Part 4. Commands

Mastering the commands on your Linux machine is an indispensable prelude to writing effective shell scripts.

This section covers the following commands:

• . (See also source)

• ac

• adduser

• agetty

• agrep

• ar

• arch

• at

• autoload

• awk (See also Using awk for math operations)

• badblocks

• banner

• basename

• batch

• bc

• bg

• bind

• bison

• builtin

• bzgrep

• bzip2

• cal

• caller

• cat

• cd

• chattr

• chfn

• chgrp

• chkconfig

• chmod

• chown

• chroot

• cksum

• clear

• clock

• cmp

• col

• colrm

• column

• comm

• command

• compgen

• complete

• compress

• coproc

• cp

• cpio

• cron

• crypt

• csplit

• cu

• cut

• date

• dc

• dd

• debugfs

• declare

• depmod

• df

• dialog

• diff

• diff3

• diffstat

• dig

• dirname

• dirs

• disown

• dmesg

• doexec

• dos2unix

• du

• dump

• dumpe2fs

• e2fsck

• echo

• egrep

• enable

• enscript

• env

• eqn

• eval

• exec

• exit (Related topic: exit status)

• expand

• export

• expr

• factor

• false

• fdformat

• fdisk

• fg

• fgrep

• file

• find

• finger

• flex

• flock

• fmt

• fold

• free

• fsck

• ftp

• fuser

• getfacl

• getopt

• getopts

• gettext

• getty

• gnome-mount

• grep

• groff

• groupmod

• groups (Related topic: the $GROUPS variable)

• gs

• gzip

• halt

• hash

• hdparm

• head

• help

• hexdump

• host

• hostid

• hostname (Related topic: the $HOSTNAME variable)

• hwclock

• iconv

• id (Related topic: the $UID variable)

• ifconfig

• info

• infocmp

• init

• insmod

• install

• ip

• ipcalc

• iptables

• iwconfig

• jobs

• join

• jot

• kill

• killall

• last

• lastcomm

• lastlog

• ldd

• less

• let

• lex

• lid

• ln

• locate

• lockfile

• logger

• logname

• logout

• logrotate

• look

• losetup

• lp

• ls

• lsdev

• lsmod

• lsof

• lspci

• lsusb

• ltrace

• lynx

• lzcat

• lzma

• m4

• mail

• mailstats

• mailto

• make

• MAKEDEV

• man

• mapfile

• mcookie

• md5sum

• merge

• mesg

• mimencode

• mkbootdisk

• mkdir

• mkdosfs

• mke2fs

• mkfifo

• mkisofs

• mknod

• mkswap

• mktemp

• mmencode

• modinfo

• modprobe

• more

• mount

• msgfmt

• mv

• nc

• netconfig

• netstat

• newgrp

• nice

• nl

• nm

• nmap

• nohup

• nslookup

• objdump

• od

• openssl

• passwd

• paste

• patch (Related topic: diff)

• pathchk

• pax

• pgrep

• pidof

• ping

• pkill

• popd

• pr

• printenv

• printf

• procinfo

• ps

• pstree

• ptx

• pushd

• pwd (Related topic: the $PWD variable)

• quota

• rcp

• rdev

• rdist

• read

• readelf

• readlink

• readonly

• reboot

• recode

• renice

• reset

• resize

• restore

• rev

• rlogin

• rm

• rmdir

• rmmod

• route

• rpm

• rpm2cpio

• rsh

• rsync

• runlevel

• run-parts

• rx

• rz

• sar

• scp

• script

• sdiff

• sed

• seq

• service

• set

• setfacl

• setquota

• setserial

• setterm

• sha1sum

• shar

• shopt

• shred

• shutdown

• size

• skill

• sleep

• slocate

• snice

• sort

• source

• sox

• split

• sq

• ssh

• stat

• strace

• strings

• strip

• stty

• su

• sudo

• sum

• suspend

• swapoff

• swapon

• sx

• sync

• sz

• tac

• tail

• tar

• tbl

• tcpdump

• tee

• telinit

• telnet

• Tex

• texexec

• time

• times

• tmpwatch

• top

• touch

• tput

• tr

• traceroute

• true

• tset

• tsort

• tty

• tune2fs

• type

• typeset

• ulimit

• umask

• umount

• uname

• unarc

• unarj

• uncompress

• unexpand

• uniq

• units

• unlzma

• unrar

• unset

• unsq

• unzip

• uptime

• usbmodules

• useradd

• userdel

• usermod

• users

• usleep

• uucp

• uudecode

• uuencode

• uux

• vacation

• vdir

• vmstat

• vrfy

• w

• wait

• wall

• watch

• wc

• wget

• whatis

• whereis

• which

• who

• whoami

• whois

• write

• xargs

• xrandr

• xz

• yacc

• yes

• zcat

• zdiff

• zdump

• zegrep

• zfgrep

• zgrep

• zip

Table of Contents

15. Internal Commands and Builtins

Job Control Commands

16. External Filters, Programs and Commands

Basic Commands

Complex Commands

Time / Date Commands

Text Processing Commands

File and Archiving Commands

Communications Commands

Terminal Control Commands

Math Commands

Miscellaneous Commands

17. System and Administrative Commands

Analyzing a System Script