Commonly Used Console Commands
1.) ls - list directory contentsCommand: ls <options> <flags> <path>
Summary of common 'ls' commands:
a.) ls - lists current directory contense
b.) ls -l - lists current directory in 'long format' (l)
c.) ls -lh - lists current directory in 'long format' (l) and 'human readable' (h) form
d.) ls -a - lists all files (a) in current directory, including 'dot files' (e.g .. , .)
Examples:
i.) A simple listing: ls <path>
doneir@wolf:~$ ls /home/snul
100NIKON.zip DSC00088.JPG DSC00090.JPG NFS-UD.zip q3.tgz quake2.tgz
doneir@wolf:~$
'ls' without a following path (as above) will list the directory contense of the "current working directory" (cwd)
doneir@wolf:~$ ls
GNUstep armyops200a-linux.bin box-stats cyp1.0k.tar p2.jpg.1 script
url IrcLog bmwm3vspolice3.wmv cyp old-bnc ppp test
doneir@wolf:~$
ii.) 'ls -lh' will give a long (l) format in human readable (h) form.
In order of columns:
permissions owner group size date time name-of-file
doneir@wolf:~$ ls -lh /home/snul
total 1.6G
-rw-r--r-- 1 snul snul 2.3M May 19 13:56 100NIKON.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 snul snul 113K May 23 14:10 DSC00088.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 snul snul 125K May 23 14:10 DSC00090.JPG
-rw-r--r-- 1 snul snul 815M May 27 08:43 NFS-UD.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 snul snul 469M Feb 5 00:49 q3.tgz
-rw-r--r-- 1 snul snul 267M Feb 1 11:29 quake2.tgz
doneir@wolf:~$
NOTE: The "total" you see above only lists the combined size of the files
in that specific directory, it does not take into account the size of
files inside additional directories.
Example:
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls -lh
total 4.0K
drwxr-xr-x 2 doneir doneir 4.0K May 27 21:08 mydir
doneir@wolf:~/fake/mydir$ ls -lh
total 457M
-rw-r--r-- 1 doneir doneir 456M May 27 21:10 Tiesto_And_Cor_Fijneman-Just_Be_Release_Party__HMH_Amsterdam-DAB-05-21-2004-MiM_INT.tar
doneir@wolf:~/fake/mydir$
iii.) List all files (including dot files): ls -a <path>
doneir@wolf:~$ ls -a /home/snul
. .Xauthority .bashrc 100NIKON.zip NFS-UD.zip
.. .bash_history .irssi DSC00088.JPG q3.tgz
.BitchX .bash_profile .w3m DSC00090.JPG quake2.tgz
doneir@wolf:~$
Dot files are usually places where user specific data is stored (e.g "preferences").
2.) cd - change directory
Command: cd <flags> <directory>
Example:
doneir@wolf:~$ cd cyp
doneir@wolf:~/cyp$
3.) pwd - print name of current/working directory
Command: pwd
Example:
doneir@wolf:~$ pwd
/home/doneir
doneir@wolf:~$ cd cyp
doneir@wolf:~/cyp$ pwd
/home/doneir/cyp
doneir@wolf:~/cyp$
4.) mv - move (rename) files
Command: mv <options> <flags> <existing file> <new file>
Example:
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
test
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ mv test test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$
5.) cp - copy files and directories
Command: cp <options> <flags> <existing file> <new file>
Example:
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ cp test2 test
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
test test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$
6.) rm - remove files or directories
Command: rm <flags> <file>
Examples:
i.) Removing a file: rm <file>
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
test test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ rm test
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$
ii.) Removing a directory: rm -r <directory>
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
mydir test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ rm mydir
rm: cannot remove `mydir': Is a directory
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ rm -r mydir
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$
7.) mkdir - make a directory
Command: mkdir <flags> <directory name>
Example:
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ mkdir mydir
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ ls
mydir test2
doneir@wolf:~/fake$
8.) su - Change user ID or become super-user
Command: su <flags> - <username> <commands>
Example:
doneir@wolf:~/fake$ su - var
Password:
var@wolf:~$ id
uid=1000(var) gid=1000(var) groups=29(audio),1000(var)
var@wolf:~$ su -
Password:
wolf:~# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
wolf:~#
NOTE: If you do not pass the '-' option, then you will not inherit the users environment
variables. The command 'set' will show you your users environment variables.
9.) ps - report a snapshot of the current processes
Command: ps <flags>
Summary of common 'ps' commands:
a.) ps - report/print processes run by this terminal
b.) ps ux - report/print processes run by this user
c.) ps aux - report all main processes run on this system
d.) ps auxw - report all main processes with complete commands
I won't give any examples as the output would be quite long.
10.) kill - send a signal to a process
Command: kill <flags> <signal> <process id>
Summary of common 'kill' commands:
a.) kill <pid> - nice way of killing a process (TERM)
b.) kill -9 <pid> - bad way of killing a process, use as last resort (SIGKILL)
c.) kill -1 <pid> - "restart" the process (HUP)
d.) kill -BUS <pid> - drive a bus into the process (BUS)
NOTE: The 'ps' command (e.g ps aux) gives you the PID/Process ID of the main running processes, see the second column of the ps output.
For more information on any of the commands above, please see their 'man' and 'info' pages.
Commands: man <program>
info <program>
<program> --help