Top 50 Most Commonly Used Linux Commands

Top 50 Most Commonly Used Linux Commands

In this post, I’ve gathered a list of the top 50 Linux commands. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned Linux user, mastering these commands will help you to efficiently manage your Linux-based systems and streamline your workflow. I have categorised commands as per their area of usage.

File and Directory Management:

• ls : Aha!! Curious to know what’s inside directory? 😛
  The ls command is one of the most commonly used commands which is used in listing contents inside a directory.

# Show All Files, Includes hidden files (those starting with a dot) in the output.
ls -a

# Provides detailed information about each file or directory, including permissions, number of links, owner, group, size, and timestamp.
ls -l

# Used with -l to display file sizes in a human-readable format (e.g., KB, MB).
ls -lh

# Lists all files and directories recursively.
ls -R

# Sorts files and directories by modification time, with the newest files first.
ls -t

# Sorts files and directories by size, with the largest files first.
ls -S

# Reverses the order of the sort (used with other options like -t or -S).
ls -tr

# Lists one file or directory per line. This is useful for piping the output to other commands.
ls -1

• pwd : Did you lost your way and want to know your current location? 😬
  This command will help you find the current working directory path.
• cd : Want to move to new location? 📍
  Using this command you can navigate through directories efficiently.
• mkdir : I see you want your own directory? Why wait create one, Create a new directory.

# Creates a directory named mydir in the current directory.
mkdir mydir

# Creates three directories: dir1, dir2, and dir3.
mkdir dir1 dir2 dir3

# Creates a directory structure parent/child/grandchild
mkdir -p parent/child/grandchild

# Creates a directory named mydir with permissions set to 755
mkdir -m 755 mydir

• cp : Want to replicate the data? Copy files and directories.
• touch: Create an empty file/ Change timestamp of the file.

# Create an empty file
touch file.txt

# Updates only the access time of the file.txt
touch -a file.txt

# Sets the timestamp of the file.txt to August 24,2024, 9:30 AM
touch -t 202408240930

• mv : Move or rename files and directories.
• rm : Want to get rid of unwanted files and directory?

# Recursively removes directory ad it's contents
rm -r directory/

# Forces removal of file.txt without prompting
rm -r file.txt

# Forcefully and recursively removes directory contents
rm -rf directory/

# Prompts before removing file.txt
rm -i file

• find : Looking for something?
• grep : Search for text within files.
• cat: Curious about what’s written in file?
• less or more: View files page by page.

File Permissions:

• chmod : Change file permissions.

# Set permission to file.txt
chmod 755 file.txt

# Applies the permission changes recursively to all files and directories.
chmod -R 755 my_directory/

# Sets the permissions of the target file(s) to match those of the reference file.
chmod --reference=reference_file.txt target_file.txt

• chown : Change file ownership.

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System Information:

• top: Display real-time system resource usage.
• free: Display system memory usage.
• df: Show disk space usage.
• du: Display directory space usage.
• uptime : Check how long system is up.

Package Management:

• apt or yum: Package management for Debian/Ubuntu or Red Hat/CentOS systems, respectively.
• dpkg (Debian) or rpm (Red Hat): Install, query, or remove packages.
• npm : Node.js package manager.
• composer : PHP package manager.

Process Management:

• ps : List running processes.
• kill: Terminate processes.
• pgrep and pkill : Find and kill processes by name.
• systemctl: Control systemd services.

Networking:

• ping: Test network connectivity.
• ifconfig or ip: Network interface configuration.
• netstat or ss: Network statistics and connections.
• curl and wget: Download files from the internet.
• ssh: Securely connect to remote servers.
• nc: Netcat for network troubleshooting.
• traceroute or mtr: Trace network routes.

Text Editing:

• nano or vim: Text editors for quick edits or advanced editing.
• sed: Stream editor for text manipulation.
• awk: Text processing and pattern matching.

Compression and Archiving:

• tar: Create and extract tar archives.
• zip and unzip: Compress and decompress files in ZIP format.

Web Server Management:

• nginx or apache2ctl: Manage Nginx or Apache web servers.
• systemctl: Control web server services.

Database Management:

• mysql or psql : Command-line clients for MySQL or PostgreSQL.
• mongod and mongo: Start and interact with MongoDB.

Version Control:

• git: Manage version control with Git (Cheatsheet : https://training.github.com/downloads/github-git-cheat-sheet/)

Docker:

• docker: Manage Docker containers. (List of docker commands : https://docs.docker.com/reference/cli/docker/)

Credits : sysxplore

• docker-compose: Define and run multi-container Docker applications.

File Transfer:

• rsync : Efficiently transfer and synchronize files between directories or servers.

Options

-a : Archive mode. It preserves permissions, timestamps, symbolic links, and other attributes. This is equivalent to -rlptgoD (recursive, links, permissions, timestamps, group, owner, devices).
-v : Verbose. Displays detailed information about the transfer process.
-z : Compress file data during the transfer, which reduces bandwidth usage.
-r : Recursive. Copies directories recursively.
-u : Update. Skips files that are newer on the destination.
-e : Specifies the remote shell to use, such as ssh.
--delete : Deletes files in the destination directory that are not in the source directory.

rsync [options] source destination

# Synchronize a file from one directory to another on the same system.
rsync -av source_file.txt /path/to/destination/

# Synchronize the contents of two directories, including all subdirectories.
rsync -av /source_directory/ /destination_directory/

# Synchronize a directory from a local machine to a remote server.
rsync -avz -e ssh /local_directory/ user@remote_host:/remote_directory/

# Make a mirror of a source directory in the destination, deleting files in the destination that no longer exist in the source.
rsync -av --delete /source_directory/ /destination_directory/

# Synchronize a directory but exclude files matching a pattern.
rsync -av --exclude '*.log' /source_directory/ /destination_directory/

# Perform a dry run to see what changes would be made without actually making any changes.
rsync -av --dry-run /source_directory/ /destination_directory/

# Specify a port for SSH when copying files to a remote server.
rsync -av -e 'ssh -p 2222' /local_directory/ user@remote_host:/remote_directory/

• scp

Monitoring:

• htop: Interactive process viewer.
• tail: Is used to display the end part of files, Which can be handy for monitoring log files or checking the most recent entries in a file.

# View the Last 10 Lines of a File (Default Behavior)
tail file.txt

# Specifies the number of lines to display from the end of the file
tail -n 20 file.txt

# Continuously monitors the file for new lines as they are added
tail -f /var/log/syslog

• journalctl: Monitor log files and system logs.

Which of these commands do you use the most? Drop a comment and let us know :D

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