Linux commands and utilities

This is a list of linux commands and utilities a Bahmni implementer should know for daily system administration.

There are plenty of materials online that would help you to master these commands and its various options.  This list will tell you what commands you should start looking up.

• ls 
  • List files in current directory
  • ls -l  Lists files in “long” format
  • ls –a  List all files, including “hidden” files.

• touch <file name> 
  • Create an empty file

• cat <filename> 
  • Show contents of a file
  • cat -n <filename>
  •  Show contents of a file, with line numbers

• man <command name> 
  • Get help on the “ls” command.

• chmod
  • change file access permissions

• chown 
  • change file owner and group

• chgrp 
  • change group ownership

• pwd
  • Shows the current location in the directory tree

• cd directory 
  • Change into the specified directory name
  • cd ~ “~” is an alias for your home directory. It can be used as a shortcut to your “home”, or other directories relative to your home.
  • cd .. Move up one directory.

• tail 
  • Display the last few lines of a text file. Example: tail /etc/services
  • tail –f Display the last few lines of a text file,

• cp 
  • Copies a file from one location to another. Example: cp mp3files.txt /tmp

• mv 
  • Moves a file to a new location, or renames it. For example: mv mp3files.txt /tmp

• rm 
  • Delete a file. Example: rm /tmp/mp3files.txt

• rmdir 
  • Remove empty directories

• mkdir 
  • Make Directory. Example: mkdir /tmp/myfiles

• rmdir Remove Directory. Example: rmdir /tmp/myfiles/

• find
  •  It can be used to search for files matching certain patterns, find . -name \*mp3

• ps -ef 
  • Lists currently running process (programs)

• df 
  • Report file system disk space usage (“Disk Free” is how I remember it)

• du 
  • Disk Usage in a particular directory. “du -s” provides a summary for the current directory.

• Clear 
  • Clear the screen

• ps -ef | grep <application name>
  • List <application name> running in the system

• tar 
  • -xvf <filename.tar> extract tar file
  • -cvf <filename.tar> compress files and folders
  • -tvf archive.tar List all files in archive.tar verbosely.

• yum <install/remove> <Application name>
  •  this is command is used to install or uninstall the programme

• kill 
  • Terminate a process

• ifconfig 
  • configure a network interface

• scp 
  • secure copy (remote file copy program)

• chkconfig 
  • updates and queries runlevel information for system services
• service start|stop|status
• who
• whoami
• useradd
• passwd
• sudo
• ssh
• ping
• crontab
• mount
• umount