Linux Shell Commands Cheat Sheet

Print the absolute path of the current working directory.

List directory contents.

-l long format; -a include hidden; -h human sizes; -t sort by mtime; -r reverse

Change the current working directory.

Recursively list a directory as a tree; great for overview (may need install).

-L <n> max depth; -a show hidden; -d dirs only; -I pattern

Create a directory (and any missing parents) in one shot.

-p create parents; -v verbose; -m <mode> set permissions

Copy files or directories.

-r recursive (for dirs); -i interactive; -v verbose; -p preserve mode/time

Move (rename) files or directories.

-i interactive; -v verbose; -n no-overwrite

Remove files or directories. ⚠️ there is no trash — double-check paths.

-r recursive; -f force; -i interactive; -v verbose

Create a symbolic link at <link> pointing to <target>.

-s symbolic (default: hard); -f overwrite existing; -n do not follow existing

Create an empty file or update its mtime without changing contents.

Print the entire contents of a file to stdout.

-n number lines; -A show non-printing chars; -s squeeze blanks

Open a file in a paginator (use /, n, N to search; q to quit).

-N line numbers; -S no wrap; +F auto-follow tail-like

Output the first N lines (default 10) of a file.

Show the last N lines and follow the file as it grows (for logs).

-f follow; -F follow & retry; -n lines (default 10); -c bytes; --pid=PID stop when PID dies

Search lines matching a pattern; supports extended and PCRE regex.

-i case-insensitive; -r recursive; -n line numbers; -v invert; -E extended regex

Walk a directory tree and list files matching criteria.

-type f|d; -name glob; -iname case-insensitive; -size +1M; -mtime -7; -maxdepth

Pattern-action text scanner — slicing columns, summing values, etc.

-F fs field separator; -v var=value; -f script file

Stream editor — substitution, deletion, insertion per-line.

-i edit in place; -E extended regex; -e combine exprs; s/from/to/[g] [p]

Pipeline idiom: count occurrences and sort by frequency descending.

Change file permissions (e.g., 755, u+x, g-w, o=r).

-R recursive; --reference=<file> copy mode

Change file owner and group.

-R recursive; -h affect symlinks (with -R)

Show/set the default permission mask for newly created files.

-S symbolic; -p umask preserved for portability

Show all processes with detailed info (BSD-style columns).

-e all; -f full; -L threads; --sort=-%mem

Live, interactive process viewer (htop has nicer UI; may need install).

P/CPU M/MEM sort; k kill; r renice; q quit

Send a signal to a process. SIGTERM (15) is polite; SIGKILL (9) is forceful.

-9 SIGKILL; -l list signals; -s specify signal by name

Manage job control — list, background, foreground, run immune to hangups.

Control systemd services and units (status, start, stop, enable, logs).

status / start / stop / restart / enable / disable; -u <user>

Non-interactive downloader; recursive / mirror friendly.

-c continue; -q quiet; --no-check-certificate; -r recursive

Open an SSH session or run a one-off command on a remote host.

-p <port>; -i <key>; -L / -R / -D port forwardings; -N no remote cmd; -f background

Copy files to/from a remote host. rsync is faster for partial / repeated transfers.

scp -r / rsync -avz --progress src/ user@host:/dst/

Diagnose reachability, path and listening sockets.

ping -c N count; ss -tulnp listen info; ss -s summary

Create or extract tar archives, optionally with gzip/bzip2/xz.

-c create; -x extract; -t list; -z gzip; -j bzip2; -J xz; -v verbose; -C <dir>

Create a zip archive recursively.

-r recurse; -9 max compression; -e encrypt; -j junk paths

Extract a zip archive, optionally to a target directory.

-d target dir; -o overwrite; -l list; -p to stdout; -q quiet

Show mounted filesystem disk space usage, human-readable.

-h human; -T print filesystem type; -i inodes

Estimate file space usage; -s summarizes a directory.

-s summarize; -h human; -a all; --max-depth=N; -x stay on one fs

Browse, replay and re-use previous commands.

history N; !<n> rerun line N; !$ = last arg of last command; !! rerun last

Define or list shell command shortcuts (often in ~/.bashrc / ~/.zshrc).

List, set and clear environment variables for child processes.

Read the manual page (man) or built-in help for a command.

man -k keyword search; man -t <cmd> print to PDF; --help short usage