Commands Description

Used to check whether the calling program has access to a specified file. It can be used to
access check whether a file exists or not

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

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

acpi Used to display the battery status and other ACPI information

Tests whether ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) subsystem is

acpi_available available or not

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

addr2line Used to convert addresses into file names and line numbers

It is a Linux version of getty, which is a Unix program running on a host computer that
agetty 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

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

amixer driver

It is a command-line audio player for ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) sound
aplay card drivers.

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

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

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-
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

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

atq It displays the list of pending jobs which are scheduled by the user
 autoconf Used in Linux to generate configuration scripts

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

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

It strips directory information and suffixes from file names i.e. it prints the file name
basename
NAME with any leading directory components removed

Used to read commands from standard input or a specified file and execute them when
batch
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

A mail notification system for unix that notifies the user at the command line when new
biff
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

It does not have to read the entire input file before starting, so with a large file, it starts
bzless
up faster
 Used as a filter for CRT viewing of bzip2 compressed files, which are saved with .bz2
bzmore
suffix

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

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

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

It displays or manipulates the disk partition table by providing a text-based “graphical”

cfdisk
interface

chage Used to view and change the user password expiry information

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

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

Used to display a CRC(Cyclic Redundancy Check) value, the byte size of the file and
cksum
the name of the file to standard output

clear Used to clear the terminal screen

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

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

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

colrm Removes selected columns from a file

column Used to display the contents of a file in columns

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

Used to reduce the file size. After compression, the file will be available with an
compress
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 stands for “copy in, copy out“. It is used for processing the archive files like *.cpio
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

A software utility, offered by Linux-like operating system which automates the

cron
scheduled task at a predetermined time

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

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

It allows quick access across the files (For example quickly seeing definition of a
ctags
function)
 It is a type of scheduler for CUPS (Common Unit Printing System). It implements the
cupsd
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

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

Used to store the history of a file. Whenever a file gets corrupted or anything goes
cvs
wrong “cvs” help us to go back to the previous version and restore our file

Used to display the system date and time. It is also used to set date and time of the
date
system

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

dc
postfix expression

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

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

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

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

Used when the user wants to retrieve system’s hardware related information such as
dmidecode
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

Used to retrieve information or statistics form components of the system such as

dstat
network connections, IO devices, or CPU, etc.

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

dump Used to bacgkup the filesystem to some storage device

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

dumpkeys Used for the dump keyboard translation tables

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

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

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

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

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

enable Used to start the printers or classes

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

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

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

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

expr It evaluates a given expression and displays its corresponding output

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

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

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

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

Format disk is a dialog-driven command in Linux used for creating and manipulating
fdisk
disk partition table

fg Used to put a background job in foreground

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

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

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

finger It is a user information lookup command which gives details of all the users logged in.

fmt Works as a formatter for simplifying and optimizing text files

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

for Used to repeatedly execute a set of command for every element present in the list
 Displays the total amount of free space available along with the amount of memory used
free
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

Used for preprocessing, compilation, assembly and linking of source code to generate an
g++
executable file

gawk Used for pattern scanning and processing language

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

Searches a file for a particular pattern of characters, and displays all lines that contain
grep
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 are the collection of users. Groups make it easy to manage users with the same
groups
security and access privileges

It verifies the integrity of the groups information. It checks that all entries in /etc/group
grpck
and /etc/gshadow have the proper format and contain valid data

It is used to convert to shadow groups. The grpconv command creates a gshadow from
grpconv
the group and an optionally existing gshadow

This command invokes Ghostscript, which is an interpreter of Adobe Systems PostScript

gs
and Portable Document Format(PDF) languages

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

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

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

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

hash Used to maintain a hash table of recently executed programs

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

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

help Displays information about shell built-in commands

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

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

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

It is a command line utility that allows the user to interactively monitor the system’s vital
htop
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

Used to find out user and group names and numeric ID’s (UID or group ID) of the
id
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.

It is a network analyzing tool used by system administrators to view the bandwidth

iftop
related stats

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

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

Reads documentation in the info format. It will give detailed information for a command
info
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

Used to display and monitor the disk IO usage details and even gets a table of existing
iotop
IO utilization by the process

ip Used for performing several network administration tasks

Used to remove some IPC(Inter-Process Communication) resources. It eliminates the

ipcrm
IPC objects and their associated data structure form the system

Shows information on the inter-process communication facilities for which the calling
ipcs
process has read access

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

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

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

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

journalctl Used to view systemd, kernel and journal logs

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

Used to display the list of all the users logged in and out since the file /var/log/wtmp was
last
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

Used to display details about block devices and these block devices(Except ram disk) are
lsblk
basically those files that represent devices connected to the pc.

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

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

This command in Linux prints the mail queue i.e the list of messages that are there in the
mailq
mail queue

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)

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

modinfo Used to display the information about a Linux Kernel module

Used to view the text files in the command prompt, displaying one screen at a time in
more
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 ‘/‘

mpstat Used to report processor related statistics.

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

nc(netcat) It is one of the powerful networking tool, security tool or network monitoring tool.

Displays various network related information such as network connections, routing

netstat
tables, interface statistics, masquerade connections, multicast memberships, etc.

Used for controlling NetworkManager. nmcli command can also be used to display
nmcli
network device status, create, edit, activate/deactivate, and delete network connections

It is a network administration tool for querying the Domain Name System (DNS) to
nslookup
obtain domain name or IP address mapping or any other specific DNS record

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

passwd Used to change the user account passwords

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

pidof Used to find out the process IDs of a specific running program

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

It is a user information lookup command which gives details of all the users logged in.
pinky
Unlike finger, in the pinky, you may trim the information of your interest.

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

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

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

Used to list the currently running processes and their PIDs along with some other
ps
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

readelf Used to get information of ELF(Executable and Linkable Format) Files

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

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

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

rmdir Used to remove empty directories from the filesystem in Linux

rmmod Used to remove a module from the kernel

route Used when you want to work with the IP/kernel routing table

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

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

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

Used to compare two files and then writes the results to standard output in a side-by-side
sdiff
format

Used for finding, filtering, text substitution, replacement and text manipulations like
sed
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

shift Shifts/moves the command line arguments to one position left.

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

shred Used in order to delete a file completely from hard disk

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

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

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

split Used to split large files into smaller files

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

strace It is one of the most powerful process monitoring, diagnostic, instructional tool of Linux.

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

Used to execute a command and prints a summary of real-time, user CPU time and system
time
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

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

unexpan
Converts each spaces into tabs writing the produced output to the standard output
d

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

Used to execute a set of commands as long as the final command in the ‘until’ Commands
until
has an exit status which is not zero
Uptime Used to find out how long the system is active (running)

useradd Used to add user accounts to your system

usermod Used to change the properties of a user in Linux through the command line

username It provides a set of commands to fetch username and its configurations from the Linux host

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.

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

Used by system administrators in order to monitor network parameters such as bandwidth

vnstat
consumption or maybe some traffic flowing in or out

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

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

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

Used to find out number of lines, word count, byte and characters count in the files specified
wc
in the file arguments

Used to download files from the server even when the user has not logged on to the system
Wget
and it can work in background without hindering the current process

whatis Used to get a one-line manual page descriptions

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

whoam
Displays the username of the current user when this command is invoked
i
 Allows a user to communicate with other users, by copying lines from one user’s terminal to
write
others

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sr. Symb
no. ol Description

It is called a wild card character, It matches any one character

1. .
other than the new line.
Sr. Symb
no. ol Description

2. ^ It matches the start of the string.

3. $ It matches the end of the string.

It matches up to zero or more occurrences i.e. any number of

4. *
times of the character of the string.

5. \ It is used for escape following character.

6. () It is used to match or search for a set of regular expressions.

7. ? It matches exactly one character in the string or stream.