Linux Commands Cheat Sheet
161+ commands worth keeping within reach, grouped by what you're trying to do. Every entry links to its full guide — syntax, options, real examples and an interactive terminal. Print this page for the wall, or work through the 48-lesson course to put it in your fingers.
161 commands 15 sections 137 linked guides Click any command to copy it
Files & directories
Create, copy, move, destroy. No trash bin — read twice before Enter.
- Create a directory guide ›
- Create a nested path in one go (no error if it exists) guide ›
- Create an empty file / refresh its timestamp guide ›
- Copy a file guide ›
- Copy a tree preserving permissions, times, symlinks guide ›
- Instant backup: expands to cp file file.bak guide ›
- Move or rename (same operation) guide ›
- Delete a file — permanently guide ›
- Delete a directory and everything inside guide ›
- Create a symbolic link guide ›
- Update an existing symlink to a directory guide ›
Viewing files
Read without opening an editor.
- Print the whole file guide ›
- Print with line numbers guide ›
- Page through: / search, G end, q quit guide ›
- Follow a growing file, Ctrl+C to browse guide ›
- First 20 lines guide ›
- Last 20 lines guide ›
- Follow live, surviving log rotation guide ›
- Everything except the first line (skip a CSV header) guide ›
- Count lines
- Show what changed between two files guide ›
Search
grep looks inside files; find looks for the files themselves.
- Lines containing "text" guide ›
- Case-insensitive guide ›
- Lines that do NOT contain it guide ›
- Recursive, with file names and line numbers guide ›
- Count matching lines instead of printing them guide ›
- 2 lines before and 5 after each match guide ›
- Only the names of files that match guide ›
- Find by name (quote the pattern!) guide ›
- Find directories by name guide ›
- Files larger than 100 MB guide ›
- Modified in the last 24 hours guide ›
- Delete matches (run it once without -delete first) guide ›
- Run a command on every match guide ›
Pipes & redirection
The idea that makes the shell powerful.
- Write output to a file (replaces contents)
- Append output to a file
- Redirect only errors
- Redirect output AND errors to one file
- Discard error messages
- Pipe: output of cmd1 becomes input of cmd2
- See it live and save a copy guide ›
- The correct way to append to a root-owned file guide ›
- Run cmd2 only if cmd1 succeeded
- Run cmd2 only if cmd1 failed
- Compare the output of two commands guide ›
Text processing
The filters that live in the middle of pipelines.
- Print the second column of any output guide ›
- Third column of a comma-separated file guide ›
- Sum a column guide ›
- Deduplicate, preserving original order guide ›
- Replace every occurrence (prints the result) guide ›
- Replace in place, keeping a .bak backup guide ›
- Print only lines 20 to 40 guide ›
- Strip comment lines guide ›
- Extract columns 1 and 3 guide ›
- Sort lines alphabetically
- Sort numerically, descending
- Count occurrences of each line guide ›
- Show only the duplicated lines guide ›
- Uppercase everything guide ›
- Strip Windows carriage returns guide ›
Permissions & ownership
r=4, w=2, x=1 — owner, group, others.
- Make a file executable guide ›
- rwxr-xr-x — directories and executables guide ›
- rw-r--r-- — regular files guide ›
- rw------- — private keys and secrets guide ›
- Correct recursive fix for directories guide ›
- Correct recursive fix for files guide ›
- Change owner and group of a tree guide ›
- Copy ownership from another file guide ›
- Show which permission bits are removed from new files
Processes
What is running, and how to stop it politely.
- Every running process guide ›
- Top memory consumers guide ›
- Find PIDs by command line guide ›
- Live monitor (htop is friendlier) guide ›
- Ask a process to close cleanly guide ›
- Force termination — last resort, nothing is saved guide ›
- Signal processes matching a pattern guide ›
- Tell a daemon to reload its configuration guide ›
- Run in the background guide ›
- List, foreground, resume background jobs guide ›
- Keep running after you log out guide ›
- Suspend the current foreground job guide ›
Disk & memory
Where the space and the RAM went.
Networking
Reachability, addresses, ports, names.
- Is it reachable, and how far guide ›
- Your addresses, one line per interface guide ›
- Routing table and default gateway guide ›
- Which interface and source IP would be used guide ›
- Listening ports with the owning process guide ›
- Current established connections guide ›
- Resolve a name guide ›
- Ask a specific resolver (bypass your cache) guide ›
- Where the domain's mail goes guide ›
- Response headers only guide ›
- Just the status code guide ›
- Send JSON to an API guide ›
- Download, resuming if interrupted guide ›
Remote & transfer
Working on machines that are not yours.
- Open a remote shell guide ›
- Custom port guide ›
- Run one command remotely and return guide ›
- Create a key pair (once per machine) guide ›
- Install your key — no more passwords guide ›
- Tunnel a remote port to your machine guide ›
- Copy one file over SSH guide ›
- Sync a tree — only what changed travels guide ›
- Dry run of a mirror (always do this first) guide ›
Archives & compression
Packing, shipping, unpacking.
- Create a compressed archive guide ›
- Extract it (the one to memorize) guide ›
- List contents without extracting guide ›
- Extract somewhere specific guide ›
- Compress, keeping the original guide ›
- Search inside a compressed file guide ›
- Windows-friendly archive guide ›
- Inspect before extracting guide ›
- Fingerprint — verify a download guide ›
System & services
systemd, packages, scheduled jobs.
- State, PID and recent logs guide ›
- Restart a service guide ›
- Start now and at every boot guide ›
- Anything broken on this machine? guide ›
- Follow one service's logs live guide ›
- Everything the system did in a time window guide ›
- Errors since boot, all sources guide ›
- Refresh the catalog, then patch guide ›
- Install with dependencies guide ›
- Edit / list scheduled jobs guide ›
- Cron line: every day at 03:00 guide ›
- Load, kernel version, CPU count
Shell & environment
Your setup, your shortcuts, your history.
- Where the shell looks for commands guide ›
- Set a variable children will inherit guide ›
- Set it for one command only guide ›
- Reload your config in this shell guide ›
- Create a shortcut (put it in ~/.bashrc) guide ›
- Is it an alias, function, builtin or file? guide ›
- Which file would actually run guide ›
- Portable existence check for scripts guide ›
- Search your past commands guide ›
- Repeat the last command with sudo guide ›
- The last argument of the previous command guide ›
Keyboard shortcuts
The fastest wins on this page. Tab and Ctrl+R alone save more typing than every alias you'll ever write.
- Tab Complete a file or command name — nobody types full paths
- Ctrl+R Search your command history as you type (then Enter to run)
- Ctrl+C Stop the running command
- Ctrl+D End of input / log out of the shell
- Ctrl+Z Suspend the current job (then fg or bg)
- Ctrl+L Clear the screen (same as clear)
- Ctrl+A orCtrl+E Jump to the beginning / end of the line
- Ctrl+W orCtrl+U Delete the previous word / the whole line
- Alt+. Insert the last argument of the previous command
- Up orDown Walk through previous commands
Want all of this — plus internals, worked examples and diagrams — as one printable book?
See The Linux Command Line Handbook.