LINUX COMMAND LINE

CHEAT SHEET
A QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE from:

LinuxTrainingAcademy.com

https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com
Table of Contents

1 - SYSTEM INFORMATION 2
2 - HARDWARE INFORMATION 2
3 - PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND STATISTICS 3
4 - USER INFORMATION AND MANAGEMENT 3
5 - FILE AND DIRECTORY COMMANDS 4
6 - PROCESS MANAGEMENT 5
7 - FILE PERMISSIONS 5
8 - NETWORKING 6
9 - ARCHIVES (TAR FILES) 7
10 - INSTALLING PACKAGES 7
11 - SEARCH 8
12 - SSH LOGINS 8
13 - FILE TRANSFERS 9
14 - DISK USAGE 9
15 - DIRECTORY NAVIGATION 9
16 - SECURITY 10
17 - LOGGING AND AUDITING 10

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 1

 1 - SYSTEM INFORMATION
uname -a # Display Linux system information

uname -r # Display kernel release information

cat /etc/redhat-release # Show which version of Red Hat installed

lsb_release -a # Show which version of Ubuntu installed

uptime # Show how long the system has been running + load

hostname # Show system host name

hostname -I # Display all local IP addresses of the host

last reboot # Show system reboot history

date # Show the current date and time

cal # Show this month's calendar

w # Display who is online

whoami # Who you are logged in as

2 - HARDWARE INFORMATION

dmesg # Display messages in kernel ring buffer

cat /proc/cpuinfo # Display CPU information

cat /proc/meminfo # Display memory information

free -h # Display free and used memory ( -h for human readable,

-m for MB, -g for GB.)

lspci -tv # Display PCI devices

lsusb -tv # Display USB devices

dmidecode # Display DMI/SMBIOS (hardware info) from the BIOS

hdparm -i /dev/sda # Show info about disk sda

hdparm -tT /dev/sda # Perform a read speed test on disk sda

badblocks -s /dev/sda # Test for unreadable blocks on disk sda

lshw # Display information about CPU, memory, storage, and

network interfaces

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 2

lsblk # Display information about all storage devices

3 - PERFORMANCE MONITORING AND STATISTICS

top # Display and manage the top processes

htop # Interactive process viewer (top alternative)

mpstat 1 # Display processor related statistics

vmstat 1 # Display virtual memory statistics

iostat 1 # Display I/O statistics

tail -100 /var/log/messages # Display the last 100 syslog messages (Use
/var/log/syslog for Debian based systems.)

tcpdump -i eth0 # Capture and display all packets on interface eth0

tcpdump -i eth0 'port 80' # Monitor all traffic on port 80 ( HTTP )

lsof # List all open files on the system

lsof -u user # List files opened by user

free -h # Display free and used memory ( -h for human

readable, -m for MB, -g for GB.)

watch df -h # Execute "df -h", showing periodic updates

mpstat # Display statistics about CPU usage

pidstat # Display statistics about processes running

4 - USER INFORMATION AND MANAGEMENT

id # Display the user and group ids of your
current user.

last # Display the last users who have logged onto

the system.

who # Show who is logged into the system.

w # Show who is logged in and what they are

doing.

groupadd test # Create a group named "test".

useradd -c "John Smith" -m john # Create an account named john, with a

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 3

 comment of "John Smith" and create the user's
home directory.

userdel john # Delete the john account.

usermod -aG sales john # Add the john account to the sales group

5 - FILE AND DIRECTORY COMMANDS

ls -al # List all files in a long listing (detailed) format

pwd # Display the present working directory

mkdir directory # Create a directory

rm file # Remove (delete) file

rm -r directory # Remove the directory and its contents

recursively

rm -f file # Force removal of file without prompting for

confirmation

rm -rf directory # Forcefully remove directory recursively

cp file1 file2 # Copy file1 to file2

cp -r source_directory destination # Copy source_directory recursively to

destination. If destination exists, copy
source_directory into destination,
otherwise create destination with the
contents of source_directory.

mv file1 file2 # Rename or move file1 to file2. If file2 is

an existing directory, move file1 into directory
file2

ln -s /path/to/file linkname # Create symbolic link to linkname

touch file # Create an empty file or update the access

and modification times of file.

cat file # View the contents of file

less file # Browse through a text file

head file # Display the first 10 lines of file

tail file # Display the last 10 lines of file

tail -f file # Display the last 10 lines of file and "follow"

the file as it grows.

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 4

 6 - PROCESS MANAGEMENT
ps # Display your currently running processes

ps -ef # Display all the currently running processes on the

system.

ps -ef | grep processname # Display process information for processname

top # Display and manage the top processes

htop # Interactive process viewer (top alternative)

kill pid # Kill process with process ID of pid

killall processname # Kill all processes named processname

program & # Start program in the background

bg # Display stopped or background jobs

fg # Brings the most recent background job to

foreground

fg n # Brings job n to the foreground

nohup processname # Runs a process even after user logs out

7 - FILE PERMISSIONS

PERMISSION EXAMPLE

U G W
rwx rwx rwx chmod 777 filename # Use sparingly!
rwx rwx r-x chmod 775 filename
rwx r-x r-x chmod 755 filename
rw- rw- r-- chmod 664 filename

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 5

 rw- r-- r-- chmod 644 filename

LEGEND

U = User
G = Group
W = World

r = Read
w = write
x = execute
- = no access

chown john /path/to/file # Change ownership of /path/to/file to

john

chgrp sales /path/to/file # Change group ownership of

/path/to/file to group sales

8 - NETWORKING
ip a # Display all network interfaces and IP address

ip addr show dev eth0 # Display eth0 address and details

ethtool eth0 # Query or control network driver and hardware settings

ping host # Send ICMP echo request to host

whois domain # Display whois information for domain

dig domain # Display DNS information for domain

dig -x IP_ADDRESS # Reverse lookup of IP_ADDRESS

host domain # Display DNS IP address for domain

hostname -i # Display the network address of the host name.

hostname -I # Display all local IP addresses of the host.

wget http://domain.com/file # Download http://domain.com/file

netstat -nutlp # Display listening tcp and udp ports and corresponding
programs

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 6

ifconfig # Display information about network interfaces

traceroute host # Display the path that packets take to host

tcpdump # Capture and analyze network traffic

9 - ARCHIVES (TAR FILES)

tar cf archive.tar directory # Create tar named archive.tar containing
directory.

tar xf archive.tar # Extract the contents from archive.tar.

tar czf archive.tar.gz directory # Create a gzip compressed tar file name
archive.tar.gz.

tar xzf archive.tar.gz # Extract a gzip compressed tar file.

tar cjf archive.tar.bz2 directory # Create a tar file with bzip2 compression

tar xjf archive.tar.bz2 # Extract a bzip2 compressed tar file.

10 - INSTALLING PACKAGES
yum search keyword # Search for a package by keyword.

yum install package # Install package.

yum info package # Display description and summary information

about package for RHEL based systems.

rpm -i package.rpm # Install package from local file named

package.rpm

yum remove package # Remove/uninstall package for RHEL based

systems.

yum update package # Update package with name package for RHEL
based systems.

tar zxvf sourcecode.tar.gz # Install software from source code.

cd sourcecode
./configure
make
make install

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 7

apt-get update # Update package list for Debian based systems.

apt-get upgrade # Upgrade all installed packages to their newest

version for Debian based systems.

apt-get install package # Install package with name package for Debian
based systems.

apt-remove package # Remove package with name package for Debian

based systems.

11 - SEARCH
grep pattern file # Search for pattern in file

grep -r pattern directory # Search recursively for pattern in directory

locate name # Find files and directories by name

find /home/john -name 'prefix*' # Find files in /home/john that start with "prefix".

find /home -size +100M # Find files larger than 100MB in /home

whereis program # Display the location of the binary, source and

manual page files of program.

which program # Display the path of executable that would run if

program is executed.

12 - SSH LOGINS
ssh host # Connect to host as your local username.

ssh user@host # Connect to host as user

ssh -p port user@host # Connect to host using port

ssh-keygen # Create a new SSH key pair.

ssh-copy-id user@host # Copy SSH key to the remote host to enable

passwordless logins for user.

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 8

 13 - FILE TRANSFERS
scp file.txt server:/tmp # Secure copy file.txt to the /tmp folder on
server

scp server:/var/www/*.html /tmp # Copy *.html files from server to the local
/tmp folder.

scp -r server:/var/www /tmp # Copy all files and directories recursively from
server to the current system's /tmp folder.

rsync -a /home /backups/ # Synchronize /home to /backups/home

rsync -avz /home server:/backups/ # Synchronize files/directories between the local

and remote system with compression enabled

ftp host # Connect to FTP server on the remote host.

14 - DISK USAGE
df -h # Show free and used space on mounted filesystems

df -i # Show free and used inodes on mounted filesystems

fdisk -l # Display disks partitions sizes and types

du -ah # Display disk usage for all files and directories in

human readable format

du -sh # Display total disk usage off the current directory

du -a directory # Display size of all files in directory.

findmnt # List all mounted file systems with details.

15 - DIRECTORY NAVIGATION
cd .. # To go up one level of the directory tree. (Change into
the parent directory.)

cd # Go to the $HOME directory

cd /etc # Change to the /etc directory

alias goto=’cd /etc/’ # Create goto alias for command cd /etc/ .

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 9

 16 - SECURITY

passwd # Change the current user's password.

sudo -i # Switch to the root account with root's

environment. (Login shell.)

sudo -s # Execute your current shell as root.

(Non-login shell.)

sudo -l # List sudo privileges for the current user.

visudo # Edit the sudoers configuration file.

getenforce # Display the current SELinux mode.

sestatus # Display SELinux details such as the current

SELinux mode, the configured mode, and the
loaded policy.

setenforce 0 # Change the current SELinux mode to

Permissive. (Does not survive a reboot.)

setenforce 1 # Change the current SELinux mode to

Enforcing. (Does not survive a reboot.)

SELINUX=enforcing # Set the SELinux mode to enforcing on boot

by using this setting in the
/etc/selinux/config file.

SELINUX=permissive # Set the SELinux mode to permissive on boot

by using this setting in the
/etc/selinux/config file.

SELINUX=disabled # Set the SELinux mode to disabled on boot by

using this setting in the
/etc/selinux/config file.

17 - LOGGING AND AUDITING

dmesg # Display messages in kernel ring buffer.

journalctl # Display logs stored in the systemd

journal.

journalctl -u servicename # Display logs for a specific unit (service).

LINUX COMMAND LINE CHEAT SHEET https://www.LinuxTrainingAcademy.com 10