power settings

iwlist wlan0 key

Display encryption settings

iwgetid wlan0 option

Print NWID, ESSID, AP/Cell address or other information about the wireless network
that is currently in use

iwconfig wlan0

Display configuration of wireless interface wlan0

iwconfig wlan0 option

Configure wireless interface wlan0

hostname

Get the hostname (stored in /etc/hostname)

hostname -f

Get the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name)

hostname mylinuxbox
hostnamectl set-hostname --static "mylinuxbox"

/etc/init.d/networking
/etc/init.d/network

(Red Hat)

Set the hostname

Initialize network services

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80/126

Network tools
Networktools

dig example.org

Perform a DNS lookup for the specified domain or hostname.

Returns information in BIND zone file syntax; uses an internal
resolver and hence does not honor /etc/resolv.conf

dig @10.7.7.7 -t MX example.org

Perform a DNS lookup for the MX record of the domain

example.org, querying nameserver 10.7.7.7

dig -x 203.0.113.1

Perform a reverse DNS lookup for the IP address 203.0.113.1

host example.org

Perform a DNS lookup for the specified domain or hostname.

Does honor /etc/resolv.conf

host example.org 10.7.7.7

Perform a DNS lookup for the domain example.org, querying

nameserver 10.7.7.7

host 192.168.13.13

Perform a reverse DNS lookup for the IP address 192.168.13.13

nslookup example.org

(deprecated)

Perform a DNS lookup for the specified domain or hostname

whois example.org

Query the WHOIS service for an Internet resource, usually a

domain name

ping 10.0.0.2

Test if a remote host can be reached and measure the round-trip

time to it (by sending an ICMP ECHO_REQUEST datagram and
expecting an ICMP ECHO_RESPONSE)

fping -a 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.7 10.0.0.8

Ping multiple hosts in parallel and report which ones are alive

traceroute 10.0.0.3

Print the route, hop by hop, packets trace to a remote host

(by sending a sequence of ICMP ECHO_REQUEST datagrams with
increasing TTL values, starting with TTL=1)

tracepath 10.0.0.3

Simpler traceroute

mtr 10.0.0.3

traceroute and ping combined

telnet 10.0.0.4 23

Establish a telnet connection to the specified host and port

(if port is omitted, use default port 23)

ftp 10.0.0.5

Establish an interactive FTP connection with host 10.0.0.5

wget -no-clobber -html-extension \

--page-requisites --convert-links \
--recursive --domains example.org \
--no-parent www.example.org/foobar

Download a whole website www.example.org/foobar

nc
netcat

Netcat, the Swiss Army knife of networking, a very flexible generic

TCP/IP client/server

(SUSE)

nc -l -p 25

Listen for connections on port 25 (i.e. mimic a SMTP server).

Send any input on stdin to the connected client and dump on
stdout any data received from the client

nc 10.0.0.7 389 < myfile

Push the content of a file to port 389 on remote host 10.0.0.7

echo "GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n" | nc 10.0.0.7 80

Connect to web server 10.0.0.7 and issue a HTTP GET command

while true; \
do nc -l -p 80 -q 1 < mypage.html; done

Start a web server, serving the specified HTML page to any

connected client

nc -z 10.0.0.7 22

Scan for a listening SSH daemon on remote host 10.0.0.7

nc -v -n -z -w1 -r 10.0.0.7 1-1023

Run a TCP port scan against remote host 10.0.0.7.

Probe randomly all privileged ports with a 1-second timeout,
without resolving service names, and with verbose output

echo "" | nc -v -n -w1 10.0.0.7 1-1023

Retrieve the greeting banner of any network service that might be

running on remote host 10.0.0.7

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81/126

Network monitoring
Networkmonitoring

netstat

Display network connections

netstat -tcp
netstat -t

Display active TCP connections

netstat -l

Display only listening sockets

netstat -a

Display all listening and non-listening sockets

netstat -n

Display network connections, without resolving hostnames or portnames

netstat -p

Display network connections, with PID and name of program to which

each socket belongs

netstat -i

Display network interfaces

netstat -s

Display protocol statistics

netstat -r

Display kernel routing tables (equivalent to route -e)

netstat -c

Display network connections continuously

ss

Display socket statistics (similar to netstat)

ss -t -a

Display all TCP sockets

nmap 10.0.0.1
nmap -sS 10.0.0.1

Scan for open ports (TCP SYN scan) on remote host 10.0.0.1

nmap -sP 10.0.0.1

Do a ping sweep (ICMP ECHO probes) on remote host

nmap -sU 10.0.0.1

Scan UDP ports on remote host

nmap -sV 10.0.0.1

Do a service and version scan on open ports

nmap -p 1-65535 10.0.0.1

Scan all ports (1-65535) on remote host, not only the common ports

nmap -O 10.0.0.1

Find which operating system is running on remote host (OS fingerprinting)

tcpdump -ni eth0

Sniff all network traffic on interface eth0, suppressing DNS resolution

tcpdump ip host 10.0.0.2 tcp port 25

Sniff network packets on TCP port 25 from and to 10.0.0.2

tcpdump ether host '45:67:89:ab:cd:ef'

Sniff traffic from and to the network interface with that MAC address

tcpdump 'src host 10.0.0.2 and \

(tcp port 80 or tcp port 443)'

Sniff HTTP and HTTPS traffic having as source host 10.0.0.2

tcpdump -ni eth0 not port 22

Sniff all traffic on eth0 except that belonging to the SSH connection

tcpdump -vvnn -i eth0 arp

Sniff ARP traffic on eth0, on maximum verbosity level, without converting

host IP addresses and port numbers to names

tcpdump ip host 10.0.0.2 and \

not 10.0.0.9

Sniff IP traffic between 10.0.0.2 and any other host except 10.0.0.9

iptraf

IP LAN monitor (ncurses UI)

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Network system files

Networksystemfiles

/sys/class/net

List of all network interfaces in the system

/etc/services

List of service TCP/UDP port numbers

/etc/protocols

List of available protocols

/etc/ethers

ARP mappings (MAC to IP addresses)

/etc/inetd.conf

Configuration file for inetd, the super-server Internet daemon

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Network configuration files

Networkconfigurationfiles

/etc/hosts

Mappings between IP addresses and hostnames, for name resolution

127.0.0.1
10.2.3.4

/etc/nsswitch.conf

localhost.localdomain
myhost.domain.org

localhost
myhost

Sources that must be used by various system library lookup functions

passwd:
shadow:
group:
hosts:

/etc/host.conf

files
files
files
files

nisplus nis
nisplus nis
nisplus nis
dns nisplus nis

Sources for name resolution, for systems before glibc2.

Obsolete, superseded by /etc/nsswitch.conf
order hosts,bind
multi on

/etc/resolv.conf

Specification of domain names that must be appended to bare hostnames

and of DNS servers that will be used for name resolution
search domain1.org domain2.org
nameserver 192.168.3.3
nameserver 192.168.4.4

/etc/networks

Mappings between network addresses and names

loopback
mylan

/etc/network/interfaces

/etc/hostname
/etc/sysconfig/network

127.0.0.0
10.2.3.0

List and configuration of all network interfaces

Hostname of the local machine

(Red Hat)

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

(Red Hat)

Configuration file for network interface eth0.

This file is read by the ifup and ifdown scripts
DEVICE=eth0
TYPE=Ethernet
HWADDR=AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
NM_CONTROLLED=no
IPADDR=10.2.3.4
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=10.2.3.254
DNS1=8.8.8.8
DNS2=4.4.4.4
USERCTL=no

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:0
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:1
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:2

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/route-eth0

(Red Hat)

(Red Hat)

Configuration files for different interface aliases.

This makes possible to bind multiple IP addresses to a
single NIC

Static route configuration for eth0

ADDRESS=10.2.3.4
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=10.2.3.254

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TCP Wrapper
TCPWrapper

/etc/hosts.allow
/etc/hosts.deny

Host access control files used by the TCP Wrapper system.

Each file contains zero or more daemon:client lines. The first matching line is considered.
Access is granted when a daemon:client pair matches an entry in /etc/hosts.allow .
Otherwise, access is denied when a daemon:client pair matches an entry in /etc/hosts.deny .
Otherwise, access is granted.

/etc/hosts.allow and /etc/hosts.deny lines syntax

ALL: ALL

All services to all hosts

ALL: .example.edu

All services to all hosts of the example.edu domain

ALL: .example.edu EXCEPT host1.example.edu

All services to all hosts of example.edu, except host1

in.fingerd: .example.com

Finger service to all hosts of example.com

in.tftpd: LOCAL

TFTP to hosts of the local domain only

sshd: 10.0.0.3 10.0.0.4 10.1.1.0/24

SSH to the hosts and network specified

sshd: 10.0.1.0/24

SSH to 10.0.1.0/24

sshd: 10.0.1.

SSH to 10.0.1.0/24

sshd: 10.0.1.0/255.255.255.0

SSH to 10.0.1.0/24

in.tftpd: ALL: spawn (/safe_dir/safe_finger \

-l @%h | /bin/mail -s %d-%h root) &

Send a finger probe to hosts attempting TFTP and

notify root user via email

portmap: ALL: (echo Illegal RPC request \

from %h | /bin/mail root) &

When a client attempts a RPC request via the

portmapper (NFS access), echo a message to the
terminal and notify root user via email

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Routing
Routing

route -en
Kernel IP routing table
Destination
Gateway
192.168.3.0
0.0.0.0
0.0.0.0
192.168.3.1

Gateway

Flags

Genmask
255.255.255.0
0.0.0.0

host

gateway name

no gateway

rejected route

route is up

use gateway

target is host

rejected route

dynamically installed by daemon

modified from routing daemon

reinstate route for dynamic routing

Flags Metric Ref

U
0
0
UG
0
0

Use Iface
0 eth0
0 eth0

ip route
route -en
route -F
netstat -rn

Display IP routing table

ip route show cache

route -C

Display kernel routing cache

ip route add default via 10.1.1.254

route add default gw 10.1.1.254

Add a default gateway

ip route add 10.2.0.1 dev eth0

ip route add 10.2.0.1 via 10.2.0.254
route add -host 10.2.0.1 gw 10.2.0.254

Add a route for a host

ip route add 10.2.0.0/16 via 10.2.0.254

route add -net 10.2.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0 gw 10.2.0.254

Add a route for a network

ip route delete 10.2.0.1 dev eth0

route del -host 10.2.0.1 gw 10.2.0.254

Delete a route for a host

ip route flush all

Delete the routing table for all interfaces

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iptables
iptables

The Netfilter framework provides firewalling capabilities in Linux. It is implemented by the user-space application programs
iptables for IPv4 (which replaced ipchains, which itself replaced ipfwadm) and ip6tables for IPv6.
In Red Hat the iptables service is provided by the firewalld daemon.
Tables contain sets of chains, which contain sets of rules.
The filter table contains chains INPUT, FORWARD, OUTPUT (built-in chains).
The NAT table contains chains PREROUTING, OUTPUT, POSTROUTING.
The mangle table contains chains PREROUTING, OUTPUT.
When a packet enters the system, it is handed to the INPUT chain. If the destination is local, it is processed; if the
destination is not local and IP forwarding is enabled, the packet is handed to the FORWARD chain, otherwise it is dropped.
An outgoing packet generated by the system will go through the OUTPUT chain.
If NAT is in use, an incoming packet will pass at first through the PREROUTING chain, and an outgoing packet will pass last
through the POSTROUTING chain.

iptables -A INPUT -s 10.0.0.6 -j ACCEPT

Add a rule to accept all packets from 10.0.0.6

iptables -A INPUT -s 10.0.0.7 -j REJECT

Add a rule to reject all packets from 10.0.0.7 and send

back a ICMP response to the sender

iptables -A INPUT -s 10.0.0.8 -j DROP

Add a rule to silently drop all packets from 10.0.0.8

iptables -A INPUT -s 10.0.0.9 -j LOG

Add a rule to log via Syslog all packets from 10.0.0.9, and
take no further action

iptables -D INPUT -s 10.0.0.9 -j LOG

Delete a rule

iptables -D INPUT 42

Delete rule 42 of the INPUT chain

iptables -F INPUT

Flush all rules of the INPUT chain

iptables -t mangle -F

Flush all rules of the mangle table

iptables -t mangle -X

Delete all user-defined (not built-in) rules in the mangle

table

iptables -L INPUT

List the rules of the INPUT chain

iptables -P INPUT -j DROP

Define the chain policy, which takes effect when no rule

matches and the end of the rules list is reached

iptables -A OUTPUT -d 10.7.7.0/24 -j DROP

Add a rule to drop all packets with destination 10.7.7.0/24

iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o eth1 -j LOG

Add a rule to log all packets entering the system via eth0
and exiting via eth1

iptables -A INPUT -p 17 -j DROP

iptables -A INPUT -p udp -j DROP

Add a rule to drop all incoming UDP traffic (protocol

numbers are defined in /etc/protocols)

iptables -A INPUT --sport 1024:65535 --dport 53 \

-j ACCEPT

Add a rule to accept all packets coming from any

unprivileged port and with destination port 53

iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request \

-m limit --limit 1/s -i eth0 -j ACCEPT

Add a rule to accept incoming pings through eth0 at a

maximum rate of 1 ping/second

iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED \

-j ACCEPT

Load the module for stateful packet filtering, and add a

rule to accept all packets that are part of a
communication already tracked by the state module

iptables -A INPUT -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT

Add a rule to accept all packets that are not part of a

communication already tracked by the state module

iptables -A INPUT -m state --state RELATED -j ACCEPT

Add a rule to accept all packets that are related (e.g.

ICMP responses to TCP or UDP traffic) to a communication
already tracked by the state module

iptables -A INPUT -m state --state INVALID -j ACCEPT

Add a rule to accept all packets that do not match any of

the states above

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NAT routing
NATrouting

LAN
10.0.0.0/24

eth0
10.0.0.1

Linux box
NAT router

eth1
93.184.216.119

Internet

SNAT (Source Network Address Translation)

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.0.0/24 -o eth1 \
-j SNAT --to-source 93.184.216.119

Map all traffic leaving the LAN to the external IP

address 93.184.216.119

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -s 10.0.0.0/24 -o eth1 \

-j SNAT --to-source 93.184.216.119:93.184.216.127

Map all traffic leaving the LAN to a pool of external

IP addresses 93.184.216.119-127

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth1 -j MASQUERADE

Map all traffic leaving the LAN to the address

dynamically assigned to eth1 via DHCP

DNAT (Destination Network Address Translation)

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth1 -d 93.184.216.119 \
-j DNAT --to-destination 10.0.0.13

Allow the internal host 10.0.0.13 to be publicly

reachable via the external address 93.184.216.119

PAT (Port Address Translation)

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth1 -d 93.184.216.119 \
-p tcp --dport 80 -j DNAT --to-destination 10.0.0.13:8080

Make publicly accessible a webserver that is

located in the LAN, by mapping port 8080 of the
internal host 10.0.0.13 to port 80 of the external
address 93.184.216.119

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -d ! 10.0.0.0/24 \

-p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 3128

Redirect all outbound HTTP traffic originating from

the LAN to a proxy running on port 3128 on the
Linux box

iptables-save > fwrules.saved

Save iptables configuration to a file

iptables-restore < fwrules.saved

Restore a iptables configuration from a file

sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

Enable IP forwarding; necessary to set up a Linux machine as a router.

(This command causes other network options to be changed as well)

/etc/sysconfig/iptables

iptables rules

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SSH
SSH

ssh root@remotehost

Connect to a remote host via SSH (Secure Shell) and login

as the superuser

ssh -v root@remotehost
ssh -vv root@remotehost
ssh -vvv root@remotehost

Connect via SSH, with increasing levels of verbosity

ssh -p 2222 root@remotehost

Login as the superuser to a remote host via SSH using

port 2222 instead of standard port 22

ssh root@remotehost /root/mycommand

Execute a command on a remote host

sftp root@remotehost

FTP-like tool for secure file transfer

scp myfile root@remotehost:/tmp/myfile2

scp root@remotehost:/tmp/myfile2 myfile
scp jdoe@host1:/tmp/myfile root@host2:/root/myfile2

Non-interactive secure file copy.

Can transfer files from local to remote, from remote to
local, or between two remote hosts

sshpass -p p455w0rd ssh root@remotehost

Connect to a remote host using the specified password

pssh -i -H "host1 host2 host3" /root/mycommand

Execute a command in parallel on a group of remote hosts

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048

Generate interactively a 2048-bit RSA key pair, prompting

for a passphrase

ssh-keygen -t dsa

Generate a DSA key pair

ssh-keygen -p -t rsa

Change passphrase of the private key

ssh-keygen -q -t rsa -f /etc/ssh/id_rsa -N '' -C ''

Generate a RSA key with no passphrase (for noninteractive use) and no comment

ssh-keygen -lf /etc/ssh/id_rsa.pub

View key length and fingerprint of a public key

ssh-agent

Start the SSH Agent daemon that caches decrypted

private keys in memory; also echoes to the terminal the
environment variables that must be set. The cached keys
are automatically used by SSH tools ssh, sftp, and scp

eval `ssh-agent`

Show the PID of ssh-agent and set appropriate

environment variables

ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Add a private key to the ssh-agent cache

ssh-copy-id root@remotehost

Use locally available keys to authorize login (via public key

authentication) on a remote host

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SSH operations
SSHoperations

SSH port forwarding (aka SSH tunneling)

ssh -L 2525:mail.foo.com:25 [email protected]

Establish a SSH encrypted tunnel from localhost to remote

host mail.foo.com, redirecting traffic from local port 2525
to port 25 of remote host mail.foo.com.
Useful if the local firewall blocks outgoing port 25. In this
case, port 2525 is used to go out; the application must be
configured to connect to localhost on port 2525 (instead of
mail.foo.com on port 25)

ssh -L 2525:mail.foo.com:25 [email protected]

Establish a SSH encrypted tunnel from localhost to remote

host login.foo.com.
Remote host login.foo.com will then forward, unencrypted,
all data received over the tunnel on port 2525 to remote
host mail.foo.com on port 25

SSH reverse forwarding (aka SSH reverse tunneling)

ssh -R 2222:localhost:22 [email protected]

Establish a SSH encrypted reverse tunnel from remote

host login.foo.com back to localhost, redirecting traffic
sent to port 2222 of remote host login.foo.com back
towards local port 22.
Useful if the local firewall blocks incoming connections so
remote hosts cannot connect back to local machine. In
this case, port 2222 of login.foo.com is opened for
listening and connecting back to localhost on port 22;
remote host login.foo.com is then able to connect to the
local machine on port 2222 (redirected to local port 22)

SSH as a SOCKS proxy

ssh -D 33333 [email protected]

The application supporting SOCKS must be configured to

connect to localhost on port 33333. Data is tunneled from
localhost to login.foo.com, then unencrypted to destination

X11 Forwarding
ssh -X [email protected]

Enable the local display to execute locally a X application

stored on a remote host login.foo.com

How to enable public key authentication

1. Set PubkeyAuthentication yes in /etc/ssh/sshd_config of remote server
2. Append your public key ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub to the file ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the remote server;
this can be done by hand or via the command ssh-copy-id
How to enable host-based authentication amongst a group of trusted hosts
1.
2.
3.
4.

Set HostbasedAuthentication yes in /etc/ssh/sshd_config on all hosts

Create /etc/ssh/shosts.equiv on all hosts, and enter in this file all trusted hostnames
Connect via SSH manually from your machine on each host so that all hosts' public keys go into ~/.ssh/known_hosts
Copy ~/.ssh/known_hosts from your machine to /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts on all hosts

How to enable SSH Agent

1. Type eval `ssh-agent`
2. Type ssh-add to add the private key to cache, and enter the key's passphrase
How to enable X11 Forwarding
1. On remote host 10.2.2.2, set X11Forwarding yes in /etc/ssh/sshd_config, and make sure that xauth is installed
2. On local host 10.1.1.1, type ssh -X 10.2.2.2, then run on remote host the graphical application e.g. xclock &
X11 Forwarding can also be enabled via telnet (insecure and obsolete)
1. On remote host 10.2.2.2, type export DISPLAY=10.1.1.1:0.0
2. On local host 10.1.1.1, type xhost +
3. On local host 10.1.1.1, type telnet 10.2.2.2, then run on remote host the graphical application e.g. xclock &

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SSH configuration
SSHconfiguration

SSH files
/etc/ssh/sshd_config

SSH server daemon configuration file

/etc/ssh/ssh_config

SSH client global configuration file

/etc/ssh/ssh_host_key

Host's private key (should be mode 0600)

/etc/ssh/ssh_host_key.pub

Host's public key

/etc/ssh/shosts.equiv

Names of trusted hosts for host-based authentication

/etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts

Database of host public keys that were previously accepted as legitimate

~/.ssh/

User's SSH directory (must be mode 0700)

~/.ssh/config

SSH client user configuration file

~/.ssh/id_rsa
~/.ssh/id_dsa

User's RSA or DSA private key, as generated by ssh-keygen

~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
~/.ssh/id_dsa.pub

User's RSA or DSA public key, as generated by ssh-keygen

~/.ssh/known_hosts

Host public keys that were previously accepted as legitimate by the user

~/.ssh/authorized_keys
~/.ssh/authorized_keys2

(obsolete)

Trusted public keys; the corresponding private keys allow the user to
authenticate on this host

/etc/ssh/sshd_config
PermitRootLogin yes

Control superuser login via SSH. Possible values are:

yes
Superuser can login
no
Superuser cannot login
without-password
Superuser cannot login with password
forced-commands-only Superuser can only run commands in SSH command line

AllowUsers jdoe ksmith

DenyUsers jhacker

List of users that can/cannot login via SSH, or * for everybody

AllowGroups geeks
DenyGroups *

List of groups whose members can/cannot login via SSH, or * for all groups

PasswordAuthentication yes

Permit authentication via login and password

PubKeyAuthentication yes

Permit authentication via public key

HostbasedAuthentication yes

Permit authentication based on trusted hosts

Protocol 1,2

Specify protocols supported by SSH. Value can be 1 or 2 or both

X11Forwarding yes

Allow X11 Forwarding

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GnuPG
GnuPG

gpg --gen-key

Generate a key pair

gpg --import alice.asc

Import Alice's public key into your keyring

gpg --list-keys

List the keys contained into your keyring

gpg --list-secret-keys

List your private keys contained into your keyring

gpg --list-public-keys

List the public keys contained into your keyring

gpg --export -o keyring_backup.gpg

Export your whole keyring to a file

gpg --export-secret-key -a "You" -o private.key

Export your private key (username You) to a file

gpg --export-public-key -a "Alice" -o alice.pub

Export Alice's public key to a file

gpg --edit-key "Alice"

Sign Alice's public key

gpg -e -u "You" -r "Alice" file.txt

Encrypt a file (to Alice i.e. with Alice's public key),

signing it with your private key

gpg -d file.txt.gpg

Decrypt a file (with your own public key)

md5sum
sha1sum
sha224sum
sha256sum
sha384sum
sha512sum

Print a digest of a file depending on the selected

hashing algorithm

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OpenVPN
OpenVPN

openvpn --genkey --secret keyfile

Generate a shared secret keyfile for OpenVPN authentication.

The keyfile must be copied on both server and client

openvpn server.conf

Start the VPN on the server side. The encrypted VPN tunnel uses UDP port 1194

openvpn client.conf

Start the VPN on the client side

/etc/openvpn/server.conf

Server-side configuration file:

dev tun
ifconfig [server IP] [client IP]
keepalive 10 60
ping-timer-rem
persist-tun
persist-key
secret keyfile

/etc/openvpn/client.conf

Client-side configuration file:

remote [server public IP]
dev tun
ifconfig [client IP] [server IP]
keepalive 10 60
ping-timer-rem
persist-tun
persist-key
secret keyfile

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Key bindings
Keybindings

Key

Alternate key

Function

CTRL

Move cursor forward one char

CTRL

Move cursor backward one char

CTRL

HOME

Move cursor to beginning of line

CTRL

END

Move cursor to end of line

CTRL

BACKSPACE

Delete char to the left of cursor

CTRL

Delete word to the left of cursor

CTRL

Delete all chars to the left of cursor

CTRL

Delete all chars to the right of cursor

CTRL

Swap current char with previous char

ESC

Swap current word with previous word

Scroll up the buffer

SHIFT

PAGE UP

SHIFT

PAGE DOWN

Scroll down the buffer

CTRL

Clear screen (same as clear)

CTRL

Previous command in history

CTRL

Next command in history

CTRL

Reverse history search

Autocomplete file and directory names

TAB

Line feed

CTRL

RETURN

CTRL

Carriage return

CTRL

Pause trasfer to terminal

CTRL

Resume transfer to terminal

CTRL

Send a SIGTSTP to put the current job in background

CTRL

Send a SIGINT to stop the current process

CTRL

Send a EOF to current process (same as logout)

Send a SIGINT to reboot the machine (same as shutdown -r now),

as specified in /etc/inittab and /etc/init/control-alt-delete

CTRL

ALT

DEL

CTRL

ALT

F1 ... F6

CTRL

ALT

F7 ... F11

CTRL

ALT

Increase X Window screen resolution

CTRL

ALT

Decrease X Window screen resolution

CTRL

TAB

CTRL

ALT

Switch to next workspace

CTRL

ALT

Switch to previous workspace

CTRL

ALT

BACKSPACE

Reboot the X Window server

Switch between text consoles

Switch between X Window consoles

Switch between X Window tasks

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udev
udev

The Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) manages device files and provides plug-and-play facilities. The HAL daemon hald
maintains a persistent database of devices.
udev dynamically generates the device nodes in /dev/ for devices present on the system. udev also provides persistent
naming for storage devices in /dev/disk .
When a device is added, removed, or changes state, the kernel sends an uevent received by the udevd daemon which will
pass the uevent through a set of rules stored in /etc/udev/rules.d/*.rules and /lib/udev/rules.d/*.rules .

udevadm monitor
udevmonitor

Show all kernel uevents and udev messages

udevadm info --attribute-walk --name=/dev/sda

Print all attributes of device /dev/sda in udev rules key format

cat /sys/block/sda/size

Print the size attribute of disk sda in 512-byte blocks.

This information is retrieved from sysfs

udevadm test /dev/sdb

Simulate a udev event run for the device and print debug output

gnome-device-manager

Browser for the HAL device manager

/etc/udev/rules.d/*.rules and /lib/udev/rules.d/*.rules

udev rules

KERNEL=="hda", NAME="mydisk"

Match a device which was named by the

kernel as hda; name the device node as
mydisk. The device node will be therefore
/dev/mydisk

KERNEL=="hdb", DRIVER=="ide-disk", SYMLINK+="mydisk myhd"

Match a device with kernel name and driver

as specified; name the device node with the
default name and create two symbolic links
/dev/mydisk and /dev/myhd pointing to
/dev/hdb

KERNEL=="fd[0-9]*", NAME="floppy/%n", SYMLINK+="%k"

Match all floppy disk drives (i.e. fdn); place

device node in /dev/floppy/n and create a
symlink /dev/fdn to it

SUBSYSTEM=="block", ATTR{size}=="41943040", SYMLINK+="mydisk"

Match a block device with a size attribute of

41943040; create a symlink /dev/mydisk

KERNEL=="fd[0-9]*", OWNER="jdoe"

Match all floppy disk drives; give ownership

of the device file to user jdoe

KERNEL=="sda", PROGRAM="/bin/mydevicenamer %k", SYMLINK+="%c"

Match a device named by the kernel as sda;

to name the device, use the defined
program which takes on stdin the kernel
name and output on stdout e.g. name1
name2. Create symlinks /dev/name1 and
/dev/name2 pointing to /dev/sda

KERNEL=="sda", ACTION=="add", RUN+="/bin/myprogram"

Match a device named by the kernel as sda;

run the defined program when the device is
connected

KERNEL=="sda", ACTION=="remove", RUN+="/bin/myprogram"

Match a device named by the kernel as sda;

run the defined program when the device is
disconnected

%n = kernel number (e.g. = 3 for fd3)

%k = kernel name
(e.g. = fd3 for fd3)
%c = device name as output from program

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Kernel
Kernel

A kernel version number has the form major.minor.patchlevel.

Kernel images are usually gzip-compressed and can be of two types: zImage (max 520 Kb) and bzImage (no size limit).
Kernel modules can be loaded dynamically into the kernel to provide additional functionalities on demand, instead of being
included when the kernel is compiled; this reduces memory footprint.
kerneld (daemon) and kmod (kernel thread) facilitate the dynamic loading of kernel modules.

/lib/modules/X.Y.Z/*.ko

Kernel modules for kernel version X.Y.Z

/lib/modules/X.Y.Z/modules.dep

Modules dependencies.
This file needs to be recreated (via the command depmod -a) after a
reboot or a change in module dependencies

/etc/modules.conf
/etc/conf.modules

Modules configuration file

(deprecated)

/usr/src/linux/

Contains the kernel source code to be compiled

/usr/src/linux/.config

Kernel configuration file

freeramdisk

Free the memory used for the initrd image. This command must be
run directly after unmounting /initrd

mkinitrd [initrd image] [kernel version]

Create a initrd image file (Red Hat)

mkinitramfs

Create a initrd image file according to the configuration file

/etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf (Debian)

dracut

Create initial ramdisk images for preloading modules

dbus-monitor

Monitor messages going through a D-Bus message bus

dbus-monitor --session

Monitor session messages (default)

dbus-monitor --system

Monitor system messages

The runtime loader ld.so loads the required shared libraries of the program into RAM, searching in this order:
1.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH

Environment variable specifying the list of dirs where libraries should be searched for first

2.

/etc/ld.so.cache

Cache file

3.

/lib and /usr/lib

Default locations for shared libraries

/etc/ld.so.conf

Configuration file used to specify other shared library locations

(other than the default ones /lib and /usr/lib)

ldconfig

Create a cache file /etc/ld.so.cache of all available dynamically

linked libraries.
To be run when the system complains about missing libraries

ldd [program or lib]

Print library dependencies

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Kernel management
Kernelmanagement

lsdev

List information about the system's hardware

lspci

List PCI devices

lspci -d 8086:

List all Intel hardware present. PCI IDs are stored in /usr/share/misc/pci.ids (Debian)
or/usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids (Red Hat)

lsusb

List USB devices

lsusb -d 8086:

List all Intel USB devices present. USB IDs are stored in /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids

lshw

List system hardware

dmesg

Print the messages of the kernel ring buffer

dmesg -n 1

Set the logging level to 1 (= only panic messages)

journalctl

Query the systemd journal

journalctl -xn

Query the systemd journal for recent events only, and adding explanation texts

journalctl -f

Query the systemd journal in real time, scrolling as new entries are added

uname -s

Print the kernel name

uname -n

Print the network node hostname

uname -r

Print the kernel release number X.Y.Z

uname -v

Print the kernel version number

uname -m

Print the machine hardware name

uname -p

Print the processor type

uname -i

Print the hardware platform

uname -o

Print the operating system

uname -a

Print all the above information, in that order

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Kernel compile and patching

Kernelcompileandpatching

Kernel compile
Download

Clean

Configure

Download kernel source code linux-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 from http://www.kernel.org

to the base of the kernel source tree /usr/src/linux
make clean

Delete most generated files

make mrproper

Delete all generated files and kernel configuration

make distclean

Delete temporary files, patch leftover files, and similar

make config

Terminal-based (options must be set in sequence)

make menuconfig

ncurses UI

make xconfig
make gconfig

GUI

make oldconfig

Create a new config file, based on the options in the old config
file and in the source code

Components (e.g. device drivers) can be either:

- not compiled
- compiled into the kernel binary, for support of devices always used on the system or
necessary for the system to boot
- compiled as a kernel module, for optional devices
The configuration command creates a /usr/src/linux/.config config file containing
instructions for the compile

Build

make bzImage

Compile the kernel

make modules

Compile the kernel modules

make all

Compile kernel and kernel modules

make -j2 all will speed up compilation by allocating 2 simultaneous compile jobs
Modules install

make modules_install

Install the previously built modules present in

/lib/modules/X.Y.Z

make install

Install the kernel automatically

To install the kernel by hand:

Kernel install

Copy the new compiled kernel and other files into the boot partition
cp /usr/src/linux/arch/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-X.Y.Z (kernel)
cp /usr/src/linux/arch/boot/System.map-X.Y.Z /boot
cp /usr/src/linux/arch/boot/config-X.Y.Z /boot (config options used for this compile)
Create an entry in GRUB to boot on the new kernel
Optionally, the kernel can be packaged for install on other machines

Package

make rpm-pkg

Build source and binary RPM packages

make binrpm-pkg

Build binary RPM package

make deb-pkg

Builds binary DEB package

Kernel patching
Download
Patch
Build
Install

Download and decompress the patch to /usr/src

patch -p1 < file.patch

Apply the patch

patch -Rp1 < file.patch

To remove a patch, you can either apply the patch again or

use this command (reverse patch)

Build the patched kernel as explained previously

Install the patched kernel as explained previously

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Kernel modules
Kernelmodules

Kernel modules allow the kernel to access functions (symbols) for kernel services e.g. hardware drivers, network stack, or
filesystem abstraction.

lsmod

List the modules that are currently loaded into the kernel

insmod module

Insert a module into the kernel. If the module requires another module or if it
does not detect compatible hardware, insertion will fail

rmmod module

Remove a module from the kernel. If the module is in use by another module, it
is necessary to remove the latter first

modinfo module

Display the list of parameters accepted by the module

depmod -a

Probe all modules in the kernel modules directory and generate the file that lists
their dependencies

It is recommended to use modprobe instead of insmod/rmmod, because it automatically handles prerequisites when inserting
modules, is more specific about errors, and accepts just the module name instead of requiring the full pathname.
modprobe module option=value

Insert a module into the running kernel, with the specified parameters.
Prerequisite modules will be inserted automatically

modprobe -a

Insert all modules

modprobe -t directory

Attempt to load all modules contained in the directory until a module succeeds.
This action probes the hardware by successive module-insertion attempts for a
single type of hardware, e.g. a network adapter

modprobe -r module

Remove a module

modprobe -c module

Display module configuration

modprobe -l

List loaded modules

Configuration of device drivers

Device drivers support the kernel with instructions on how to use that device.
Device driver compiled
into the kernel

Configure the device driver by passing a kernel parameter in the GRUB menu:
kernel /vmlinuz ro root=/dev/vg0/root vga=0x33c
Edit module configuration in /etc/modprobe.conf or /etc/modprobe.d/ (Red Hat):

Device driver provided

as a kernel module

alias eth0 3c59x

Specify that eth0 uses the 3c59x.ko driver module

options 3c509 irq=10,11

Assign IRQ 10 and 11 to 3c509 devices

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/proc filesystem
/procfilesystem

/procpseudo filesystem
File

Information stored

Equivalent command to cat

/proc/n/

Information about process with PID n

ps n

/proc/n/cmdline

Command line the process was launched by

/proc/n/environ

Values of environment variables of process

/proc/n/status

Status of process

/proc/n/root

Symlink to process' filesystem root

/proc/n/exe

Symlink to process' executable

/proc/n/cwd

Symlink to process' working directory

/proc/sys/

sysfs: exposes tunable kernel parameters

/proc/sys/kernel/

Kernel information and parameters

/proc/sys/net/

Network information and parameters

/proc/uptime

Time elapsed since boot

uptime

/proc/loadavg

System load averages

uptime

/proc/filesystems

Filesystems supported by the system

/proc/partitions

Drive partition information

/proc/mdstat

Information about RAID arrays and devices

/proc/swaps

Size of total and used swap areas

swapon -s

/proc/mounts

Mounted partitions

mount

/proc/devices

Drivers currently loaded

/proc/modules

Kernel modules currently loaded

/proc/bus

Buses (e.g. PCI, USB, PC Card)

/proc/ioports

I/O addresses in use

/proc/dma

DMA channels in use

/proc/interrupts

Current IRQs (Interrupt Requests)

/proc/cpuinfo

CPUs information

/proc/meminfo

Total and free memory

free

/proc/version

Linux version

uname -a

lsmod

procinfo

/proc/sys is the only writable branch of /proc and can be used to tune kernel parameters on-the-fly.
All changes will be lost after system shutdown.

sysctl fs.file-max
cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max

Get the maximum allowed number of open files

sysctl -w "fs.file-max=100000"
echo "100000" > /proc/sys/fs/file-max

Set the maximum allowed number of open files to 100000

sysctl -a

List all available kernel tuning options

sysctl -p

Apply all tuning settings listed in /etc/sysctl.conf .

This command is usually run at boot by the system initialization script
and therefore allows for permanent changes to the kernel

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System recovery
Systemrecovery

If the kernel has been booted in emergency mode and init has not been run, some initial configuration is necessary e.g.
mount /proc
mount -o remount,rw /
mount -a

If mounting filesystems fails:

mknod /dev/sda
mknod /dev/sda1
fdisk -l /dev/sda
fsck -y /dev/sda1
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt/sysimage
chroot /mnt/sysimage

To install a package using an alternative root directory (useful if the system has been booted from a removable media):
rpm -U --root /mnt/sysimage package.rpm

To install GRUB on the specified directory (which must contain /boot/grub/):

grub-install -root-directory=/mnt/sysimage /dev/sda
An alternative metod is to chroot /mnt/sysimage before installing GRUB via grub-install /dev/sda .

Run sync and unmount filesystems before exiting the shell, to ensure that all changes have been written on disk.

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DNS
DNS

DNS implementations
BIND

Berkeley Internet Name Domain system, is the standard DNS server for UNIX

dnsmasq

Lightweight DNS, DHCP and TFTP server for a small network

djbdns

Security-hardened DNS server that also includes DNS debugging tools

PowerDNS

Alternative open-source DNS server

named

BIND Name Daemon

ndc

Name Daemon Controller for BIND 8

rndc

Remote Name Daemon Controller for BIND 9, uses a shared key to communicate securely with named

dnswalk example.org.

DNS debugger

rndc reconfig

Reload BIND configuration and new zones

rndc reload example.org

Reload the zone example.org

rndc freeze example.org

Suspend updates for the zone example.org

rndc thaw example.org

Resume updates for the zone example.org

rndc tsig-list

List all currently active TSIG keys

DNSSEC was designed to secure the DNS tree and hence prevent cache poisoning.
The TSIG (Transaction SIGnature) standard, that authenticates communications between two trusted systems, is used to
sign zone transfers and DDNS (Dynamic DNS) updates.

dnssec-keygen -a dsa -b 1024 \

-n HOST dns1.example.org

Generate a TSIG key with DNSSEC algorithm nnn and key fingerprint fffff.
This will create two key files
Kdns1.example.org.+nnn+fffff.key
Kdns1.example.org.+nnn+fffff.private
which contain a key number that has to be inserted both in /etc/named.conf and
/etc/rndc.conf

rndc-confgen -a

Generate a /etc/rndc.key key file:

key "rndc-key" {
algorithm hmac-md5;
secret "vyZqL3tPHsqnA57e4LT0Ek==";
};
options {
default-key "rndc-key";
default-server 127.0.0.1;
default-port 953;
};
This file is automatically read both by named and rndc

dnssec-signzone example.org

Sign the zone example.org

named -u named -g named

Run BIND as user/group named (both must be created if needed) instead of root

named -t /var/cache/bind

Run BIND in a chroot jail /var/cache/bind

(actually is the chroot command that starts the named server)

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102/126

DNS configuration
DNSconfiguration

/etc/named.conf

DNS server configuration file

controls {
inet 127.0.0.1 allow {localhost;} keys {rndckey;};
};
key "rndc-key" {
// TSIG key
algorithm dsa;
secret "HYZur46fftdUQ43BJKI093t4t78lkp";
};
acl "mynetwork" {10.7.0.0/24;};

// Alias definition
// Built-in ACLs: any, none, localhost, localnets

options {
directory "/var/named";
// Working directory
version "0.0";
// Hide version number by replacing it with 0.0
listen-on port 53 {10.7.0.1; 127.0.0.1;};
// Port and own IP addresses to listen on
blackhole {172.17.17.0/24;};
// IPs whose packets are to be ignored
allow-query {mynetwork;};
// IPs allowed to do iterative queries
allow-query-on {any;};
// Local IPs that can accept iterative queries
allow-query-cache {any;};
// IPs that can get an answer from cache
allow-recursion {mynetwork;};
// IPs to accept recursive queries from (typically
// own network's IPs). The DNS server does the full
// resolution process on behalf of these client IPs,
// and returns a referral for the other IPs
allow-recursion-on {mynetwork;};
// Local IPs that can accept recursive queries
allow-transfer {10.7.0.254;};
// Zone transfer is restricted to these IPs (slaves);
// on slave servers, this option should be disabled
allow-update {any;};
// IPs to accept DDNS updates from
recursive-clients 1000;
// Max number of simultaneous recursive lookups
dnssec-enable yes;
// Enable DNSSEC
dialup no;
// Not a dialup connection: external zone maintenance
// (e.g. sending heartbeat packets, external zone transfers)
// is then permitted
forward first;
// Site-wide cache: bypass the normal resolution
forwarders {10.7.0.252; 10.7.0.253;};
// method by querying first these central DNS
// servers if they are available
};
// Define the root name servers
zone "." {
type hint;
file "root.cache";
}
// Configure system to act as a master server for the example.org domain
zone "example.org" IN {
type master;
file "master/example.org.zone";
// Zone file for the example.org domain
};
zone "240.123.224.in-addr.arpa" IN {
// Configure reverse lookup zone (for 224.123.240.0/24)
type master;
file "slave/example.org.revzone";
};
// Configure system to act as a slave server for the example2.org domain
zone "example2.org" IN {
type slave;
file "slave/example2.org.zone";
// Slave: do not edit this zone file!
masters {10.7.0.254;};
};
zone "0.7.10.in-addr.arpa" IN {
// Configure reverse lookup zone (for 10.7.0.0/24)
type slave;
file "slave/10.7.0.revzone";
masters {10.7.0.254;};
};

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103/126

DNS zone file

DNSzonefile

DNS zone file for the example.org zone

/var/named/master/example.org.zone

$TTL 86400
; TTL (1 day)
$ORIGIN example.org.
example.org IN SOA dns1.example.org. help.example.org. (
2014052300
; serial
28800
; refresh (8 hours)
7200
; retry (2 hours)
604800
; expire (1 week)
600 )
; negative TTL (10 mins)

dns1
dns2
mail1
mail2
foo
bar
www
baz

IN
IN
IN
IN

NS
NS
MX
MX

dns1.example.org.
dns2.example.org.
10 mail1.example.org.
20 mail2.example.org.

IN
IN
IN
IN
IN
IN
IN
IN

A
A
A
A
A
A
A
CNAME

224.123.240.3
224.123.240.4
224.123.240.73
224.123.240.77
224.123.240.12
224.123.240.13
224.123.240.19
bar

; Master DNS server is dns1.example.org

; For problems contact [email protected]

subdomain

IN NS
ns1.subdomain.example.org.
; Glue records
IN NS
ns2.subdomain.example.org.
ns1.subdomain.example.org.
IN A
224.123.240.201
ns2.subdomain.example.org.
IN A
224.123.240.202
/var/named/master/example.org.revzone

DNS reverse zone file for the example.org zone

$TTL 86400
; TTL (1 day)
example.org IN SOA dns1.example.org. help.example.org. (
2014052300
; serial
28800
; refresh (8 hours)
7200
; retry (2 hours)
604800
; expire (1 week)
600 )
; negative TTL (10 mins)
12.240.123.224.in-addr.arpa
13.240.123.224.in-addr.arpa
19.240.123.224.in-addr.arpa

IN PTR
IN PTR
IN PTR

foo
bar
www
Resource Records

SOA

$TTL

How long to cache a positive response

$ORIGIN

Suffix appended to all names not ending with a dot.

Useful when defining multiple subdomains inside the same zone

Start Of Authority for the example.org zone

serial

Serial number. Must be increased after each edit of the zone file

refresh

How frequently a slave server refreshes its copy of zone data from the master

retry

How frequently a slave server retries connecting to the master

expire

How long a slave server relies on its copy of zone data. After this time period expires,
the slave server is not authoritative anymore for the zone unless it can contact a master

negative TTL

How long to cache a non-existent answer

Address: maps names to IP addresses. Used for DNS lookups.

PTR

Pointer: maps IP addresses to names. Used for reverse DNS lookups.

Each A record must have a matching PTR record

CNAME

Canonical Name: specifies an alias for a host with an A record (even in a different zone).
Discouraged as it causes multiple lookups; it is better to use multiple A records instead

NS

Name Service: specifies the authoritative name servers for the zone

MX

Mailserver: specifies address and priority of the servers able to handle mail for the zone

Glue Records are not really part of the zone; they delegate authority for other zones, usually subdomains

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Apache
Apache

Methods of MPM (Multi-Processing Modules) operation of the Apache webserver:

prefork MPM

A number of child processes is spawned in advance, with each child serving exclusively one connection.
Highly reliable due to Linux memory protection that isolates each child process

worker MPM

Multiple child processes spawn multiple threads, with each thread serving one connection.
More scalable but prone to deadlocks if third-party non-threadsafe modules are loaded

apache2ctl start

Start the Apache webserver daemon httpd

apache2ctl status

Display a brief status report

apache2ctl fullstatus

Display a detailed status report

apache2ctl graceful

Gracefully restart Apache; currently open connections are not aborted

apache2ctl graceful-stop

Gracefully stop Apache; currently open connections are not aborted

apache2ctl configtest

Test the configuration file, reporting any syntax error

/var/www/html

Default document root directory

$HOME/public_html

Default document root directory for users' websites

Web content must be readable by the user/group the Apache process runs as. For security reasons, it should be owned and
writable by the superuser or the webmaster user/group, not the Apache user/group.

/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
/etc/apache2/httpd.conf

(Red Hat)
(Debian and SUSE)

Apache configuration file

HTTPS
A secure web server (using HTTP over SSL i.e. HTTPS) hands over its public key to the client when the latter connects
to it via port 443. The server's public key is signed by a CA (Certification Authority), whose validity is ensured by the
root certificates stored into the client's browser.
The openssl command and its user-friendly CA.pl script are the tools of the OpenSSL crypto library that can be used
to accomplish all public key crypto operations e.g. generate key pairs, Certificate Signing Requests, self-signed
certificates.
Virtual hosting with HTTPS requires assigning an unique IP address for each virtual host; this because the SSL
handshake (during which the server sends its certificate to the client's browser) takes place before the client sends
the Host: header (which tells which virtual host the client wants to talk to).
A workaround for this is SNI (Server Name Indication) that makes the browser send the hostname in the first
message of the SSL handshake. Another workaround is to have all multiple name-based virtual hosts use the same
SSL certificate with a wildcard domain *.example.org.

/etc/ssl/openssl.cnf
/etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

Configuration file for OpenSSL

(Red Hat)

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Apache configuration
Apacheconfiguration

httpd.conf
Server configuration directives
ServerName www.mysite.org:80

Name and port (if omitted, uses default HTTP port 80) of server

ServerRoot /etc/httpd

Root directory for config and log files

ServerAdmin [email protected]

Contact address that the server includes in any HTTP error

messages to the client. Can be an email address or an URL

StartServers 5

Number of servers to start initially

MinSpareServers 5
MaxSpareServers 10

Minimum and maximum number of idle child server processes

MaxClients 256
MaxRequestWorkers 256

(before v2.3.13)
(after v2.3.13)

Max number of simultaneous requests that will be served; clients

above this limit will get a HTTP error 503 - Service Unavailable.
Prefork MPM: max number of child processes launched to serve
requests.
Worker MPM: max total number of threads available to serve
requests

ServerLimit 256

Prefork MPM: max configured value for MaxRequestWorkers.

Worker MPM: in conjunction with ThreadLimit, max configured
value for MaxRequestWorkers

ThreadsPerChild 25

Worker MPM: number of threads created by each child process

ThreadLimit 64

Worker MPM: max configured value for ThreadsPerChild

LoadModule mime_module modules/mod_mime.so

Load the module mime_module by linking in the object file or

library modules/mod_mime.so

Listen 10.17.1.1:80
Listen 10.17.1.5:8080

Make the server accept connections on the specified IP

addresses (optional) and ports

User nobody
Group nobody

User and group the Apache process runs as. For security
reasons, this should not be root
Main configuration directives

DocumentRoot /var/www/html

Directory in filesystem that maps to the root of the website

Alias /image /mydir/pub/image

Map the URL http://www.mysite.org/image/ to the directory

/mydir/pub/image in the filesystem. This allows Apache to
serve content placed outside of the document root

TypesConfig conf/mime.types

Media types file. The path is relative to ServerRoot

AddType image/jpeg jpeg jpg jpe

Map the specified filename extensions onto the specified content

type. These entries adds to or override the entries from the
media types file conf/mime.types

Redirect permanent /foo /bar

Redirect to a URL on the same host. Status can be:

permanent
return a HTTP status 301 - Moved Permanently
temp
return a HTTP status 302 - Found
(i.e. the resource was temporarily moved)
seeother
return a HTTP status 303 - See Other
gone
return a HTTP status 410 - Gone
If status is omitted, default status temp is used

Redirect /foo http://www.example.com/foo

Redirect to a URL on a different host

AccessFileName .htaccess

Name of the distributed configuration file, which contains

directives that apply to the document directory it is in and to all
its subtrees

<Directory "/var/www/html/foobar">
AllowOverride AuthConfig Limit
</Directory>

Specify which
AuthConfig
FileInfo
Indexes
Limit
Options
All
None

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global directives a .htaccess file can override:

authorization directives for directory protection
document type and metadata
directory indexing
host access control
specific directory features
all directives
no directive

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Apache virtual hosts

Apachevirtualhosts

httpd.conf
Virtual hosts directives
NameVirtualHost *

Specify which IP address will serve virtual hosting. The

argument can be an IP address, an address:port pair, or * for all
IP addresses of the server. The argument will be repeated in the
relevant <VirtualHost> directive

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName www.mysite.org
ServerAlias mysite.org *.mysite.org
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/mysite
</VirtualHost>

The first listed virtual host is also the default virtual host.
It inherits those main settings that does not override.
This virtual host answers to http://www.mysite.org , and also
redirects there all HTTP requests on the domain mysite.org

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
ServerName www.mysite2.org
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/mysite2
ErrorLog /var/www/logs/mysite2
</VirtualHost>

Name-based virtual host http://www.mysite2.org .

Multiple name-based virtual hosts can share the same IP
address; DNS must be configured accordingly to map each name
to the correct IP address. Cannot be used with HTTPS

<VirtualHost *:8080>
ServerName www.mysite3.org
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/mysite3
</VirtualHost>

Port-based virtual host answering to connections on port 8080.

In this case the config file must contain a Listen 8080 directive

<VirtualHost 10.17.1.5:80>
ServerName www.mysite4.org
DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/mysite4
</VirtualHost>

IP-based virtual host answering to http://10.17.1.5

Logging directives
LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b"

Specify the format of a log

LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common

Specify a nickname (here, "common") for a log format.

This one is the CLF (Common Log Format) defined as such:
%h
IP address of the client host
%l
Identity of client as determined by identd
%u
User ID of client making the request
%t
Timestamp the server completed the request
%r
Request as done by the user
%s
Status code sent by the server to the client
%b
Size of the object returned, in bytes

CustomLog /var/log/httpd/access_log common

Set up a log filename, with the format or (as in this case)

the nickname specified

TransferLog /var/log/httpd/access_log

Set up a log filename, with format determined by the most

recent LogFormat directive which did not define a nickname

TransferLog "|rotatelogs access_log 86400"

Organize log rotation every 24 hours

HostnameLookups Off

Disable DNS hostname lookup to save network traffic.

Hostnames can be resolved later by processing the log file:
logresolve <access_log >accessdns_log

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Apache directory protection

Apachedirectoryprotection

httpd.conf
Limited scope directives
<Directory "/var/www/html/foobar">
[list of directives]
</Directory>

Limit the scope of the specified directives to the directory

/var/www/html/foobar and its subdirectories

<Location /foobar>
[list of directives]
</Location>

Limit the scope of the specified directive to the URL

http://www.mysite.org/foobar/ and its subdirectories
Directory protection directives

<Directory "/var/www/html/protected">
AuthName "Protected zone"

Name of the realm. The client will be shown the realm name
and prompted to enter an user and password

AuthType Basic

Type of user authentication: Basic, Digest, Form, or None

AuthUserFile "/var/www/.htpasswd"

User database file. Each line is in the format

user:encrypted_password
To add an user jdoe to the database file, use the command:
htpasswd -c /var/www/.htpasswd jdoe
(will prompt for his password)

AuthGroupFile "/var/www/.htgroup"

Group database file. Each line contains a groupname followed

by all member usernames:
mygroup: jdoe ksmith mgreen

Require valid-user

Control who can access the protected resource.

valid-user
any user in the user database file
user jdoe
only the specified user
group mygroup
only the members of the specified group

Allow from 10.13.13.0/24

Control which host can access the protected resource

Satisfy Any

Set the access policy concerning user and host control.

All
both Require and Allow criteria must be satisfied
Any
any of Require or Allow criteria must be satisfied

Order Allow,Deny

Control the evaluation order of Allow and Deny directives.

Allow,Deny
First, all Allow directives are evaluated; at
least one must match, or the request is
rejected. Next, all Deny directives are
evaluated; if any matches, the request is
rejected. Last, any requests which do not
match an Allow or a Deny directive are
denied
Deny,Allow

First, all Deny directives are evaluated; if

any match, the request is denied unless it
also matches an Allow directive. Any
requests which do not match any Allow or
Deny directives are permitted

</Directory>

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Apache SSL/TLS configuration

ApacheSSL/TLSconfiguration

httpd.conf
SSL/TLS directives (module mod_ssl)
SSLCertificateFile \
/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.crt/server.crt

SSL server certificate

SSLCertificateKeyFile \
/etc/httpd/conf/ssl.key/server.key

SSL server private key (for security reasons, this file

should be readable only by root)

SSLCACertificatePath \
/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crt/

Directory containing the certificates of CAs. Files in this

directory are PEM-encoded and accessed via symlinks to
hash filenames

SSLCACertificateFile \
/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crt/ca-bundle.crt

Certificates of CAs. Certificates are PEM-encoded and

concatenated in a single bundle file in order of preference

SSLCertificateChainFile \
/usr/local/apache2/conf/ssl.crt/ca.crt

Certificate chain of the CAs. Certificates are PEM-encoded

and concatenated from the issuing CA certificate of the
server certificate to the root CA certificate. Optional

SSLEngine on

Enable the SSL/TLS Protocol Engine

SSLProtocol +SSLv3 +TLSv1.2

SSL protocol flavors that the client can use to connect to

server. Possible values are:
SSLv2
(deprecated)
SSLv3
TLSv1
TLSv1.1
TLSv1.2
All
(all the above protocols)

SSLCipherSuite \
ALL:!aDH:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP

Cipher suite available for the SSL handshake (key

exchange algorithms, authentication algorithms,
cipher/encryption algorithms, MAC digest algorithms)

ServerTokens Full

Server response header field to send back to client.

Possible values are:
Prod
sends Server: Apache
Major
sends Server: Apache/2
Minor
sends Server: Apache/2.4
Minimal sends Server: Apache/2.4.2
OS
sends Server: Apache/2.4.2 (Unix)
Full
(or not specified) sends
Server: Apache/2.4.2 (Unix) PHP/4.2.2 MyMod/1.2

ServerSignature Off

Trailing footer line on server-generated documents.

Possible values are:
Off
no footer line (default)
On
server version number and ServerName
EMail
as above, plus a mailto link to ServerAdmin

SSLVerifyClient none

Certificate verification level for client authentication.

Possible values are:
none
no client certificate is required

TraceEnable on

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

require

the client needs to present a valid

certificate

optional

the client may present a valid

certificate (this option is unused
as it doesn't work on all browsers)

optional_no_ca

the client may present a valid

certificate but it doesn't need to
be successfully verifiable (this
option has not much purpose and
is used only for SSL testing)

Enable TRACE requests

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OpenSSL
OpenSSL

openssl x509 -text -in certif.crt -noout

Read a certificate

openssl req -text -in request.csr -noout

Read a Certificate Signing Request

openssl req -new -key private.key -out request.csr

Generate a Certificate Signing Request (in PEM

format) for the public key of a key pair

openssl req -new -nodes -keyout private.key \

-out request.csr -newkey rsa:2048

Create a 2048-bit RSA key pair and generate a

Certificate Signing Request for it

openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes \

-keyout private.key -out certif.crt -days validity

Generate a new CA private key, create a 2048-bit

RSA key pair and generate a CSR for it

openssl ca -config ca.conf -in request.csr \

-out certif.crt -days validity -verbose

Sign a CSR (to generate a self-signed certificate,

the steps are creating a CSR and signing it)

openssl ca -config ca.conf -gencrl -revoke certif.crt \

-crl_reason why

Revoke a certificate

openssl ca -config ca.conf -gencrl -out crlist.crl

Generate a Certificate Revocation List containing

all revoked certificates so far

openssl x509 -in certif.pem -outform DER \

-out certif.der

Convert a certificate from PEM to DER

openssl pkcs12 -export -in certif.pem \

-inkey private.key -out certif.pfx -name friendlyname

Convert a certificate from PEM to PKCS#12

including the private key

cat cert.crt cert.key > cert.pem

Create a PEM certificate from CRT and private key

openssl dgst -hashfunction -out file.hash file

Generate the digest of a file

openssl dgst -hashfunction file | cmp -b file.hash

Verify the digest of a file (if there is no output,

then digest verification is successful)

openssl dgst -hashfunction -sign private.key \

-out file.sig file

Generate the signature of a file

openssl dgst -hashfunction -verify public.key \

-signature file.sig file

Verify the signature of a file

openssl enc -e -cipher -in file -out file.enc -salt

Encrypt a file

openssl enc -d -cipher -in file.enc -out file

Decrypt a file

openssl genpkey -algorithm RSA -cipher 3des \

-pkeyopt rsa_keygen_bits:2048 -out key.pem

Generate a 2048-bit RSA key pair protected by

TripleDES passphrase

openssl genrsa -des3 -out key.pem 2048

Generate a 2048-bit RSA key pair protected by

TripleDES passphrase (older versions of OpenSSL)

openssl pkey -text -in private.key -noout

Examine a private key

openssl rsa -text -in private.key -noout

Examine a private key

(older versions of OpenSSL)

openssl pkey -in old.key -out new.key -cipher

Change the passphrase of a private key

openssl rsa -in old.key -out new.key -cipher

Change the passphrase of a private key

(older versions of OpenSSL)

openssl pkey -in old.key -out new.key

Remove the passphrase from a private key

1. openssl s_client -connect www.website.com:443 > tmpfile

Retrieve and inspect a SSL certificate from a

website

2.

CTRL

3. openssl x509 -in tmpfile -text

openssl list-message-digest-commands

List all available hash functions

openssl list-cipher-commands

List all available ciphers

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CA.pl
CA.pl

CA.pl -newca

Create a Certification Authority hierarchy

CA.pl -newreq

Generate a Certificate Signing Request

CA.pl -signreq

Sign a Certificate Signing Request

CA.pl -pkcs12 "Certificate name"

Generate a PKCS#12 certificate from a Certificate Signing Request

CA.pl -newcert

Generate a self-signed certificate

CA.pl -newreq-nodes

Generate a Certificate Signing Request, with unencrypted private key

(this is necessary for use in servers, because the private key is accessed in
non-interactive mode i.e. without passphrase typing)

CA.pl -verify

Verify a certificate against the Certification Authority certificate for "demoCA"

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Samba
Samba

Samba is a cross-platform implementation of Microsoft's SMB (Server Message Block) protocol for file and printer sharing.
SMB is sometimes also referred to as CIFS (Common Internet File System).
WINS (Windows Internet Name Service) is a name service used to translate NetBIOS names to IP addresses.
Ports used:

TCP 137
TCP 138
TCP 139
UDP

name service requests and responses

datagram services e.g. server announcements
file and printer sharing
registration and translation of NetBIOS names, network browsing

smbd

Server Message Block daemon. Provides SMB file and printer sharing, browser services, user authentication,
and resource lock. An extra copy of this daemon runs for each client connected to the server

nmbd

NetBIOS Name Service daemon. Handles NetBIOS name lookups, WINS requests, list browsing and elections.
An extra copy of this daemon runs if Samba functions as a WINS server.
Another extra copy of this daemon runs if DNS is used to translate NetBIOS names

/etc/smb/lmhosts

Samba NetBIOS hosts file

/etc/smb/netlogon

User logon directory

mount.cifs //smbserver/share1 /mnt/shares/sh1 \

-o auto,credentials=/etc/smbcreds

Mount a Samba share on a Linux filesystem, using the CIFS

filesystem interface.
Access is checked upon a credentials file /etc/smbcreds
(should be readable only by root) formatted as follows:
username = jdoe
password = jd03s3cr3t

smbmount //smbserver/share1 /mnt/shares/sh1 \

-o username=jdoe

Mount a Samba share as user jdoe

smbstatus

Display current information about shares, clients

connections, and locked files

smbclient //smbserver/share1

Access a Samba share on a server (with a FTP-like interface)

smbclient -L //smbserver -W WORKGROUP -U user

List the Samba resources available on a server, belonging to

the specified workgroup and accessible to the specified user

cat msg.txt | smbclient -M client -U user

Show a message popup on the client machine (using the

WinPopup protocol)

smbpasswd jdoe

Change the Samba password of the specified user

smbpasswd -a ksmith

Create a new Samba user and set his password

nmblookup smbserver

Look up the NetBIOS name of a server and map it to an IP

address

nmblookup -U winsserver -R WORKGROUP#1B

Query recursively a WINS server for the Domain Master

Browser for the specified workgroup

nmblookup -U winsserver -R WORKGROUP#1D

Query recursively a WINS server for the Domain Controller

for the specified workgroup

testparm

Check for errors in the Samba configuration file

net

Tool for administration of Samba and remote CIFS servers

net rpc shutdown -r -S smbserver -U root%password

Reboot a CIFS server

net rpc service list -S smbserver

List available service on a CIFS server

net status sessions

Show active Samba sessions

net status shares

Show Samba shares

net rpc info

Show information about the domain

net groupmap list

Show group mappings between Samba and Windows

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Samba configuration
Sambaconfiguration

/etc/smb/smb.conf
[global]

Samba configuration

Global server settings: defines parameters applicable for the whole

Samba server and sets the defaults that will be used for the
parameters not mentioned in other sections

workgroup = MYWORKGROUP

Make Samba join the specified workgroup

server string = Linux Samba Server %L

Describe server to the clients

hosts allow = 10.9.9.0/255.255.255.0

Allow only the specified machines to connect to the server

security = user

Set up user-level authentication

encrypt passwords = yes

Use encrypted passwords

smb passwd file = /etc/smb/smbpasswd

Refer to the specified password file for user authentication.

A new user's password will need to be set both in Linux and Samba by
using these commands from shell prompt:
passwd newuser
smbpasswd newuser

unix password sync = yes

When the password of a client user (e.g. under Windows) is changed,

change the Linux and Samba password too

username map = /etc/smb/smbusers

Map each Samba server user name to client user name(s).

The file /etc/smb/smbusers is structured as follows:
root = Administrator Admin
jdoe = "John Doe"
kgreen = "Kim Green"

netbios name = Mysambabox

netbios aliases = Mysambabox1

Set NetBIOS name and alias

wins support = yes

Make Samba play the role of a WINS server.

Note: There should be only one WINS server on a network

logon server = yes

Enable logon support.

Logon script parameters will be defined in a [netlogon] section

log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m

Use a separate logfile for each machine that connects

max log size = 1000

Maximum size of each logfile, in Kb

syslog only = no

Whether to log only via Syslog

syslog = 0

Log everything to the logfiles /var/log/smb/log.smbd and

/var/log/smb/log.nmbd, and log a minimum amount of information
to Syslog. This parameter can be set to a higher value to have Syslog
log more information

panic action = \
/usr/share/samba/panic-action %d

Mail a backtrace to the sysadmin in case Samba crashes

[netlogon]
comment = Netlogon for Windows clients
path = /home/netlogon
browseable = no
guest ok = no
writeable = no
logon script = %U.bat

Section defining a logon script.

Specifies a per-user script e.g. /home/netlogon/jdoe.bat will be
called when user jdoe logs in. It is also possible to specify a perclientname script %m.bat, which will be called when a specific machine
logs in.
Guest access to the service (i.e. access without entering a password)
is disabled

[Canon LaserJet 3]
printer name = lp
comment = Canon LaserJet 3 main printer
path = /var/spool/lpd/samba
printable = yes
writeable = no

Section defining a printer accessible via the network

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Samba shares
Sambashares

/etc/smb/smb.conf
[public]

Samba configuration

Section defining a public share accessible on read/write by anyone

comment = Public Storage on %L

Describe the public share to users

path = /home/samba

Path of the public share on the server

browsable = yes

Whether to show the public share when browsing

writeable = yes

Whether to allow all users to write in this directory

[homes]

Section enabling users that have an account and a home directory

on the Samba server to access it and modify its contents from a
Samba client.
The path variable is not set, by default is path=/home/%S

comment = %U's home directory on %L from %m

Describe the share to the user

browseable = no

Whether to show the homes share when browsing

writeable = yes

Whether to allow the user to write in his home directory

[foobar]

Section defining a specific share

path = /foobar
comment = Share Foobar on %L from %m
browsable = yes
writeable = yes
valid users = jdoe, kgreen, +geeks

Allow access only to users jdoe and kgreen, and local group geeks

invalid users = csmith

Deny access to user csmith

read list = bcameron

Allow read-only access to user bcameron

write list = fcastle

Allow read-write access to user fcastle

Samba share access

User-level authentication
[global]
security = user

Set up user-level authentication

guest account = nobody

Map the guest account to the system user nobody (default)

map to guest = Never

Specify how incoming requests are mapped to the guest account:

Bad User
redirect from an invalid user to guest account on server
Bad Password
redirect from an invalid password to guest account on server
Never
reject unauthenticated users
Server-level authentication

[global]
security = server
password server = srv1 srv2

Set up server-level authentication

Authenticate to server srv1, or to server srv2 if srv1 is unavailable
Domain-level authentication

[global]
security = ADS
realm = KRB_REALM

Set up domain-level authentication as an Active Directory member server

Join the specified realm.
Kerberos must be installed and an administrator account must be created:
net ads join -U Administrator%password
Share-level authentication

[global]
security = share
[foobar]
path = /foobar
username = foobaruser
only user = yes

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

Set up share-level authentication

Define a share accessible to any user which can supply foobaruser's password.
The user foobaruser must be created on the system:
useradd -c "Foobar account" -d /tmp -m -s /sbin/nologin foobaruser
and added to the Samba password file:
smbpasswd -a foobaruser

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Samba macros
Sambamacros

Samba macros
%S

Username

%U

Session username (the username that the client requested,

not necessarily the same as the one he got)

%G

Primary group of session username

%S

Name of the current service, if any

%h

Samba server hostname

%P

Root directory of the current service, if any

%M

Client hostname

%u

Username of the current service, if any

Primary group name of username

%L

The substitutes below apply only to the

configuration options that are used when a
connection has been established:

NetBIOS name of the server

%g

%m

NetBIOS name of the client

%H

Home directory of username

%d

Process ID of the current server process

%N

%a

Architecture of remote machine

%I

IP address of client machine

Name of the NIS home directory server as

obtained from the NIS auto.map entry.
Same as %L if Samba was not compiled with
the --with-automount option

%i

Local IP address to which a client connected

%p

%T

Current date and time

%D

Domain or workgroup of the current user

Path of service's home directory as obtained

from the NIS auto.map entry. The NIS
auto.map entry is split up as %N:%p

%w

Winbind separator

%$(var)

Value of the environment variable var

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NFS
NFS

A Network File System (NFS) server makes filesystems available to clients for mounting.
The portmapper is needed by NFS to map incoming TCP/IP connections to the appropriate NFS RPC calls. Some Linux
distributions use rpcbind instead of the portmapper.
For security, the TCP Wrapper should be configured to limit access to the portmapper to NFS clients only:
file /etc/hosts.deny should contain portmap: ALL
file /etc/hosts.allow should contain portmap: IP_addresses_of_clients
NFS handles user permissions across systems by considering users with same UID and username as the same user.
Group permission is evaluated similarly, by GID and groupname.

rpc.nfsd
rpc.mountd
rpc.lockd
rpc.statd

NFS daemons

/etc/exports

List of the filesystems to be exported (via the command exportfs)

/var/lib/nfs/xtab

List of exported filesystems, maintained by exportfs

/proc/fs/nfs/exports

Kernel export table (can be examined via the command cat)

exportfs -ra

Export or reexport all directories.

When exporting, fills the kernel export table /proc/fs/nfs/exports.
When reexporting, removes those entries in /var/lib/nfs/xtab that are
deleted from /etc/exports (therefore synchronizing the two files), and
removes those entries from /proc/fs/nfs/exports that are no longer valid

exportfs -ua

Unexport all directories.

Removes from /proc/fs/nfs/exports all those entries that are listed in
/var/lib/nfs/xtab, and clears the latter file

showmount

Show the remote client hosts currently having active mounts

showmount --directories

Show the directories currently mounted by a remote client host

showmount --exports

Show the filesystems currently exported i.e. the active export list

showmount --all

Show both remote client hosts and directories

showmount -e nfsserver

Show the shares a NFS server has available for mounting

mount -t nfs nfsserver:/share /usr

Command to be run on a client to mount locally a remote NFS share.

NFS shares accessed frequently should be added to /etc/fstab :
nfsserver:/share /usr nfs intr 0 0

rpcinfo -p nfsserver

Probe the portmapper on a NFS server and display the list of all registered
RPC services there

rpcinfo -t nfsserver nfs

Test a NFS connection by sending a null pseudo request (using TCP)

rpcinfo -u nfsserver nfs

Test a NFS connection by sending a null pseudo request (using UDP)

nfsstat

Display NFS/RPC client/server statistics.

NFS
Options:

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RPC

both

server

-sn

-sr

-s

client

-cn

-cr

-c

both

-n

-r

-nr

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/etc/exports
/etc/exports

/etc/exports
/export/
/export/
/home/ftp/pub
/home/crew
filesystem
client
identity

client
options

10.3.3.3(rw)
*(ro,sync)
client1(rw) *.example.org(ro)
@FOOBARWORKGROUP(rw) (ro)

Filesystem on the NFS server to be exported to clients

Client systems allowed to access the exported directory.
Can be identified by hostname, IP address, wildcard, subnet, or @NIS workgroup.
Multiple client systems can be listed, and each one can have different options
ro

Read-only access (default)

rw

Read and write access. The client may choose to mount read-only anyway

sync

Reply to requests only after the changes made by these requests have been committed to
stable storage

async

Reply to requests without waiting that changes are committed to stable storage.
Improves performances but might cause loss or corruption of data if server crashes

root_squash

Requests by user root on client will be done as user nobody on server (default)

no_root_squash

Requests by user root on client will be done as same user root on server

all_squash

Requests by a non-root user on client will be done as user nobody on server

no_all_squash

Requests by a non-root user on client will be attempted as same user on server (default)

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DHCP
DHCP

A DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server listens for requests on UDP port 67 and answers to UDP port 68.
The assignment of an IP address to a host is done through a sequence of DHCP messages initiated by the client host:
DHCP Discover, DHCP Offer, DHCP Request, DHCP Acknowledgment.
Because DHCP Discover messages are broadcast and therefore not routed outside a LAN, a DHCP relay agent is necessary
for those clients situated outside the DHCP server's LAN. The DHCP relay agent listens to DHCP Discover messages and
relays them in unicast to the DHCP server.

/etc/dhcpd.conf
/etc/sysconfig/dhcrelay

Configuration file for the DHCP server

(SUSE)

Configuration file for the DHCP relay agent

/var/lib/dhcpd/dhcpd.leases

DHCP current leases

/etc/dhcpd.conf
option
option
option
option
option

domain-name-servers 10.2.2.2;
smtp-servers 10.3.3.3;
pop-servers 10.4.4.4;
time-servers 10.5.5.5;
nntp-servers 10.6.6.6;

Global parameters for DNS, mail, NTP, and news servers

specification

shared-network geek-net {

Definition of a network

default-lease-time 86400;

Time, in seconds, that will be assigned to a lease if a client

does not ask for a specific expiration time

max-lease-time 172800;

Maximum time, in seconds, that can be assigned to a

lease if a client asks for a specific expiration time

option routers 10.0.3.252;

option broadcast-address 10.0.3.255;

subnet 10.0.3.0 netmask 255.255.255.128 {

range 10.0.3.1 10.0.3.101;
}
subnet 10.0.3.128 netmask 255.255.255.128 {
range 10.0.3.129 10.0.3.229;
}

group {

Definition of a group

option routers 10.0.17.252;

option broadcast-address 10.0.17.255;
netmask 255.255.255.0;
host linuxbox1 {
hardware ethernet AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF;
fixed-address 10.0.17.42;
option host-name "linuxbox1";
}
host linuxbox2 {
hardware ethernet 33:44:55:66:77:88;
fixed-address 10.0.17.66;
option host-name "linuxbox2";
}

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

Definition of different subnets in the network, with

specification of different ranges of IP addresses that will be
leased to clients depending on the client's subnet

3rd ed.

2015-07

Definition of different hosts to whom static IP addresses

will be assigned to, depending on their MAC address

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118/126

PAM
PAM

PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) is an abstraction layer that allows applications to use authentication methods while
being implementation-agnostic.

/etc/pam.d/service
/etc/pam.conf

PAM configuration for service

(obsolete)

PAM configuration for all services

ldd /usr/sbin/service | grep libpam

Check if service is enabled to use PAM

/etc/pam.d/service
auth
auth
auth
auth
account
session
session
password

type

control

requisite
required
required
required
required
required
optional
required

pam_securetty.so
pam_nologin.so
pam_env.so
pam_unix.so nullok
pam_unix.so
pam_unix.so
pam_lastlog.so
pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=8

auth

Authentication module to verify user identity and group membership

account

Authorization module to determine user's right to access a resource (other than his identity)

password

Module to update an user's authentication credentials

session

Module (run at end and beginning of an user session) to set up the user environment

optional

Module is not critical to the success or failure of service

sufficient

If this module successes, and no previous module has failed, module stack processing ends
successfully. If this module fails, it is non-fatal and processing of the stack continues

required

If this module fails, processing of the stack continues until the end, and service fails

requisite

If this module fails, service fails and control returns to the application that invoked service

include

Include modules from another PAM service file

PAM module and its options, e.g.:

module

pam_unix.so

Standard UNIX authentication module via /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow

pam_nis.so

Module for authentication via NIS

pam_ldap.so

Module for authentication via LDAP

pam_fshadow.so

Module for authentication against an alternative shadow passwords file

pam_cracklib.so

Module for password strength policies (e.g. length, case, max n of retries)

pam_limits.so

Module for system policies and system resource usage limits

pam_listfile.so

Module to deny or allow the service based on an arbitrary text file

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

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119/126

LDAP
LDAP

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is a simplified version of the X.500 standard and uses TCP port 389.
LDAP permits to organize hierarchically a database of entries, each one of which is identified by an unique DN (Distinguished
Name). Each DN has a set of attributes, each one of which has a value. An attribute may appear multiple times.

Most frequently used LDAP attributes

Attribute

Example

Meaning

dn

dn: cn=John Doe,dc=example,dc=org

Distinguished Name
(not an attribute; identifies the entry)

dc

dc=example,dc=org

Domain Component

cn

cn: John Doe

Common Name

givenName

givenName: John

Firstname

sn

sn: Doe

Surname

mail

mail: [email protected]

Email address

telephoneNumber

telephoneNumber: +1 505 1234 567

Telephone number

uid

uid: jdoe

User ID

c: US

Country code

l: San Francisco

Locality

st

st: California

State or province

street

street: 42, Penguin road

Street

o: Example Corporation

Organization

ou

ou: IT Dept

Organizational Unit

manager

manager: cn=Kim Green,dc=example,dc=org

Manager

ldapsearch -H ldap://ldapserver.example.org \
-s base -b "ou=people,dc=example,dc=com" \
"(sn=Doe)" cn sn telephoneNumber

Query the specified LDAP server for entries where

surname=Doe, and print common name, surname, and
telephone number of the resulting entries.
Output is shown in LDIF

ldappasswd -x -D "cn=Admin,dc=example,dc=org" \
-W -S "uid=jdoe,ou=IT Dept,dc=example,dc=org"

Authenticating as Admin, change the password of user jdoe in

the OU called IT Dept, on example.org

ldapmodify -b -r -f /tmp/mods.ldif

Modify an entry according to the LDIF file /tmp/mods.ldif

ldapadd -h ldapserver.example.org \
-D "cn=Admin" -W -f /tmp/mods.ldif

Authenticating as Admin, add an entry by adding the content

of the LDIF file /tmp/mods.ldif to the directory.
Actually invokes the command ldapmodify -a

ldapdelete -v "uid=jdoe,dc=example,dc=org" \
-D "cn=Admin,dc=example,dc=org" -W

Authenticating as Admin, delete the entry of user jdoe

LDIF (LDAP Data Interchange Format)

dn: cn=John Doe, dc=example, dc=org
changetype: modify
replace: mail
mail: [email protected]
add: jpegPhoto
jpegPhoto:< file://tmp/jdoe.jpg
delete: description
-

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

This LDIF file will change the email address

of jdoe, add a picture, and delete the
description attribute for the entry

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

120/126

OpenLDAP
OpenLDAP

slapd

Standalone OpenLDAP daemon

/var/lib/ldap/

Files constituting the OpenLDAP database

/etc/openldap/slapd.conf
/usr/local/etc/openldap/slapd.conf

OpenLDAP configuration file

slapcat -l file.ldif

Dump the contents of an OpenLDAP database to a LDIF file

slapadd -l file.ldif

Import an OpenLDAP database from a LDIF file

slapindex

Regenerate OpenLDAP's database indexes

SSSD (the System Security Services Daemon) can be used to provide access to OpenLDAP as an authentication and identity
provider.

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

121/126

SELinux
SELinux

Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a Linux kernel security module that provides a mechanism for supporting access
control security policies.

Debian

Red Hat

Enter permissive
mode

echo 0 > /selinux/enforce

setenforce 0

Enter enforcing
mode

echo 1 > /selinux/enforce

setenforce 1

Display mode

cat /selinux/enforce

getenforce

Set mode
permanently

Mode can be configured permanently in /etc/selinux/config

(symlinked in /etc/sysconfig/selinux)
# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system.
# SELINUX= can take one of these three values:
# enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced.
# permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing.
# disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=enforcing
# SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values:
# targeted - Only targeted network daemons are protected.
# strict - Full SELinux protection.
SELINUXTYPE=targeted

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Daniele Raffo

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122/126

HTML components
HTMLcomponents

Tag

Attributes

<h1>...<h6> Heading

align=left|center|right|justify

Heading alignment

align=left|center|right

Line alignment

noshade

Solid rendering instead of 3D

size=npixels

Line height

width=npixels|percent%

Line width

align=left|center|right|justify

Paragraph or section alignment

charset=encoding

Character encoding of target URL

coords=left,top,right,bottom|
cx,cy,radius|x1,y1,...,xn,yn

Coordinates of region; depends on

shape

href=url

Target URL for the link

hreflang=language

Language of document at the

target URL

name=section

Name of anchor for document

bookmarking

rel|rev=alternate|stylesheet|
start|next|prev|contents|index|
glossary|copyright|chapter|
section|subsection|appendix|
help|bookmark

Relationship between this

document and the target URL
(rel) or vice versa (rev)

shape=rectangle|circle|polygon

Shape of region

target=_blank|_parent|_self|_top

Destination of target URL

type=mimetype

MIME type of target URL

<br> Line break

Line break and

carriage return

<hr> Horizontal line

<p> Paragraph
<div> Section
<span> Group

<a> Anchor

Group of elements

Hyperlink

<dl>
Definition list
<dt>
Definition term
<dd>
Definition description

Description of a
definition term
= deprecated

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

123/126

HTML text
HTMLtext

Tag

Attributes

<i> Italic
<b> Bold
<s>
<strike>

Strike-through

<u> Underlined

Strike-through text
Underlined text

<big> Bigger
<small> Smaller
<sub> Subscript
<sup> Superscript
<tt> Teletype

Monospaced text

<em> Emphasized
<strong> Strong
<del> Deleted
<ins> Inserted

Deleted/inserted text

<pre> Preformatted
<code> Code

Source code text

<samp> Sample

Sample code text

<kbd> Keyboard

Keyboard key

<var> Variable

Variable name

<cite> Citation

Citation block

<blockquote> Quotation
<q> Short quotation
<address> Address

cite=url

URL to document explaining

deletion/insertion

datetime=yyyy-mm-dd

When the text was deleted/inserted

width=ncharacters

Max number of characters per line

cite=url

URL to document containing the quote

Address block

<abbr> Abbreviation
<acronym> Acronym
<dfn> Definition

<font> Font

Definition term

Font

<bdo> Bidirectional override

<xmp> XMP

other tags

color=rgb(r,g,b)|#rrggbb|color

Text color

face=fontname

Text font

size=[1...7]|[-6...+6]

Text size

dir=ltr|rtl

Direction of text: left-to-right or rightto-left

class=class|style

Class of the element

id=id

Unique ID of the element

style=styledef

Inline style definition

title=tooltip

Text of the tooltip to display

dir=ltr|rtl

Direction of text: left-to-right or rightto-left

lang=language

Language of the content

accesskey=character

Keyboard shortcut for the element

tabindex=ntab

N of tab for the element

Non-formatted text ;
ignores other HTML tags

Attributes common to
almost all other tags

= deprecated
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Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

124/126

HTML images
HTMLimages

Tag

<img>
Image

<map>
Image map

<area>
Area of
image map

Attributes
align=top|bottom|left|middle|right

Image alignment with respect to surrounding text

alt=alternatetext

Description of the image for text-only browsers

border=npixels

Border width around the image

height=npixels|percent%

Image height

hspace=npixels

Blank space on the left and right side of image

ismap=url

URL for server-side image map

longdesc=url

URL containing a long description of the image

src=url

URL of the image

usemap=url

URL for client-side image map

vspace=npixels

Blank space on top and bottom of image

width=npixels|percent%

Image width

id=id

Unique ID for the map tag

name=name

Unique name for the map tag

alt=alternatetext

Description of area for text-only browsers

coords=left,top,right,bottom|
cx,cy,radius|x1,y1,...,xn,yn

Coordinates of clickable area; depends on shape

href=url

Target URL of area

nohref=true|false

Excludes or includes the area from image map

shape=rectangle|circle|polygon

Shape of area

target=_blank|_parent|_self|_top

Destination of target URL

= deprecated

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2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

125/126

HTML tables and lists

HTMLtablesandlists

Tag

Attributes
align=left|center|right

Table alignment

bgcolor=rgb(r,g,b)|#rrggbb|color

Table background color

border=npixels

Border width

cellpadding=npixels|percent%

Space around the content of each cell

cellspacing=npixels|percent%

Space between cells

frame=void|above|below|
lhs|rhs|hsides|vsides|box|border

Visibility of sides of the table border

rules=none|groups|rows|cols|all

Horizontal or vertical divider lines

summary=summary

Summary of the table for text-only browsers

width=npixels|percent%

Table width

align=left|center|right|justify|char

Horizontal text alignment

bgcolor=rgb(r,g,b)|#rrggbb|color

Row background color

char=character

Character to align text on, if align=char

charoff=npixels|percent%

Alignment offset to first character, if align=char

valign=top|middle|bottom|baseline

Vertical text alignment

abbr=content

Abbreviated content in a cell

align=left|center|right|justify|char

Horizontal text alignment

axis=category

Cell name

bgcolor=rgb(r,g,b)|#rrggbb|color

Cell background color

char=character

Character to align text on, if align=char

charoff=npixels|percent%

Alignment offset to first character, if align=char

colspan=ncolumns

Number of columns this cell spans on

headers=headerid

Cell header information for text-only browsers

height=npixels

Cell height

nowrap

Text in cell stays on a single line

rowspan=nrows

Number of rows this cell spans on

scope=col|colgroup|row|rowgroup

Target for cell header information

valign=top|middle|bottom|baseline

Vertical text alignment

width=npixels|percent%

Cell width

compact=compact

List must be more compact

start=firstnumber

Number to start the list on

type=A|a|I|i|1

List numbers type

<ul>
Unordered list

compact=compact

List must be more compact

type=disc|square|circle

List type

<li>
List item

type=disc|square|circle|A|a|I|i|1

List item type

value=itemno

List item value

<table>
Table

<tr>
Table row

<td>
Table cell
<th>
Table header

<ol>
Ordered list

= deprecated

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo

126/126

7-bit ASCII table

7bitASCIItable

Dec

Hex

Char

Dec

Hex

NUL

Null

32

20

SOH

Start of heading

33

STX

Start of text

ETX

Char

Dec

Hex

space

64

40

21

65

34

22

"

End of text

35

23

EOT

End of transmission

36

24

ENQ

Enquiry

37

ACK

Acknowledge

BEL

BS

10

Char

Dec

Hex

Char

96

60

41

97

61

66

42

98

62

67

43

99

63

68

44

100

64

25

69

45

101

65

38

26

&

70

46

102

66

Bell

39

27

'

71

47

103

67

Backspace

40

28

72

48

104

68

TAB

Horizontal tab

41

29

73

49

105

69

LF

Line feed

42

2A

74

4A

106

6A

11

VT

Vertical tab

43

2B

75

4B

107

6B

12

FF

Form feed

44

2C

76

4C

108

6C

13

CR

Carriage return

45

2D

77

4D

109

6D

14

SO

Shift out

46

2E

78

4E

110

6E

15

SI

Shift in

47

2F

79

4F

111

6F

16

10

DLE

Data link escape

48

30

80

50

112

70

17

11

DC1

Device control 1

49

31

81

51

113

71

18

12

DC2

Device control 2

50

32

82

52

114

72

19

13

DC3

Device control 3

51

33

83

53

115

73

20

14

DC4

Device control 4

52

34

84

54

116

74

21

15

NAK

Negative ACK

53

35

85

55

117

75

22

16

SYN

Synchronous idle

54

36

86

56

118

76

23

17

ETB

End of Tx block

55

37

87

57

119

77

24

18

CAN

Cancel

56

38

88

58

120

78

25

19

EM

End of medium

57

39

89

59

121

79

26

1A

SUB

Substitute

58

3A

90

5A

122

7A

27

1B

ESC

Escape

59

3B

91

5B

123

7B

28

1C

FS

File separator

60

3C

<

92

5C

124

7C

29

1D

GS

Group separator

61

3D

93

5D

125

7D

30

1E

RS

Record separator

62

3E

>

94

5E

126

7E

31

1F

US

Unit separator

63

3F

95

5F

127

7F

DEL

Delete

Characters 0-31 and 127 are non-printable.

Linux & LPIC Quick Reference Guide

3rd ed.

2015-07

Daniele Raffo

www.crans.org/~raffo