1. tar command examples
Create
a new tar archive.
$ tar cvf archive_name.tar dirname/
Extract
from an existing tar archive.
$ tar xvf archive_name.tar
View
an existing tar archive.
$ tar tvf archive_name.tar
2. grep command examples
Search
for a given string in a file (case in-sensitive search).
$ grep -i "the" demo_file
Print
the matched line, along with the 3 lines after it.
$ grep -A 3 -i "example" demo_text
Search
for a given string in all files recursively
$ grep -r "ramesh" *
3. find command examples
Find
files using file-name ( case in-sensitve find)
# find -iname "MyCProgram.c"
Execute
commands on files found by the find command
$ find -iname "MyCProgram.c" -exec md5sum {} \;
Find
all empty files in home directory
# find ~ -empty
More
find examples: Mommy,
I found it! — 15 Practical Linux Find Command Examples
4. ssh command examples
Login
to remote host
ssh -l jsmith remotehost.example.com
Debug
ssh client
ssh -v -l jsmith remotehost.example.com
Display
ssh client version
$ ssh -V
OpenSSH_3.9p1, OpenSSL 0.9.7a Feb 19 2003
More
ssh examples: 5
Basic Linux SSH Client Commands
5. sed command examples
When
you copy a DOS file to Unix, you could find \r\n in the end of each line. This
example converts the DOS file format to Unix file format using sed command.
$sed 's/.$//' filename
Print
file content in reverse order
$ sed -n '1!G;h;$p' thegeekstuff.txt
Add
line number for all non-empty-lines in a file
$ sed '/./=' thegeekstuff.txt | sed 'N; s/\n/ /'
More
sed examples: Advanced
Sed Substitution Examples
6. awk command examples
Remove
duplicate lines using awk
$ awk '!($0 in array) { array[$0]; print }' temp
Print
all lines from /etc/passwd that has the same uid and gid
$awk -F ':' '$3==$4' passwd.txt
Print
only specific field from a file.
$ awk '{print $2,$5;}' employee.txt
More
awk examples: 8
Powerful Awk Built-in Variables – FS, OFS, RS, ORS, NR, NF, FILENAME, FNR
7. vim command examples
Go
to the 143rd line of file
$ vim +143 filename.txt
Go
to the first match of the specified
$ vim +/search-term filename.txt
Open
the file in read only mode.
$ vim -R /etc/passwd
More
vim examples: How
To Record and Play in Vim Editor
8. diff command examples
Ignore
white space while comparing.
# diff -w name_list.txt name_list_new.txt
2c2,3
< John Doe --- > John M Doe
> Jason Bourne
More
diff examples: Top 4
File Difference Tools on UNIX / Linux – Diff, Colordiff, Wdiff, Vimdiff
9. sort command examples
Sort
a file in ascending order
$ sort names.txt
Sort
a file in descending order
$ sort -r names.txt
Sort
passwd file by 3rd field.
$ sort -t: -k 3n /etc/passwd | more
10. export command examples
To
view oracle related environment variables.
$ export | grep ORACLE
declare -x ORACLE_BASE="/u01/app/oracle"
declare -x ORACLE_HOME="/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0"
declare -x ORACLE_SID="med"
declare -x ORACLE_TERM="xterm"
To
export an environment variable:
$ export ORACLE_HOME=/u01/app/oracle/product/10.2.0
11. xargs command examples
Copy
all images to external hard-drive
# ls *.jpg | xargs -n1 -i cp {} /external-hard-drive/directory
Search
all jpg images in the system and archive it.
# find / -name *.jpg -type f -print | xargs tar -cvzf images.tar.gz
Download
all the URLs mentioned in the url-list.txt file
# cat url-list.txt | xargs wget –c
12. ls command examples
Display
filesize in human readable format (e.g. KB,
MB etc.,)
$ ls -lh
-rw-r----- 1 ramesh team-dev 8.9M Jun 12 15:27 arch-linux.txt.gz
Order
Files Based on Last Modified Time (In Reverse Order) Using ls -ltr
$ ls -ltr
Visual
Classification of Files With Special Characters Using ls -F
$ ls -F
More
ls examples: Unix LS
Command: 15 Practical Examples
13. pwd command
pwd
is Print working directory. What else can be said about the good old pwd who
has been printing the current directory name for ages.
14. cd command examples
Use
“cd -” to toggle between the last two directories
Use
“shopt -s cdspell” to automatically correct mistyped directory names on cd
More
cd examples: 6
Awesome Linux cd command Hacks
15. gzip command examples
To
create a *.gz compressed file:
$ gzip test.txt
To
uncompress a *.gz file:
$ gzip -d test.txt.gz
Display
compression ratio of the compressed file using gzip -l
$ gzip -l *.gz
compressed uncompressed ratio uncompressed_name
23709 97975 75.8% asp-patch-rpms.txt
16. bzip2 command examples
To
create a *.bz2 compressed file:
$ bzip2 test.txt
To
uncompress a *.bz2 file:
bzip2 -d test.txt.bz2
More
bzip2 examples: BZ is Eazy!
bzip2, bzgrep, bzcmp, bzdiff, bzcat, bzless, bzmore examples
17. unzip command examples
To
extract a *.zip compressed file:
$ unzip test.zip
View
the contents of *.zip file (Without unzipping it):
$ unzip -l jasper.zip
Archive: jasper.zip
Length Date Time Name
-------- ---- ---- ----
40995 11-30-98 23:50 META-INF/MANIFEST.MF
32169 08-25-98 21:07 classes_
15964 08-25-98 21:07 classes_names
10542 08-25-98 21:07 classes_ncomp
18. shutdown command examples
Shutdown
the system and turn the power off immediately.
# shutdown -h now
Shutdown
the system after 10 minutes.
# shutdown -h +10
Reboot
the system using shutdown command.
# shutdown -r now
Force
the filesystem check during reboot.
# shutdown -Fr now
19. ftp command examples
Both
ftp and secure ftp (sftp) has similar commands. To connect to a remote server
and download multiple files, do the following.
$ ftp IP/hostname
ftp> mget *.html
To
view the file names located on the remote server before downloading, mls ftp command
as shown below.
ftp> mls *.html -
/ftptest/features.html
/ftptest/index.html
/ftptest/othertools.html
/ftptest/samplereport.html
/ftptest/usage.html
More
ftp examples: FTP
and SFTP Beginners Guide with 10 Examples
20. crontab command examples
View
crontab entry for a specific user
# crontab -u john -l
Schedule
a cron job every 10 minutes.
*/10 * * * * /home/ramesh/check-disk-space
More
crontab examples: Linux
Crontab: 15 Awesome Cron Job Examples
21. service command examples
Service
command is used to run the system V init scripts. i.e Instead of calling the
scripts located in the /etc/init.d/ directory with their full path, you can use
the service command.
Check
the status of a service:
# service ssh status
Check
the steatus of all the services.
service --status-all
Restart
a service.
# service ssh restart
22. ps command examples
ps
command is used to display information about the processes that are running in
the system.
While
there are lot of arguments that could be passed to a ps command, following are
some of the common ones.
To
view current running processes.
$ ps -ef | more
To
view current running processes in a tree structure. H option stands for process
hierarchy.
$ ps -efH | more
23. free command examples
This
command is used to display the free, used, swap memory available in the system.
Typical
free command output. The output is displayed in bytes.
$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3566408 1580220 1986188 0 203988 902960
-/+ buffers/cache: 473272 3093136
Swap: 4000176 0 4000176
If
you want to quickly check how many GB of RAM your system has use the -g option.
-b option displays in bytes, -k in kilo bytes, -m in mega bytes.
$ free -g
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3 1 1 0 0 0
-/+ buffers/cache: 0 2
Swap: 3 0 3
If
you want to see a total memory ( including the swap), use the -t switch, which
will display a total line as shown below.
ramesh@ramesh-laptop:~$ free -t
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3566408 1592148 1974260 0 204260 912556
-/+ buffers/cache: 475332 3091076
Swap: 4000176 0 4000176
Total: 7566584 1592148 5974436
24. top command examples
top
command displays the top processes in the system ( by default sorted by cpu
usage ). To sort top output by any column, Press O (upper-case O) , which will
display all the possible columns that you can sort by as shown below.
Current Sort Field: P for window 1:Def
Select sort field via field letter, type any other key to return
a: PID = Process Id v: nDRT = Dirty Pages count
d: UID = User Id y: WCHAN = Sleeping in Function
e: USER = User Name z: Flags = Task Flags
........
To
displays only the processes that belong to a particular user use -u option. The
following will show only the top processes that belongs to oracle user.
$ top -u oracle
More
top examples: Can
You Top This? 15 Practical Linux Top Command Examples
25. df command examples
Displays
the file system disk space usage. By default df -k displays output in bytes.
$ df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 29530400 3233104 24797232 12% /
/dev/sda2 120367992 50171596 64082060 44% /home
df
-h displays output in human readable form. i.e size will be displayed in GB’s.
ramesh@ramesh-laptop:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 29G 3.1G 24G 12% /
/dev/sda2 115G 48G 62G 44% /home
Use
-T option to display what type of file system.
ramesh@ramesh-laptop:~$ df -T
Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 ext4 29530400 3233120 24797216 12% /
/dev/sda2 ext4 120367992 50171596 64082060 44% /home
26. kill command examples
Use
kill command to terminate a process. First get the process id using ps -ef
command, then use kill -9 to kill the running Linux process as shown below. You
can also use killall, pkill, xkill to terminate a unix process.
$ ps -ef | grep vim
ramesh 7243 7222 9 22:43 pts/2 00:00:00 vim
$ kill -9 7243
More
kill examples: 4
Ways to Kill a Process – kill, killall, pkill, xkill
27. rm command examples
Get
confirmation before removing the file.
$ rm -i filename.txt
It
is very useful while giving shell metacharacters in the file name argument.
Print
the filename and get confirmation before removing the file.
$ rm -i file*
Following
example recursively removes all files and directories under the example
directory. This also removes the example directory itself.
$ rm -r example
28. cp command examples
Copy
file1 to file2 preserving the mode, ownership and timestamp.
$ cp -p file1 file2
Copy
file1 to file2. if file2 exists prompt for confirmation before overwritting it.
$ cp -i file1 file2
29. mv command examples
Rename
file1 to file2. if file2 exists prompt for confirmation before overwritting it.
$ mv -i file1 file2
Note:
mv -f is just the opposite, which will overwrite file2 without prompting.
mv
-v will print what is happening during file rename, which is useful while
specifying shell metacharacters in the file name argument.
$ mv -v file1 file2
30. cat command examples
You
can view multiple files at the same time. Following example prints the content
of file1 followed by file2 to stdout.
$ cat file1 file2
While
displaying the file, following cat -n command will prepend the line number to
each line of the output.
$ cat -n /etc/logrotate.conf
1 /var/log/btmp {
2 missingok
3 monthly
4 create 0660 root utmp
5 rotate 1
6 }
31. mount command examples
To
mount a file system, you should first create a directory and mount it as shown
below.
# mkdir /u01
# mount /dev/sdb1 /u01
You
can also add this to the fstab for automatic mounting. i.e Anytime system is
restarted, the filesystem will be mounted.
/dev/sdb1 /u01 ext2 defaults 0 2
32. chmod command examples
chmod
command is used to change the permissions for a file or directory.
Give
full access to user and group (i.e read, write and execute ) on a specific
file.
$ chmod ug+rwx file.txt
Revoke
all access for the group (i.e read, write and execute ) on a specific file.
$ chmod g-rwx file.txt
Apply
the file permissions recursively to all the files in the sub-directories.
$ chmod -R ug+rwx file.txt
More
chmod examples: 7 Chmod
Command Examples for Beginners
33. chown command examples
chown
command is used to change the owner and group of a file. \
To
change owner to oracle and group to db on a file. i.e Change both owner and
group at the same time.
$ chown oracle:dba dbora.sh
Use
-R to change the ownership recursively.
$ chown -R oracle:dba /home/oracle
34. passwd command examples
Change
your password from command line using passwd. This will prompt for the old
password followed by the new password.
$ passwd
Super
user can use passwd command to reset others password. This will not prompt for
current password of the user.
# passwd USERNAME
Remove
password for a specific user. Root user can disable password for a specific
user. Once the password is disabled, the user can login without entering the
password.
# passwd -d USERNAME
35. mkdir command examples
Following
example creates a directory called temp under your home directory.
$ mkdir ~/temp
Create
nested directories using one mkdir command. If any of these directories exist
already, it will not display any error. If any of these directories doesn’t
exist, it will create them.
$ mkdir -p dir1/dir2/dir3/dir4/
36. ifconfig command examples
Use
ifconfig command to view or configure a network interface on the Linux system.
View
all the interfaces along with status.
$ ifconfig -a
Start
or stop a specific interface using up and down command as shown below.
$ ifconfig eth0 up
$ ifconfig eth0 down
More
ifconfig examples: Ifconfig:
7 Examples To Configure Network Interface
37. uname command examples
Uname
command displays important information about the system such as — Kernel name,
Host name, Kernel release number,
Processor type, etc.,
Sample
uname output from a Ubuntu laptop is shown below.
$ uname -a
Linux john-laptop 2.6.32-24-generic #41-Ubuntu SMP Thu Aug 19 01:12:52 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux
38. whereis command examples
When
you want to find out where a specific Unix command exists (for example, where
does ls command exists?), you can execute the following command.
$ whereis ls
ls: /bin/ls /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1p/ls.1p.gz
When
you want to search an executable from a path other than the whereis default
path, you can use -B option and give path as argument to it. This searches for
the executable lsmk in the /tmp directory, and displays it, if it is available.
$ whereis -u -B /tmp -f lsmk
lsmk: /tmp/lsmk
39. whatis command examples
Whatis
command displays a single line description about a command.
$ whatis ls
ls (1) - list directory contents
$ whatis ifconfig
ifconfig (8) - configure a network interface
40. locate command examples
Using
locate command you can quickly search for the location of a specific file (or
group of files). Locate command uses the database created by updatedb.
The
example below shows all files in the system that contains the word crontab in
it.
$ locate crontab
/etc/anacrontab
/etc/crontab
/usr/bin/crontab
/usr/share/doc/cron/examples/crontab2english.pl.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/crontab.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man5/anacrontab.5.gz
/usr/share/man/man5/crontab.5.gz
/usr/share/vim/vim72/syntax/crontab.vim
41. man command examples
Display
the man page of a specific command.
$ man crontab
When
a man page for a command is located under more than one section, you can view
the man page for that command from a specific section as shown below.
$ man SECTION-NUMBER commandname
Following
8 sections are available in the man page.
- General commands
- System calls
- C library functions
- Special files (usually
devices, those found in /dev) and drivers
- File formats and
conventions
- Games and screensavers
- Miscellaneous
- System administration
commands and daemons
For
example, when you do whatis crontab, you’ll notice that crontab has two man
pages (section 1 and section 5). To view section 5 of crontab man page, do the
following.
$ whatis crontab
crontab (1) - maintain crontab files for individual users (V3)
crontab (5) - tables for driving cron
$ man 5 crontab
42. tail command examples
Print
the last 10 lines of a file by default.
$ tail filename.txt
Print
N number of lines from the file named filename.txt
$ tail -n N filename.txt
View
the content of the file in real time using tail -f. This is useful to view the
log files, that keeps growing. The command can be terminated using CTRL-C.
$ tail -f log-file
More
tail examples: 3
Methods To View tail -f output of Multiple Log Files in One Terminal
43. less command examples
less
is very efficient while viewing huge log files, as it doesn’t need to load the
full file while opening.
$ less huge-log-file.log
One
you open a file using less command, following two keys are very helpful.
CTRL+F – forward one window
CTRL+B – backward one window
More
less examples: Unix
Less Command: 10 Tips for Effective Navigation
44. su command examples
Switch
to a different user account using su command. Super user can switch to any
other user without entering their password.
$ su - USERNAME
Execute
a single command from a different account name. In the following example, john
can execute the ls command as raj username. Once the command is executed, it
will come back to john’s account.
[john@dev-server]$ su - raj -c 'ls'
[john@dev-server]$
Login
to a specified user account, and execute the specified shell instead of the
default shell.
$ su -s 'SHELLNAME' USERNAME
45. mysql command examples
mysql
is probably the most widely used open source database on Linux. Even if you
don’t run a mysql database on your server, you might end-up using the mysql
command ( client ) to connect to a mysql database running on the remote server.
To
connect to a remote mysql database. This will prompt for a password.
$ mysql -u root -p -h 192.168.1.2
To
connect to a local mysql database.
$ mysql -u root -p
If
you want to specify the mysql root password in the command line itself, enter
it immediately after -p (without any space).
46. yum command examples
To
install apache using yum.
$ yum install httpd
To
upgrade apache using yum.
$ yum update httpd
To
uninstall/remove apache using yum.
$ yum remove httpd
47. rpm command examples
To
install apache using rpm.
# rpm -ivh httpd-2.2.3-22.0.1.el5.i386.rpm
To
upgrade apache using rpm.
# rpm -uvh httpd-2.2.3-22.0.1.el5.i386.rpm
To
uninstall/remove apache using rpm.
# rpm -ev httpd
More
rpm examples: RPM Command:
15 Examples to Install, Uninstall, Upgrade, Query RPM Packages
48. ping command examples
Ping
a remote host by sending only 5 packets.
$ ping -c 5 gmail.com
More
ping examples: Ping
Tutorial: 15 Effective Ping Command Examples
49. date command examples
Set
the system date:
# date -s "01/31/2010 23:59:53"
Once
you’ve changed the system date, you should syncronize the hardware clock with
the system date as shown below.
# hwclock –systohc
# hwclock --systohc –utc
50. wget command examples
The
quick and effective method to download software, music, video from internet is
using wget command.
$ wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/nagios/nagios-3.2.1.tar.gz
Download
and store it with a different name.
$ wget -O taglist.zip http://www.vim.org/scripts/download_script.php?src_id=7701
