Kamus Command Line | CLI Cheat Sheet

DIRECTORIES

Display path of current working directory

pwd

Change directory to _directory_

cd <directory>

Navigate to parent directory

cd ..

List detailed directory contents, including hidden files

ls -la

Create new directory named _directory_

mkdir <directory>

OUTPUT

Output the contents of _file_

cat <file>

Output the contents of _file_ using the less command (which supports pagination etc.)

less <file>

Output the first 10 lines of _file_

head <file>

Direct the output _cmd_ of into _file_

<cmd> > <file>

Append the output of _cmd_ to _file_

<cmd> >> <file>

Direct the output of _cmd_ to _file_

<cmd1> | <cmd2>

Clear the command line window

clear

FILES

Delete _file_

rm <file>

Delete _directory_

rm -r <directory>

Force-delete _file_ (add -r to force-delete a directory)

rm -f <file>

Rename _file-old_ to _file-new_

mv <file-old> <file-new>

Move _file_ to _directory_ (possibly overwriting an existing file)

mv <file> <directory>

Copy _file_ to _directory_ (possibly overwriting an existing file)

cp <file> <directory>

Copy _directory1_ and _directory2_ its contents to (possibly overwriting files in an existing directory)

cp -r <directory1> <directory2>

Update file access & modification time (and create _file_ if it doesn’t exist)

touch <file>

PERMISSIONS

Change permissions of _file_ to 755

chmod 755 <file>

Change permissions of _directory_ (and its contents) to 600

chmod -R 600 <directory>

Change ownership of _file_ to _user_ and _group_ (add -R to include a directory’s contents)

chown <user>:<group> <file>

SEARCH

Find all files named _file_ inside _dir_ (use wildcards [*] to search for parts of filenames, e.g. “file.*”)

find <dir> -name "<file>"

Output all occurrences of _text_ inside _file_ (add -i for case-insensitivity)

grep "<text>" <file>

Search for all files containing _text_ inside _dir_

grep -rl "<text>" <dir>

NETWORK

Ping _host_ and display status

ping <host>

Output whois information for _domain_

whois <domain>

Download _file_ (via HTTP[S] or FTP)

curl -O <url/to/file>

Establish an SSH connection to _host_ with user

ssh <username>@<host>

Copy _file_ to a remote _host_

scp <file> <user>@<host>:/remote/path

PROCESS

Output currently running processes

ps ax

Display live information about currently running processes

top

Quit process with ID _pid_

kill <pid>