**100 CLI prompts to manage and navigate a Linux server**
 
*suggestion: download or print this page to take with you for future reference*

Command / Argument		What it does

**DIRECTORY/FILES**

cd					changes directory to specified one, i.e. [location]
pwd					shows your current directory
ls					shows the contents of your current directory
ls -l					shows the contents of your current directory and additional details
ls -a					shows the contents of your current directory, including hidden files
~					shortcut to your home directory
.					references current directory
..					references parent directory. You can move up the hierarchy by using this in succession, i.e. ../../../
file [path]				tells you what kind of file it is
mkdir					creates a new directory
touch [filename]			creates a new file
cp [file] ../[folder]			copies the file into the folder that is located one directory back
mv [file] ../[folder]			moves the file into the folder that is located one directory back
cp					copying files and folders
rm					removing files and folders
touch					used to update the access date or/and modification date of a computer file or directory
gzip					file compression and decompression
b2zip					similar to gzip - it uses a different compression algorithm
zip					for packing and compressing (to archive) files
locate					to search files in Linux
scp					securely copy files using SCP, with examples
find					locates files based on some user-specific criteria
grep					search a file for a pattern of characters, then display all matching lines
wget					retrieve files over HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and FTPS
curl					transferring data using various network protocols (supports more protocols than wget)
dd					convert and copy files
mkfs					build a Linux file system
fsck					tool for checking the consistency of a file system
umask					set file mode creation mask
chmod					change the access permissions of file system objects
chown					change file owner and group
cat					display file contents
tac					output file contents, in reverse
more					display file contents one screen/page at a time
less					similar to the more command with additional features
rsync					remote file tranfers and syncing
tar					an archiving utility

**DISK/MEMORY USAGE**

df					display disk sapce usage
du					estimate file space usage
free					display memory usage
ncdu					disk utility for Unix systems
pstree					display a tree of processes
vmstat					shows system memory, processes, interrupts, paging, block I/O and CPU info
dstat					view processes, memory, paging, I/O, CPU, etc., in real time. All-in-one for vmstat, iostat, netstat, and ifstat
htop					interactive process viewer and manager
iotop					interactive I/O viewer. Get an overview of storage r/w activity
iostat					for storage I/O statistics
fdisk					manipulate the disk partition table
parted					for creating and manipulating partition tables

**LOGS/PROCESSES**

last					show a list of last logged in users
w					display a list of current logged in users sessions
ps					information about currently running processes
uptime					shows system uptime and load average
top					shows an overall system view
kill					terminate a process
killall					sends a kill signal to all instances of a process by name
sleep					suspends program execution for a specified time
wait					suspend script execution until all jobs running in the background have been terminated

**NETWORK**

nmcli					network management
iftop					network traffic viewer
nethogs					network traffic analyzer
netstat					for network statistics
ip					utilities for controlling TCP/IP network/traffic in Linux
mtr					network diagnostic
nc					command line networking utility 
ss                                      utility to investigate sockets
atop					for Linux server performance analysis

**DNS**

traceroute				check the route packets to a specified host
nslookup				query Internet name servers (NS) interactively
host					perform DNS lookup in Linux
dig					DNS lookup utility
whois					client for the whois directory service

**USERS/ACCESS**

ssh					secure command line access to remote Linux systems
chroot					run command or interactive shell with a special root directory
useradd					create a new user or update default new user information
userdel					used to delete a user account and all related files
usermod					used to modify or change any attributes of an existing user account
passwd					change a user’s password
sudo					execute commands with administrative privilege

**EDITORS**

vi					text editor
nano					text editor
tmux					a terminal multiplexer

**VIEW**

clear					clears the screen of the terminal
env					run a command in a modified environment
screen					hold a session open on a remote server (also a full-screen window manager)

**MISC**

man					for reading system reference manuals
apropos					search man page names and descriptions
cron					set up scheduled tasks to run
blkid					command line utility to locate/print block device attributes
tail					used to display the tail end of a text file or piped data
dmesg					prints the message buffer of the kernel ring
journalctl				query the systemd journal
nohup					run commands in the background
chpassword				mount / umount – provides access to an entire filesystem in one directory
systemctl				managing services (Daemons)
cheat					allows you to create and view interactive cheatsheets on the command line
tldr					collaborative cheatsheets for console commands
bashtop					the ‘cool’ top alternative
bpytop					python port of bashtop
cal					displays the current month calendar