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Shell-Commands

Command Example / Options Description
less less file.txt Show the content of the text-file. You can move with the cursor-keys. To quit less press the key Q.
man man command Show the man-page (manual-page) of the command.
man command | col -b > manual.txt Save the man-page of the command as manual.txt.
help command --help Show the help of the command.
command -h Show the help of the command.
ps -h Show the help of the command ps
ps ps aux | less Shows your own processes. The column PID shows the process-ID. You can move with the cursor-keys. To quit less press the key Q.
ps x | grep -i abiword Shows one process (e.g. abiword).
a Shows all processes.
u Gives further information about the processes.
x Shows your own processes.
top top Shows all processes. To quit top press Ctrl+C.
kill kill -9 5321 Stops the process 5321.
which which abiword Shows the path to abiword.
pwd Shows the full pathname of your working directory (pwd = print working directory).
cd cd directory Change the current working directory to directory (cd = change directory).
cd / Change to the root directory.
cd /root/my-documents Change to the directory /root/my-documents (absolute pathname, this means, the path starts at the root directory).
cd my-documents If your are at the root-directory, you will change to the sub-directory my-documents (relative pathname, this means, the path starts at the working directory).
cd .. Change to the parent directory of the current directory.
cd Change to your home-directory.
cd - Change to the previous directory. With this command you can change between two directories.
mkdir mkdir directory Makes a new directory (mkdir = make directory).
mkdir -p pictures/holiday/2004 Makes the directories /pictures, /pictures/holiday and pictures/holiday/2004 with only one command.
rmdir rmdir -r directory Remove directory (rmdir = remove directory). Without the option -r rmdir removes only empty directories.
cp cp from to Copies a file or directory (cp = copy).
cp -i picture.jpg copy.jpg Makes a copy (copy.jpg) of the file picture.jpg.
cp -i picture1.jpg picture2.jpg pictures Copies the files picture1.jpg and picture2.jpg to the directory pictures. If the files already exist in the target-directory they are overwritten. The target-directory must already exist.
cp -r pictures backup Copies the directory pictures with all sub-directories to the directory backup.
-i interactive. Ask, if an existing file shall be overwritten (confirm with the key y).
-b backup. If the file already exists, the copy-command first makes a backup of the old file (marked with ~, e.g. picture1.jpg~).
-r recursive. All sub-directories are copied, too.
? Wildcard for one character, e.g.
cp picture?.jpg pictures
copies the files picture1.jpg, picture2.jpg and picturea.jpg
* Wildcard for many characters, e.g.
cp *.jpg pictures
copies all jpg-files (Attention: Linux is case sensitive. Only jpg-files with the extetnsion jpg are copied, not jpg-files with the extension JPG).
[characters] Range. One of the characters in squared brackets must be in the filename, e.g.
cp *.[jJ][pP][gG] pictures
copies all jpg-files with the extensions jpg, JPG, Jpg and so on.
cp picture[a-zA-Z].jpg
copies the files picturea.jpg and pictureb.jpg, but not picture1.jpg and picture2.jpg.
cp picture[0-9].jpg
copies the files picture1.jpg and picture2.jpg, but not picturea.jpg and pictureb.jpg.
mv mv from to Moves or renames a file or directory (mv = move).
mv picture.jpg panorama.jpg The file picture.jpg is renamed panorama.jpg.
mv pictures/backup pictures/backup_old The directory pictures/backup is renamed into pictures/backup_old.
mv -i pictures/2004/picture.jpg pictures/2005 The file picture.jpg is moved from the directory pictures/2004/ to pictures/2005. The directory pictures/2005 must already exist.
-i interactive. Ask, if an existing file shall be overwritten (confirm with the key y).
rm rm file Removes a file (rm = remove).
rm rm -i "*.jpg" Removes all jpg-files from the working directory.
-i interactive. Asks, if the file should be removed (confirm with the key y).
shred shred -fuv file Removes the file and overwrites the diskspace 25-times.
shred -fuv -n 50 file Removes the file and overwrites the diskspace 50-times.
touch touch file Makes an empty file.
du du /root/my-documents Shows the size of each subdirectory of /root/my-documents.
du -m /root/my-documents | sort -n | less Sorts the directories by size. You can move with the cursor-keys. To quit less press the key Q.
ls ls -al Lists the all files of your current working directory.
ls -al pictures/2006 Lists the all files of the directory picture/2006.
-l Detailed list with filesize, date, permissions.
-a Lists hidden files.
-R Lists all files in your current working directory and all sub-directories.
-t Sort by date of change.
-S Sort by filesize.
-r Reverse sort.
ls -rtl | less Lists the files in reverse order sorted by the date of change
ls -rSl | less Lists the files in reverse order sorted by the filesize.
ls -F | grep /$ Lists only sub-direcotries, not the files.
find find -type f -iname picture.jpg Shows the path to the file picture.jpg. The search starts at your working directory and includes all sub-directories. You can stop the search by pressing Ctrl+C. Wildcards (?,*) must be set in quotation marks. The option -type f restricts the search to files (f = file, d = directory, l = link). With the option -iname the search is not case sensitive.
find /root/my-documents -type f -iname picture.jpg Shows the path to the file picture.jpg. The search starts at the directory /root/my-documents.
find -type f -iname "*.jpg" Finds all jpg-files (extension jpg, not JPG !)
find /home/music -type f -iname "*.mp3" | wc -l Shows, how many files are in the directory /home/music and its sub-directories.
find -type f -size +1000k Finds all files, larger than 1000 Kilobytes.
find -type f -size -1000k Finds all files smaller than 1000 Kilobytes.
find -mtime 0 Finds all files that have been changed in the last 24 hours.
find -mtime 2 Finds all files that have been changed in the last 2 days.
find -mmin 5 Finds all files that have been changed in the last 5 minutes.
find /root/my-documents -type f -name "*.*~" -ok rm "{}" ";" Removes all backup-files from the directory /root/my-documents and its sub-directories (confirm with the key y). If you use the the option -exec instead of the option -ok, the files are removed without confirmation.
grep grep pattern *.txt Shows all text-files in your working directory containing pattern. The search is case sensitive.
grep grep "Linux" *.txt Shows all text-files in your working directory containing the word "Linux". The search is case sensitive.
grep -i pattern *.txt Shows all text-files in your working directory containing pattern. The search is not case sensitive.
grep -r pattern Shows all text-files in your working directory and its sub-directories containing pattern.
grep -L pattern *.txt Shows all text-files not containing pattern.
mount mount Shows the mounted partitions
mount /dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3 Mounts the partition hda3 at /mnt/hda3.
umount umount /dev/hda3 Unmounts the partition hda3.
df df -h Shows the space on your harddrive.
du du -h Shows the space of a directory.
du /root | sort -rn | less Shows, which sub-directories of /root use the most space.
ln ln -s file link Makes a symbolic link (softlink) in your working directory to the file.
ln -s /root/projects/summary.txt Makes a softlink summary.txt in your working directory to the file /root/projects/summary.txt.
ln -s /root/projects/summary.txt /root/my-documents/my_summary.txt Makes a softlink my_summary.txt in the directory /root/my-documents to the file /root/projects/summary.txt.
ln -s /root/projects /root/my-documents/ Makes a softlink in the directory /root/my-documents to the directory /root/projects.
ls -l Shows which files are softlinks and where the original file is (there is an arrow behind the filename pointing to the original file).
ln file link Makes a hardlink to the file in your working directory. A hardlink is an alternative filename of a file. Both, the (original) file and the hardlink are the same file, the same point of your filesystem. There is no difference between the original file and the hardlink. You can create a hardlink just like a softlink without the option -s.
ls -l Shows how many names (hardlinks) a file has. The second column shows the number of hardlinks.
cat cat -n file | less Shows the content of the (text-)file with line-numbers.
>
< 		Redirections.
ls /home/* > home.txt Redirects the output of the ls-command to the file home.txt. If the file home.txt already exists, it will be overwritten. If errors occur while running the ls-command, the error messages are written to the shell.
ls /home/* >> home.txt Appends the output of the ls-command to the file home.txt. If the file home.txt does not exist, the file will be created.
ls /home/* 2> /dev/null Redirects errors to /dev/null so you will not see the error messages.
ls /home/* > home.txt 2> /dev/null Redirects the output of the ls-command to the file home.txt, error messages are suppressed.
ls /home/* >& home.txt Redirects the output of the ls-command with all error messages to the file home.txt
sort < unsort.txt Redirects the content of the file unsort.txt to the sort-command.
tee ls -l | tee home.txt Redirects the output of the ls-command to the file home.txt and to the shell simultaneously.
head
tail 		tail -n +3 file | head -n 2 Shows line 3 and 4 of the (text-) file. Tail reads the lines 3 to the end of the file and head shows the first two lines read by tail.
tail -f file Shows the last 10 lines of the file. The output is automatically refreshed everytime the file is changed. (e.g. a log-file like /var/log/messages). You can stop tail by pressing Ctrl+C.
wc wc file Shows how many lines, words and characters the (text-)file contains (wc = word count).
diff diff file1 file2 Compares two text-files. Diff shows what has to be changed in the first file to get the second file (first file + diff = second file"). Example:

1c1
< Hello, this is a long message
---
> Hello, this is a short message

The symbols 1c1 mean that the files differ at line 1 (c = change). Then you see the line 1 of the first file (starts with <) and then line 1 of the second file (starts with >).

Lines that are only in the second file (they are missing in the first file) are marked with an "a" (a = append):

19a19,25
> This is a line, that is missing in file1

First you see the line-number of the first file (line 19). Then you see the "a" (append) and then you see the line-numbers of the second file (19-25) that are missing in the first file.

tar tar -cvf archiv.tar file1 file2 Packs up file1 and file2 into archiv.tar.
tar -czvf archiv.tar.gz file1 file2 Packs up file1 and file2 into archiv.tar and compresses the file archiv.tar with gzip.
tar -rf archiv.tar newfile Adds newfile to archiv.tar.
tar -tvf archiv.tar Shows the content of archiv.tar.
tar -tzvf archiv.tar.gz Shows the content of the (gzip-) compressed archiv.tar.
tar -xvf archiv.tar Unpacks archiv.tar in your working directory.
tar -xzvf archiv.tar.gz Unpacks the (gzip-) compressed archiv.tar.gz in your working directory.
tar -xzvf archiv.tar.gz -C /root/my-documents Unpacks the (gzip-) compressed archiv.tar.gz in the directory /root/my-documents
gzip
bzip2 		gzip file Compresses a file (e.g. an archiv) with gzip (gzip is compatible with WinZip). Alternatively you can compress with bzip2 as well.
cut cut -f 1,2,3,7 adress.txt > print.txt Reads out columns 1,2,3 and 7 of the file adress.txt and save the result into the file print.txt. The file adress.txt must be seperated by tabulators.
cut -d , -f 1,2,3,7 adress.txt > print.txt Reads out columns 1,2,3 and 7 of the file adress.txt and save the result into the file print.txt. The file adress.txt must be seperated by commas (option -d determines the seperator).
cal cal -m Calendar. Shows the current month, the week starts at monday (Option -m).
cal -m -3 Shows the current month and the month before and after.
cal 06 2006 -m Shows the month June 2006.
cal 2007 -m Shows the whole year 2007.
cal -j 09 2007 Shows the number of the day 15. September 2007.
split split -b 1m bigfile smallfile The file bigfile is split into 1 megabyte small files. The small files are signed with characters (smallfilea, smallfileb, smallfilec and so on).
split -b 500k bigfile smallfile The file bigfile is split into 500 kilobyte small files.
cat smallfile* > bigfile Merges the smallfiles to the bigfile.
/sbin/ifconfig Shows your IP-address. The second line (behind inet addr) shows your IP-adress.
history history -c Clears the command-history. This command deletes the content of the file /root/.bash_history.
od od -h file.txt Hexadecimal view of the text-file.
od -c file.txt ASCII view of the text-file.
lame lame -b 320 song.wav song.mp3 Convert an audio-file from wave to mp3. The quality is 320 kbps.
lame -b 192 --ta "artist" --tt "song titel" song.wav song.mp3 Convert an audio-file from wave to mp3 and write artist and song titel as ID3-tag. The quality is 192 kbps.
-b value Sampling-rate (quality). Maximum: 320
--ta "artist" Artist
--tt "song titel" Songtitel
--tg "genre" Genre. Enter a number or text, e.g. 13 or "Pop".
--tl "album" Album
--tc "comment" Comment
--ty year Year
--tn tracknumber Tracknumber
lame --genre-list | less Show a list of the genres. You can move with the cursor-keys. To quit less press the key Q.
lame --decode song.mp3 song.wav Convert an audio-file from mp3 to wave.
id3v2 id3v2 -l song.mp3 Show the ID3-tags of a mp3-file (id3v2 must be installed).
id3v2 -a "artist" -t "songtitel" song.mp3 Write the artist and song titel as ID3-tag.
-a "artist" Artist
-t "song titel" Songtitel
-g "Genre" Genre. Enter a number or text, e.g. 13 or "Pop".
-A "album" Album
-c "comment" Comment
-y year Year
-T tracknumber Tracknumber
id3v2 -d song.mp3 Delete the ID3v2-tags.
id3v2 -s song.mp3 Delete the ID3v1-tags.