 Linux Commands.

access:

Used to check whether the calling program has access to a specified file.

It can be used to check whether a file exists or not

accton:

Used to turn on or turn off the process for accounting or change info process accounting file

aclocal:

Used to automatically generate aclocal.m4 files from configure.in file

acpi:

Used to display the battery status and other ACPI information

acpi_available:

Tests whether ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) subsystem is available or not

acpid:

It provides intelligent power management on a system and is used to notify the user-space programs
about the ACPI events
addr2line:

Used to convert addresses into file names and line numbers

agetty:

It is a Linux version of getty, which is a Unix program running on a host computer that manages physical
or virtual terminals to allow multi-user access

alias:

Instructs the shell to replace one string with another string

while executing the commands

amixer:

It is a command-line mixer for ALSA(Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) sound-card driver

aplaymidi:

Used to play standard MIDI(Musical Instrument Digital Interface) files, by sending the content of a MIDI
file to an ALSA(Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) MIDI port

apropos:

It helps the user when they don’t remember the exact command but knows a few keywords related to
the command that define its uses or functionality

apt:

Provides a high-level CLI (Command Line Interface) for the package management system and is intended
as an interface for the end user which enables some options better suited for interactive usage by
default compared to more specialized APT tools like apt-cache and apt-get
apt-get:

It is a command-line tool which helps in handling packages in Linux

aptitude:

Opens up a highly built-in interface to interact with the package manager of the machine

ar:

Used to create, modify and extract the files from the archives

arch:

Used to print the computer architecture

arp:

It manipulates the System’s ARP cache. It also allows a complete dump of the ARP cache

aspell:

Used as a spell checker in Linux

atd:

It is a job scheduler daemon that runs jobs scheduled for later execution

atrm:

Used to remove the specified jobs. To remove a job, its job number is passed in the command
atq:

It displays the list of pending jobs which are scheduled by the user

autoconf:

Used in Linux to generate configuration scripts

autoheader Used to create a template file of C “#define” or any other template header for configure
to use

automake Used for automatically generating Makefile.in files compliant with the set GNU Coding
Standards

autoreconf Used to create automatically buildable source code for Unix-like systems

autoupdate Used to update configure.in file in our Linux system to a newer Autoconf.

awk It is a scripting language used for manipulating data and generating reports

banner Used to print the ASCII character string in large letter to standrad output
basename It strips directory information and suffixes from file names i.e. it prints the file name
NAME with any leading directory components removed

batch Used to read commands from standard input or a specified file and execute them when system
load levels permit i.e. when the load average drops below 1.5

bc Used for command line calculator

bg Used to place foreground jobs in background

biff A mail notification system for unix that notifies the user at the command line when new mail
arrives and tells from whom it is

bind Used to set Readline key bindings and variables

bison It is basically a parser generator similar to yacc

break Used to terminate the execution of for loop, while loop and until loop

builtin Used to run a shell builtin, passing it arguments(args), and also to get the exit status

bzcmp Used to invoke the cmp utility on bzip2 compressed files

bzdiff Used to compare the bzip2 compressed files

bzgrep Used to search for a pattern or an expression but inside a bzip2-compressed file
bzip2 Used to compress and decompress the files

bzless It does not have to read the entire input file before starting, so with a large file, it starts up
faster

bzmore Used as a filter for CRT viewing of bzip2 compressed files, which are saved with .bz2
suffix

cal Used to see the calendar of a specific month or a whole year. By default, it shows current
month’s calendar as output

case It is the best alternative when we had to use multiple if/elif on a single variable

cat Reads data from file and gives their content as output. It helps us to create, view, concatenate
files

cc It is used to compile the C language codes and create executables

ccrypt It is a command line tool for encryption and decryption of data

cd Known as change directory command. It is used to change current working directory

cfdisk It displays or manipulates the disk partition table by providing a text-based “graphical” interface
chage Used to view and change the user password expiry information

chattr It is a file system command which is used for changing the attributes of a file in a directory

chfn It allows you to change a user’s name and other details easily. chfn stands for Change finger

chgrp Used to change the group ownership of a file or directory

chkconfig Used to list all available services and view or update their run level settings

chmod Used to change the access mode of a file

chown Used to change the file Owner or group

chpasswd Used to change password for multiple users at a time

chroot Used to change the root directory

chrt Used for manipulating the real-time attributes of a process

chsh Used to change the user’s login shell(currently login shell)

chvt Used to switch between the different TTY (TeleTYpewriter) terminals available
cksum Used to display a CRC(Cyclic Redundancy Check) value, the byte size of the file and the name of
the file to standard output

clear Used to clear the terminal screen

cmp Used to compare the two files byte by byte and helps you to find out whether the two files are
identical or not

col It is used to filter out reverse line feeds. The col utility simply reads from the standard input and
writes to standard output

colcrt Used to format the text processor output so that it can be viewed on Cathode Ray Tube displays

colrm Removes selected columns from a file

column Used to display the contents of a file in columns

comm Compares two sorted files line by line and write to standard output; the lines that are common
and the lines that are unique

compress Used to reduce the file size. After compression, the file will be available with an added .Z
extension

continue Used to skip the current iteration in for, while and until loop

cp Used to copy files or group of files or directory

cpio cpio stands for “copy in, copy out“. It is used for processing the archive files like *.cpio or *.tar.
This command can copy files to and from archives

cpp It is automatically used by C compiler to transform your program before compilation

cron A software utility, offered by Linux-like operating system which automates the scheduled task at
a predetermined time

crontab A list of commands that you want to run on a regular schedule, and also the name of the
command used to manage that list

csplit Used to split any file into many parts as required by the user

ctags It allows quick access across the files (For example quickly seeing definition of a function)

cupsd It is a type of scheduler for CUPS (Common Unit Printing System). It implements the printing
system on the basis of the Internet Printing Protocol

curl A tool to transfer data to or from a server, using any of the supported protocols

cut For cutting out the sections from each line of files and writing the result to standard output

cvs Used to store the history of a file. Whenever a file gets corrupted or anything goes wrong “cvs”
help us to go back to the previous version and restore our file
date Used to display the system date and time. It is also used to set date and time of the system

dc Used to evaluate arithmetic expressions. It evaluates expressions in the form of a postfix

expression

dd It is a command-line utility for Unix and Unix-like operating systems whose primary purpose is to
convert and copy files

declare Used to declare shell variables and functions, set their attributes and display their values

depmod Used to generate a list of dependency description of kernel modules and its associated
map files

df Used to display information related to file systems about total space and available space

diff Used to display the differences in the files by comparing the files line by line

diff3 Used to compare the three files line by line

dir Used to list the contents of a directory

dirname Used to remove the trailing forward slahes “/” from the NAME and prints the remaining
portion

dirs Used to display the list of currently remembered directories

disable Used to stop the printers or classes

dmesg Used to examine the kernel ring buffer and print the message buffer of kernel

dmidecode Used when the user wants to retrieve system’s hardware related information such as
Processor, RAM(DIMMs), BIOS detail, etc. of Linux system in a readable format

domainname Used to return the Network Information System (NIS) domain name of the host

dos2unix Converts a DOS text file to UNIX format

dosfsck Diagnoses MS-DOS file system for problems and attempts to repair them

du Used to track the files and directories which are consuming excessive amount of space on hard
disk drive

dump Used to backup the filesystem to some storage device

dumpe2fs Used to print the super block and blocks group information for the filesystem present
on device

dumpkeys Used for the dump keyboard translation tables

echo Used to display line of text/string that are passed as an argument

ed Used for launching the ed text editor which is a line-based text editor with a minimal interface
which makes it less complex for working on text files i.e creating, editing, displaying and manipulating
files

egrep It treats the pattern as an extended regular expression and prints out the lines that match the
pattern

eject It allows ejecting a removable media (typically a CD-ROM, floppy disk, tape, or JAZ or ZIP disk)
using the software

emacs It is a editor having simple user interface. Also, there is no insert mode in this editor. It only have
editing mode.

enable Used to start the printers or classes

env Used to either print environment variables. It is also used to run a utility or command in a
custom environment

eval Built-in command used to execute arguments as a shell command

ex It is a text editor in Linux which is also termed as the line editor mode of the vi editor

exec Used to execute a command from the bash itself

exit Used to exit the shell where it is currently running

expand Allows you to convert tabs into spaces in a file and when no file is specified it reads from
standard input

expect This command or scripting language works with scripts that expect user inputs. It automates the
task by providing inputs

export It is bash shell BUILTINS commands, which means it is part of the shell. It marks an environment
variables to be exported to child-processes

expr It evaluates a given expression and displays its corresponding output

factor Used to print the prime factors of the given numbers, either given from command line or read
from standard input

fc Used to list, edit or re-execute the commands previously entered into an interactive shell

fc-cache It scans the font directories and build font cache for applications which use fontconfig
for their font handling

fc-list It is used to list the available fonts and font styles. Using the format option, the list of all fonts
can be filtered and sorted out

fdisk Format disk is a dialog-driven command in Linux used for creating and manipulating disk
partition table
fg Used to put a background job in foreground

fgrep Used to search for the fixed-character strings in a file

file Used to determine the type of a file. .file type may be of human-readable(e.g. ‘ASCII text’) or
MIME type(e.g. ‘text/plain; charset=us-ascii’)

find Used to find files and directories and perform subsequent operations on them

fmt Works as a formatter for simplifying and optimizing text files

fold It wraps each line in an input file to fit a specified width and prints it to the standard output

for Used to repeatedly execute a set of command for every element present in the list

free Displays the total amount of free space available along with the amount of memory used and
swap memory in the system, and also the buffers used by the kernel

Fun Used to draw various type of patterns on the terminal

function Used to create functions or methods

g++ Used for preprocessing, compilation, assembly and linking of source code to generate an
executable file
gawk Used for pattern scanning and processing language

gcc GNU Compiler Collections is used to compile mainly C and C++ language. It can also be used to
compile Objective C and Objective C++

gdb GNU Debugger tool helps to debug the programs written in C, C++, Ada, Fortran, etc.

getent Used to get the entries in a number of important text files called databases

gpasswd Used to administer the /etc/group and /etc/gshadow

grep Searches a file for a particular pattern of characters, and displays all lines that contain that
pattern

groupadd Used to create a new user group

groupdel Used to delete a existing group

groupmod Used to modify or change the existing group on Linux system

groups Groups are the collection of users. Groups make it easy to manage users with the same security
and access privileges

grpconv It is used to convert to shadow groups. The grpconv command creates a gshadow from
the group and an optionally existing gshadow
gs This command invokes Ghostscript, which is an interpreter of Adobe Systems PostScript and
Portable Document Format(PDF) languages

gunzip Used to compress or expand a file or a list of files in Linux

gzexe Used to compress executable files and also used to automatically uncompress and execute the
files

gzip This command compresses files. Each single file is compressed into a single file.

halt Used to instruct the hardware to stop all the CPU functions. Basically, it reboots or stops the
system.

hash Used to maintain a hash table of recently executed programs

hdparm Used to get statistics about the hard disk, alter writing intervals, acoustic management,
and DMA settings

Head Prints the top N number of data of the given input

help Displays information about shell built-in commands

hexdump Used to filter and display the specified files, or standard input in a human readable
specified format

history Used to view the previously executed command

host Used for DNS (Domain Name System) lookup operations

hostid Used to displays the Host’s ID in hexadecimal format

hostname Used to obtain the DNS(Domain Name System) name and set the system’s hostname or
NIS(Network Information System) domain name.

hostnamectl Provides a proper API used to control Linux system hostname and change its related
settings

htop It is a command line utility that allows the user to interactively monitor the system’s vital
resources or server’s processes in real time

hwclock Utility for accessing the hardware clock, also called Real Time Clock (RTC)

iconv Used to convert some text in one encoding into another encoding
id Used to find out user and group names and numeric ID’s (UID or group ID) of the current user or
any other user in the server

if Used to execute commands based on conditions

ifconfig Used to configure the kernel-resident network interfaces.

ifup It basically brings the network interface up, allowing it to transmit and receive data

import Used for capturing a screenshot for any of the active pages we have and it gives the output as an
image file

info Reads documentation in the info format. It will give detailed information for a command when
compared with the main page

insmod Used to insert modules into the kernel

install Used to copy files and set attributes

iostat Used for monitoring system input/output statistics for devices and partitions

ip Used for performing several network administration tasks

ipcrm Used to remove some IPC(Inter-Process Communication) resources. It eliminates the IPC objects
and their associated data structure form the system
ipcs Shows information on the inter-process communication facilities for which the calling process
has read access

iptables Used to set up and maintain tables for the Netfilter firewall for IPv4, included in the
Linux kernel

iptables-save It will save the current iptables rules in a user specified file, that can be used later when
the user wants

iwconfig Used to display the parameters, and the wireless statistics which are extracted from
/proc/net/wireless

join It is a command line utility for joining lines of two files based on a key field present in both the
files

kill Used to terminate processes manually. kill command sends a signal to a process which
terminates the process

last Used to display the list of all the users logged in and out since the file /var/log/wtmp was
created
less Used to read contents of text file one page(one screen) per time

let Used to evaluate arithmetic expressions on shell variables

ln Used to create links between files

locate Used to find the files by name

look Shows the lines beginning with a given string

lshw Used to generate the detailed information of the system’s hardware configuration from various
files in the /proc directory

lsmod Used to display the status of modules in the Linux kernel. It results in a list of loaded modules

lsof Provides a list of files that are opened

lsusb Used to display the information about USB buses and the devices connected to them
man Used to display the user manual of any command that we can run on the terminal

md5sum To verify data integrity using MD5 (Message Digest Algorithm 5)

mkdir Allows the user to create directories. This command can create multiple directories at once

modinfo Used to display the information about a Linux Kernel module

more Used to view the text files in the command prompt, displaying one screen at a time in case the
file is large (For example log files)

mount Used to mount the filesystem found on a device to big tree structure(Linux filesystem) rooted at
‘/‘

mv Used to move one or more files or directories from one place to another in file system like UNIX

netstat Displays various network related information such as network connections, routing tables,
interface statistics, masquerade connections, multicast memberships, etc.

nmcli Used for controlling NetworkManager. nmcli commnad can also be used to display network
device status, create, edit, activate/deactivate, and delete network connections
nslookup It is a network administration tool for querying the Domain Name System (DNS) to
obtain domain name or IP address mapping or any other specific DNS record

od Used to convert the content of input in different formats with octal format as the default format

passwd Used to change the user account passwords

paste Used to join files horizontally (parallel merging) by outputting lines consisting of lines from each
file specified, separated by tab as delimiter, to the standard output

ping Used to check the network connectivity between host and server/host

pmap Used to display the memory map of a process. A memory map indicates how memory is spread
out

poweroff Sends an ACPI signal which instructs the system to power down

printf Used to display the given string, number or any other format specifier on the terminal window

ps Used to list the currently running processes and their PIDs along with some other information
depends on different options
pwd It prints the path of the working directory, starting from the root

ranlib Used to generate index to archive

rcp Used to copy files from one computer to another computer

read Reads up the total number of bytes from the specified file descriptor into the buffer

readlink Used to print resolved symbolic links or canonical file names

reboot Instructs the system to restart or reboot

rename Used to rename the named files according to the regular expression perlexpr

reset Used to initialize the terminal. This is useful once a program dies leaving a terminal in an
abnormal state

restore Used for restoring files from a backup created using dump

return Used to exit from a shell function.

rev Used to reverse the lines characterwise

rm Used to remove objects such as files, directories, symbolic links and so on from the file system
like UNIX

rmdir Used to remove empty directories from the filesystem in Linux

rmmod Used to remove a module from the kernel

rsync It is a software utility for Unix-Like systems that efficiently sync files and directories between
two hosts or machines

sar Used to monitor Linux system’s resources like CPU usage, Memory utilization, I/O devices
consumption, etc.

scp Used to copy file(s) between servers in a secure way.

screen Provides the ability to launch and use multiple shell sessions from a single ssh session

script Used to make typescript or record all the terminal activities

scriptreplay Used to replay a typescript/terminal_activity stored in the log file that was recorded by
the script command

sdiff Used to compare two files and then writes the results to standard output in a side-by-side
format
sed Used for finding, filtering, text substitution, replacement and text manipulations like insertion,
deletion search etc.

select Used to create a numbered menu from which a user can select an option

seq Used to generate numbers from FIRST to LAST in steps of INCREMENT

setsid Used to run a program in a new session

showkey prints to standard output either the scan codes or the key code or the `ascii’ code of
each key pressed

shutdown Used to shutdown the system in a safe way

sleep Used to create a dummy job. A dummy job helps in delaying the execution

source Used to read and execute the content of a file(generally set of commands), passed as an
argument in the current shell script

sort Used to sort a file, arranging the records in a particular order

ssh Protocol used to securely connect to a remote server/system

stty Used to change and print terminal line settings

sudo Used as a prefix of some command that only superuser are allowed to run
sum Used to find checksum and count the blocks in a file

sync Used to synchronize cached writes to persistent storage

systemctl Used to examine and control the state of “systemd” system and service manager

tac Used to concatenate and print files in reverse

Tail Prints the last N number of data of the given input

tar Used to create Archive and extract the Archive files

tee Reads the standard input and writes it to both the standard output and one or more files

time Used to execute a command and prints a summary of real-time, user CPU time and system CPU
time spent by executing a command when it terminates

top Provides a dynamic real-time view of the running system

touch Used to create, change and modify timestamps of a file

tr It is a command line utility for translating or deleting characters

tracepath Used to traces path to destination discovering MTU along this path

traceroute Prints the route that a packet takes to reach the host

Tree A recursive directory listing program that produces a depth-indented listing of files

tty It displays the information related to terminal. It basically prints the file name of the terminal
connected to standard input

type Used to describe how its argument would be translated if used as commands

uname Displays the information about the system

unexpand Converts each spaces into tabs writing the produced output to the standard output

uniq It is a command line utility that reports or filters out the repeated lines in a file

unix2dos Converts a Unix text file to DOS format

until Used to execute a set of commands as long as the final command in the ‘until’ Commands has
an exit status which is not zero

Uptime Used to find out how long the system is active (running)
users Used to show the user names of users currently logged in to the current host

userdel Used to delete a user account and related files

vi It is the default editor that comes with the UNIX operating system is called visual editor.

vmstat It is a performance monitoring command of the system as it gives the information about
processes, memory, paging, block IO, disk and CPU scheduling

w Used to show who is logged on and what they are doing

wall Displays a message, or the contents of a file, or otherwise its standard input, on the terminals of
all currently logged in users

watch Used to execute a program periodically, showing output in fullscreen

wc Used to find out number of lines, word count, byte and characters count in the files specified in
the file arguments
Wget Used to download files from the server even when the user has not logged on to the system and
it can work in background without hindering the current process

whatis Used to get a one-line manual page descriptions

which Used to locate the executable file associated with the given command by searching it in the path
environment variable

while Used to repeatedly execute a set of command as long as the COMMAND returns true

who Used to get information about currently logged in user on to system

whoami Displays the username of the current user when this command is invoked

write Allows a user to communicate with other users, by copying lines from one user’s terminal to
others

xargs Used to build and execute commands from standard input. It converts input recieved from
standard input into arguments of a command

xdg-open Used to open a file or URL in the user’s preferred application

yes Used to print a continous output stream of given STRING. If STRING is not mentioned then it
prints ‘y’

zdiff Used to invoke the diff program on files compressed via gzip

zdump Used to print the current time in the specified zone or you can say prints the current time in
each zonename named on the command line

zgrep Used to search out expressions from a given a file even if it is compressed

zip It is a compression and file packaging utility for Unix. Each file is stored in single .zip {.zip-
filename} file with the extension .zip