1. tar command examples Create a new tar archive. $ tar cvf archive_name.tar dirname/ Extract from an existing tar archive. $...
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
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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" *
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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
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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
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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/ /'
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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16. bzip2 command examples
To create a *.bz2 compressed file:
$ bzip2 test.txt
To uncompress a *.bz2 file:
bzip2 -d test.txt.bz2
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 status of all the services.
service --status-all
Restart a service.
# service ssh restart
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 }
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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
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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
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