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1. File and Directory Management

■ ls – List directory contents
■ cd – Change directory
■ pwd – Print working directory
■ cp – Copy files and directories
■ mv – Move or rename files and directories
■ rm – Remove files or directories
■ mkdir – Make directories
■ rmdir – Remove empty directories
■ touch – Change file timestamps or create empty files
■ find – Search for files in a directory hierarchy
■ locate – Find files by name
■ tree – Display directories in a tree -like format
■ chmod – Change file permissions
■ chown – Change file owner and group
■ chgrp – Change group ownership
■ stat – Display file or file system status
2. File Viewing and Editing
■ cat – Concatenate and display file content
■ tac – Concatenate and display file content in reverse
■ more – View file content interactively (page by page)
■ less – View file content interactively (scrollable)
■ head – Output the first part of a file
■ tail – Output the last part of a file
■ nano – Text editor (terminal -based)
■ vim / vi – Advanced text editors
■ emacs – Text editor
■ grep – Search text using patterns
■ sed – Stream editor for filtering and transforming text
■ awk – Pattern scanning and processing langu age
■ cut – Remove sections from each line of files
■ sort – Sort lines of text files

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■ uniq – Report or omit repeated lines

3. Process Management
■ ps – Report a snapshot of current processes
■ top – Display Linux tasks
■ htop – Interactive process viewer (advanced top)
■ kill – Send a signal to a process, typically to terminate
■ killall – Terminate processes by name
■ bg – Resume a suspended job in the background
■ fg – Bring a job to the foreground
■ jobs – List active jobs
■ nice – Run a program with modified scheduling priority
■ renice – Alter priority of running processes
■ uptime – Show how long the system has been running
■ time – Measure program running time

4. Disk Management
■ df – Report file system disk space usage
■ du – Estimate file space usage
■ fdisk – Partition table manipulator for Linux
■ lsblk – List information about block devices
■ mount – Mount a file system
■ umount – Unmount a file system
■ parted – A partition manipulation program
■ mkfs – Create a file system
■ fsck – File system consistency check and repair
■ blkid – Locate/print block device attributes
5. Networking
■ ifconfig – Configure network interfaces
■ ip – Show/manipulate routing, devices, and tunnels
■ ping – Send ICMP Echo requests to network hosts

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■ netstat – Network statistics
■ ss – Socket statistics (faster than netstat)
■ traceroute – Trace the route packets take to a network host
■ nslookup – Query Internet name servers interactively
■ dig – DNS lookup utility
■ wget – Non-interactive network downloader
■ curl – Transfer data with URLs
■ scp – Secure copy files between hosts
■ ssh – Secure shell for remote login
■ ftp – File Transfer Protocol client

6. User and Group Management

■ useradd – Add a user to the system
■ usermod – Modify a user account
■ userdel – Delete a user account
■ groupadd – Add a group to the system
■ groupdel – Delete a group
■ passwd – Change user password
■ chage – Change user password expiry information
■ whoami – Print the current logged -in user
■ who – Show who is logged in
■ w – Show who is logged in and what they’re doing
■ id – Display user and group information
■ groups – Show user’s groups

7. System Information and Monitoring

■ uname – Print system information
■ hostname – Show or set the system’s hostname
■ uptime – How long the sys tem has been running
■ dmesg – Boot and system messages
■ free – Display memory usage
■ top – Display Linux tasks
■ vmstat – Report virtual memory statistics

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■ lscpu – Display information about the CPU architecture
■ lsusb – List USB devices
■ lspci – List PCI devices
■ lshw – List hardware configuration
8. Archiving and Compression
■ tar – Archive files
o tar -czf archive.tar.gz /path/to/directory – Compress files
using gzip
o tar -xzf archive.tar.gz – Extract gzipped tarball
o tar -cf archive.tar /path/to/directory – Create a tarball
o tar -xf archive.tar – Extract tarball
■ zip – Package and compress files into a ZIP archive
■ unzip – Extract files from a ZIP archive
■ gzip – Compress files using the gzip algorithm
■ gunzip – Decompress files compressed with gzip
■ bzip2 – Compress files using the bzip2 algorithm
■ bunzip2 – Decompress files compressed with bzip2
■ xz – Compress files using the xz algorithm
■ unxz – Decompress files compressed with xz
9. Package Management (Depends on Distribution)
Debian -based (e.g., Ubuntu)
■ apt-get – APT package handling utility
o apt-get install – Install a package
o apt-get update – Update package list
o apt-get upgrade – Upgrade installed packages
o apt-get remove – Remove a package
■ apt-cache – Query APT cache
o apt-cache search – Search for a package
o apt-cache show – Show package details
Red Hat -based (e.g., CentOS, Fedora)

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■ yum – Package manager for RPM -based systems
o yum install – Install a package
o yum update – Update installed packages
o yum remove < package> – Remove a package
■ dnf – Next -generation package manager (Fedora, CentOS 8+)
o dnf install – Install a package
o dnf update – Update installed packages
o dnf remove – Remove a package
General Commands
■ rpm – RPM package manager
o rpm -i – Install an RPM package
o rpm -e – Remove an RPM package
■ dpkg – Debian package manager
o dpkg -i – Install a Debian package
o dpkg -r – Remove a Debian package

10. System Services and Daemon Management

■ systemctl – Control the systemd system and service manager
o systemctl start – Start a service
o systemctl stop – Stop a service
o systemctl restart – Restart a service
o systemctl enable – Enable a service to start on boot
o systemctl disable – Disable a service from starting
on boot
o systemctl status – Check service status
■ service – Older service management command (used in non -
systemd systems)
o service start – Start a service
o service s top – Stop a service
o service restart – Restart a service
o service status – Check service status

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11. Scheduling Tasks
■ cron – Daemon for running scheduled commands
o crontab -e – Edit cron jobs for the current user
o crontab -l – List the current user’s cron jobs
o crontab -r – Remove the current user's cron jobs
■ at – Run commands at a specified time
o at 09:00 – Schedule a command to run at 09:00 AM
■ batch – Run commands when the system load is low
■ sleep – Delay for a specified time
o sleep 5s – Sleep for 5 seconds
12. File Permissions and Security
■ chmod – Change file permissions
■ chown – Change file owner and group
■ chgrp – Change the group ownership of a file
■ umask – Set default permissions for new files
■ setfacl – Set file access control lists (ACL)
■ getfacl – Get file access control lists (ACL)
■ sudo – Execute a command as another user (usually root)
■ visudo – Edit the sudoers file safely
■ passwd – Change a user’s password
■ sudoers – Manage sudo access for user s
■ gpasswd – Administer group password
■ ss – Display socket statistics (for secure network connections)
13. System Backup and Restore
■ rsync – Remote file and directory synchronization
o rsync -avz source/ destination/ – Synchronize files
o rsync -avz -e ssh source/ user@remote:/destination/ – Sync
over SSH
■ cpio – Copy files to and from archives
■ dd – Low-level copying and backup of entire filesystems

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o dd if=/dev/sda of=/path/to/backup.img – Backup a
disk/partition
o dd if=/path/to/backup.img of=/dev/sda – Restore a
disk/partition
14. System Diagnostics and Troubleshooting
■ dmesg – Print the kernel ring buffer messages (system boot and
hardware -related messages)
■ journalctl – Query and view logs from systemd’s journal
■ strace – Trace system calls and signals
o strace – Trace a command’s system calls
■ lsof – List open files (useful for debugging)
o lsof – Show processes using a specific file
■ vmstat – Report virtual memory statistics
■ iostat – Report CPU and I/O statistics
■ mpstat – Report CPU usage statistics
■ pidstat – Report statistics by process
■ free – Display memory usage
■ uptime – How long the system has been running
■ watch – Execute a program periodically, showing output
o watch -n 1 free – Watch memory usage every second
■ lshw – List hardware configuration
■ htop – Interactive process viewer (better than top)
■ netstat – Network statistics (deprecated in favor of ss)
■ ss – Show socket statistics (more efficient than netstat)

15. Networking & Remote Management

■ ifconfig – Configure netw ork interfaces (older command,
replaced by ip)
■ ip – A more modern alternative for managing network interfaces
and routing
o ip addr – Show IP addresses
o ip link – Show or manipulate network interfaces

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o ip route – Show or manipulate routing tables
■ ss – Display socket statistics (useful for diagnosing network
issues)
■ nmap – Network exploration tool (can be used for security
auditing)
■ telnet – User interface to the TELNET protocol (less common
nowadays)
■ nc (Netcat ) – Network utility for reading and writing from network
connections
o nc -l -p 1234 – Listen on port 1234
o nc – Connect to a host and port
■ iptables – Administration tool for IPv4 packet filtering and NAT
(Network Address Translation)
■ firewalld – Frontend for managing firewall rules (used in some
distros like Fedora and CentOS)
■ ufw – Uncomplicated firewall (front -end for iptables)
o ufw enable – Enable firewall
o ufw allow – Allow traffic on a specific port
■ tcpdump – Command -line packet anal yzer
■ curl – Transfer data from or to a server using various protocols
(HTTP, FTP, etc.)
■ wget – Download files from the web via HTTP, HTTPS, FTP
■ scp – Secure copy over SSH (used to copy files between systems)
o scp file.txt user@remote:/path/to/destination/ – Copy file to
remote server
■ rsync – Remote file and directory synchronization (often used for
backups)
o rsync -avz /local/path/ remote:/remote/path/ – Sync
directories

16. Text Processing Utilities

■ grep – Search for patterns within files
o grep 'pattern' file.txt – Search for a pattern in a file
o grep -r 'pattern' /dir/ – Recursively search for a pattern

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■ sed – Stream editor for filtering and transforming text
o sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt – Replace old with new globally
■ awk – A powerful text processing langua ge
o awk '{print $1}' file.txt – Print the first column of each line in
a file
■ cut – Remove sections from each line of a file
o cut -d ':' -f 1 /etc/passwd – Print the first field of each line,
delimited by ":"
■ sort – Sort lines of text files
o sort file.txt – Sort file content in ascending order
■ uniq – Report or omit repeated lines in a file
o sort file.txt | uniq – Sort and remove duplicate lines
■ tee – Read from standard input and write to standard output and
files
o echo "text" | tee file.txt – Write to file and show output on
screen
■ tr – Translate or delete characters
o echo "hello" | tr 'a -z' 'A-Z' – Convert lowercase to uppercase
■ paste – Merge lines of files
o paste file1.txt file2.txt – Combine lines of file1 and file2 side
by side
■ wc – Word, line, character, and byte count
o wc -l file.txt – Count lines in a file
o wc -w file.txt – Count words in a file
17. System Shutdown and Reboot
■ shutdown – Shut down the system
o shutdown -h now – Immediately shut down
o shutdown -r now – Reboot the system
o shutdown -h +10 – Shut down after 10 minutes
■ reboot – Reboot the system
■ halt – Halt the system immediately (equivalent to turning off
power)
■ poweroff – Power off the system

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■ init – Change the runlevel (old -style system manager)
o init 0 – Shutdown
o init 6 – Reboot

18. File System Mounting and Management

■ mount – Mount a file system
o mount /dev/sda1 /mnt – Mount partition to a directory
■ umount – Unmount a file system
o umount /mnt – Unmount the file system mounted at /mnt
■ fstab – File system table (configuration file for mounting file
systems)
o /etc/fstab – View and configure persistent mount points
■ blkid – Display block device attributes
■ fsck – Check and repair a file system
o fsck /dev/sda1 – Check and repair /dev/sda1
19. Filesystem Permissions and Security
■ chmod – Change file permissions
o chmod 755 file.txt – Give read, write, and execute
permissions to owner, and read -execute permissions to
others
■ chown – Change file owner and group
o chown user:group file.txt – Change own er and group of a file
■ chgrp – Change group ownership of a file
o chgrp group file.txt – Change the group of a file
■ umask – Set default permissions for new files
o umask 022 – Set default permissions for newly created files
to 755
■ setfacl – Set access contro l lists (ACL) for file permissions
■ getfacl – Get access control lists (ACL) for file permissions

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20. Containerization and Orchestration
Docker
■ docker – Docker command -line interface (CLI) for managing
containers
o docker run – Run a container from an image
o docker ps – List running containers
o docker ps -a – List all containers, including stopped ones
o docker build -t . – Build an image
from a Dockerfile
o docker exec -it bash – Start an
interactive bash shell inside a running container
o docker stop – Stop a container
o docker rm – Remove a container
o docker logs – View logs of a container
o docker images – List available images
o docker rmi – Remove an image
o docker network ls – List Docker networks
o docker-compose – Manage multi -container Docker
applications
■ docker-compose up – Start up a multi -container
environment
■ docker-compose down – Stop and remove containers
created by docker -compose
■ docker-compose logs – View logs from co ntainers
managed by docker -compose
Kubernetes (k8s)
■ kubectl – Command -line tool for interacting with Kubernetes
clusters
o kubectl get pods – List pods in the current namespace
o kubectl get nodes – List nodes in the cluster
o kubectl get services – List services in the cluster

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o kubectl apply -f .yaml – Apply configuration
from a file (e.g., a deployment or pod configuration)
o kubectl create -f .yaml – Create a resource
from a file
o kubectl delete -f .yaml – Delete a resource
defined in a fi le
o kubectl exec -it -- bash – Execute a
command inside a pod (e.g., open a shell)
o kubectl logs – View the logs of a pod
o kubectl describe pod – Get detailed
information about a pod
o kubectl scale deployment --
replicas= – Scale a deployment to the desired
number of replicas
o kubectl rollout restart deployment
– Restart a deployment
o kubectl port -forward pod
: – Forward a port from a
pod to localhost
Helm
■ helm – Kubernetes package manager for deploying applications
o helm install –
Install a Helm chart
o helm upgrade –
Upgrade a Helm release
o helm list – List all Helm releases
o helm delete – Delete a Helm release
o helm search – Search for a Helm chart

21. Automation and Configuration Management

Ansible
■ ansible – Automation tool for configuration management

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o ansible all -m ping – Ping all hosts defined in the
inventory
o ansible-playbook playbook.yml – Run an Ansible
playbook
o ansible -m command -a 'command' – Run a
single command on a target host
o ansible-playbook --check playbook.yml – Dry-run
a playbook to see what would change
o ansible-playbook --limit playb ook.yml –
Run a playbook on a specific host or group
o ansible-playbook --extra-vars "key=value" –
Pass extra variables to a playbook
Terraform
■ terraform – Infrastructure as code tool for provisioning and
managing cloud resources
o terraform init – Initialize a working directory for
Terraform configuration
o terraform plan – Show an execution plan (preview of
what changes will be made)
o terraform apply – Apply the changes described in a
Terraform configuration
o terraform destroy – Destroy infrastructure created by
Terraform
o terraform validate – Validate the configuration files
o terraform show – Show the current state of the
infrastructure
Puppet
■ puppet – Configuration management tool
o puppet apply – Apply a Puppet
manifest locally
o puppet agent --test – Test the Puppet agent (can be
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o puppet resource – Show the current state of resources
(files, services, etc.)
22. CI/CD Tools and Commands
Jenkins
■ jenkins – Continuous integration tool
o java -jar jenkins.war – Start Jenkins from a WAR file
o Access Jenkins through http://localhost:8080 by default
GitLab CI
■ .gitlab-ci.yml – Configuration file for GitLab CI/CD pipelines
(typically resides in your repository)
o gitlab-runner register – Register a new runner with
GitLab
o gitlab-runner run – Run the GitLab Runner to process
jobs
GitHub Actions
■ GitHub Actions uses YAML configuration files (typically located in
.github/workflows/)
o actions/checkout@v2 – Checkout the repository code in
your CI pipeline
o actions/setup -node@v2 – Setup Node.js for use in a
pipeline
o docker/setup -buildx-action@v1 – Set up Docker
Buildx for building multi -platform images

23. Cloud Services

AWS CLI (Amazon Web Services)
■ aws – Command -line tool for managing AWS services
o aws configure – Configure AWS CLI with your credentials

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o aws s3 cp file.txt s3://bucket -name/ – Copy a
file to an S3 bucket
o aws ec2 describe -instances – Describe EC2 instances
o aws ec2 start -instances --instance -ids –
Start an EC2 instance
o aws ec2 stop -instances --instance -ids –
Stop an EC2 instance
o aws s3 sync – Sync directories with an S3 bucket
Azure CLI (Microsoft Azure)
■ az – Command -line tool for managing Azure services
o az login – Log in to your Azure account
o az vm list – List all virtual machines
o az vm start --name --resource -group
– Start an Azure VM
o az storage blob upload – Upload files to an Azure
blob storage
o az group create – Create a new resource group in Azure
Google Cloud SDK (gcloud)
■ gcloud – Command -line tool for Google Cloud Platform
o gcloud auth login – Log in to Google Cloud
o gcloud compute instances list – List compute
instances
o gcloud compute instances stop
– Stop a Google Cloud VM instance
o gcloud app browse – Open the current Google App
Engine application in a browse r

24. Logging and Monitoring

Prometheus
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■ prometheus – Open -source system monitoring and alerting
toolkit
o prometheus – Start Prometheus server (usually runs as a
service in the background)
o prometheus --config.file= – Start
Prometheus with a specific config file
Grafana
■ grafana-cli – Command -line interface for managing Grafana
plugins
o grafana-cli plugins install –
Install a plugin in Grafana
ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)
■ elasticsearch – Search engine for logging an d data analytics
o curl -XGET
'localhost:9200/_cluster/health?pretty' – Get
cluster health status
■ logstash – Server -side data processing pipeline
o logstash -f – Run Logstash with the
specified configuration file
■ kibana – Web interface for visu alizing Elasticsearch data
o Kibana is generally accessed through a web browser
(http://localhost:5601)