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Commands for Guru Wanna-bees
Commands For Guru Wanna-bees
Now,
this page is for people who are past newbie stage and ready for
action! For many more Linux commands and help,
please look at our Linux Help page
Also, if you need Basic Commands please click here.
We published this list to benefit ourselves
by having one place to go to for those commands we use most often,
and to give you a list of more advanced commands we know
you will need! So here it is, a list of commands you're going to
need when running your Linux OS. Enjoy!
NOTE:
All of these commands should work from your command
prompt (regardless which shell you're using). And of course, if
they don't work or help you, we appologize way in advance!
Command
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Summary Use |
| du |
The
du command prints a summary of the
amount of information you have stored in your directories
on the mounted disks.
syntax: du [options] path
ex: du -a /News
Options:
-s print the sum of bytes in your directories
-a print a line for each file in your directory
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| grep |
The
grep command searches text files for a
particular word or string of words.
Very helpful when trying to find that needle in a
haystack, like a particular line in a large log file.
syntax: grep textstring filename(s)
ex: grep century history.text.doc
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| Head
Tail
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head:
prints the beginning of a text file
tail: prints the end of a text file
These commands allow you to view parts of a text file.
tail -n 5 textfile.txt
head -n 5 textfile.txt
The examples above will print the last 5 lines of the file
textfile.txt and then the first 5 lines.
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| locate |
Trying to find out where on your
Linux server a particular file resides? Having a real
nasty time doing it? If you have the Bash shell you can
try using the locate command to identify where it is on
your mounted drives.
Type: locate filename
and press enter. Replace filename with the name of the
file you are looking for. This is a real time saving
command as you start navigating your Linux server!
If locate does not work for you try using which.
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| Nice Nohup
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Nice:
runs programs/commands at a lower system priority
Nohup: runs nice programs even when you’re
logged off the system
By using the two commands simultaneously, your
large processes can continue to run, even when you have
logged off the system and are relaxing.
Ex: nice nohup c program.c .
This command will allow the c compiler to compile program.c
even when you have logged off the system.
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| ps related to "stopped jobs"
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The
ps command displays all of the existing processes. This
command is also directly linked to issues with stopped
processes (also known as "stopped jobs").
Occasionally, you may see the message There are
Stopped Jobs.
If you log off the system without properly stopping your
jobs, some jobs/processes may remain in memory tying up
the system and drawing unnecessary processing bandwidth.
Type ps and hit enter. This will list
all of your current processes running, or stopped.
PID TT STAT TIME
COMMAND
23036 pl S 0:00 -csh
23070 pl R 0:00 vi
The number under PID is the process identification number.
To kill a process that is stopped, type: kill
pid. Replace pid
with the exact number of the process.
Ex: While in Vi, you accidentally press the wrong keys.
Vi's operation is stopped and you are kicked back to the
prompt. To kill the stopped Vi command, you may type:
kill 23070.
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| stty |
The stty
command allows you to view a listing of your current
terminal options. By using this command, you can also
remap keyboard keys, tailoring to your needs.
Ex: stty and hit enter. This lists your terminal settings.
Ex: stty erase\^h . This remaps your erase key (backspace)
to the Ctrl and h keys. From now on, holding down Ctrl
and pressing h will cause a backspace. So you're
scratching your head asking why is this handy? You'll see
at some point how stty is also used for a number of other
useful settings.
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| talk |
In order to contact someone who is on the
system, at the prompt you type: talk accountname
. Replace accountname with the full account name
of the person. If you don’t want anyone to disturb
you using the talk command, at the prompt
type: mesg n. This prevents others from using talk to
reach you.
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| tar also related to gzip
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You're bound to come across
files that are g-zipped and tarred. Okay,
now what? These are methods of compressing and storing
directories and files in a single "file." Most
new Linux programs come off the web as something like
coolnew-game.4-4-01.gz. This file is likely a tar file
that has then been gzipped for compression. The way to
handle these files is simple, but requires that you put
the file into an appropriate directory. In other words,
don't plop the file in your root or /bin unless it
belongs there. Now you can
do a one fell swoop un-gzip it and untar it into its
original form (usually multiple files in many sub
directories) by typing: tar -xvzf *.gz
This
will programmatically un-gzip and then untar all files in
the current directory into their full original form
including sub-directories etc. Please be careful where
and how you run this!
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| w |
This
command allows you to list all users’ and their
processes who are currently logged in to the Linux server,
or a particular user’s processes. Type: w
to view all users’ processes. Type: w jsmith to view
jsmith’s processes. We use this all the time from a
system admin standpoint. Please also see more commands to get
user information on this page. You need to know who logs on to
your system! Okay, so you have a stand alone Linux box
and no one else uses it? Try this command just to be sure.
;)
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| !! |
Don’t
waste time and energy retyping commands at the prompt.
Instead, use the ! option. To
automatically re-display the last command you typed at
the prompt, type: !! and press enter.
Press again to invoke the command. You can also
automatically re-display a command you typed earlier by
using the ! and the first few letters of
the command.
Ex: At the Linux prompt you had typed the command clear,
followed by the command pico, followed by the
command ftp. In order to re-display the clear
command you type: !cl and press enter.
In order to re-display the last command you typed, simply
type: !! . Try it out. You’ll find this a time saver
when dealing with long commands. Especially commands like
tar!
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WOW, overwhelmed, or missing the basics? Perhaps you're in
need of our Basic Linux Commands.
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Website for Beginning Linux Users
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