Linux Command Cheatsheet

List all files (including hidden) with human-readable sizes

Go back to the previous directory

Print the current working directory

Create nested directories (no error if they exist)

Copy a directory recursively

Copy preserving permissions, timestamps and symlinks

Move or rename a file or directory

Delete a directory and everything in it (careful!)

Create a symbolic link

Create an empty file or update its modification time

Show directory tree two levels deep

Show detailed file metadata (size, inode, times)

Print the absolute, resolved path of a file

Sync directories efficiently (local or over SSH)

Print a file

Page through a file (/ to search, q to quit)

Show the first 20 lines

Show the last 50 lines

Follow a file as it grows (live logs)

Count lines in a file

Show differences between two files in unified format

Detect the type of a file

Hex dump of a file

Owner read/write, group and others read-only

Owner full access, others read and execute

Make a file executable

Recursive symbolic permission change

Change the owner and group of a file

Recursively set owner (and the user's login group)

Set default permissions mask for new files

Run a command as another user

Show access control lists (ACLs) of a file

Find files by name pattern

Files modified in the last 24 hours

Files larger than 100 MB

Find and delete matching files

Run a command on every found file

Search text recursively and show line numbers

List files containing a pattern (text files only)

Show lines that do NOT match

Extended regex (alternation)

Show the path of an executable in PATH

Fast search using the file database (updatedb)

Replace text in a file in place

Print lines 10 to 20

Print the first column (whitespace-separated)

Sum the third CSV column

Cut fields by delimiter

Count occurrences of each line, most frequent first

Sort and remove duplicates

Translate characters (here: to uppercase)

Build commands from standard input

Write stdin to a file and stdout at the same time

Query and transform JSON

Align CSV/delimited output into a table

List all running processes

Top memory-consuming processes

Interactive process viewer

Friendlier interactive process viewer (if installed)

Find processes by name

Ask a process to terminate (SIGTERM)

Force-kill a process (SIGKILL)

Kill processes matching a full command line

Run a command in the background

List jobs, bring to foreground, resume in background

Keep a command running after logout

Run with lower CPU priority

List files opened by a process

Kernel and architecture info

Distribution name and version

Uptime and load averages

Memory usage

Number of CPU cores

CPU details

Recent kernel messages with timestamps

Show environment variables

Set an environment variable for the session

Search shell command history

Current Unix timestamp

Free space on mounted filesystems

Size of each item in the current directory

Directory sizes one level deep, sorted

Interactive disk usage explorer (if installed)

List block devices and partitions

Show mounted filesystems

Mount a partition

Show network interfaces and IP addresses

Show the routing table

Show listening TCP/UDP ports and their processes

Fetch only HTTP response headers

Send a JSON POST request

Download a file, resuming if interrupted

Check reachability (4 packets)

Show the network path to a host

DNS lookup

Reverse DNS lookup

Check whether a TCP port is open

Inspect a TLS certificate/handshake

Create a gzip-compressed tarball

Extract a .tar.gz archive

Extract into a specific directory

List contents of a tarball

Create a zip archive

Extract a zip archive into a directory

Compress a file, keeping the original

Read a gzip file without extracting

Print the current user name

Show user and group IDs

Create a user interactively (Debian/Ubuntu)

Add a user to a supplementary group

Change your password

Open a root login shell

Show who is logged in

Recent logins

Show the status of a service

Restart a service

Start a service and enable it at boot

List running services

Follow logs of a service

Logs from the last hour

Reload unit files after editing them

Connect to a remote host

Connect with a custom port and key

Generate a new SSH key pair

Install your public key on a server

Copy a file to a remote host

Local port forwarding (tunnel)

Connect through a jump host

Update packages (Debian/Ubuntu)

Install a package (Debian/Ubuntu)

Search packages (Debian/Ubuntu)

Install a package (Fedora/RHEL)

Update the system (Arch)

Install a package (Alpine)

Redirect stdout and stderr to a file

Discard error output

Run cmd2 only if cmd1 succeeds

Run cmd2 only if cmd1 fails

Repeat the last command (e.g. sudo !!)

Reverse-search command history

Jump to start / end of the line

Exit code of the last command

Create a command alias

Loop over files

Re-run a command every 2 seconds

Edit scheduled jobs for the current user