Basic UNIX commands

The list of commands, used in UNIX shell (sh, bash, etc).

Basic File Operations

man

If you don't know smth - RTFM! man stands for manual. And what you were thinking of?

Type

$ man <command>

If you want to have information about <command>. Example:

$ man ls
LS(1)                   NetBSD General Commands Manual                   LS(1)

NAME
     ls -- list directory contents

SYNOPSIS
     ls [-AaBbCcdFfghikLlmnopqRrSsTtuWwx1] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
     For each operand that names a file of a type other than directory, ls
     displays its name as well as any requested, associated information.  For
     each operand that names a file of type directory, ls displays the names
     of files contained within that directory, as well as any requested, asso-
     ciated information. 

     If no operands are given, the contents of the current directory are dis-
     played.  If more than one operand is given, non-directory operands are
     displayed first; directory and non-directory operands are sorted sepa-
     rately and in lexicographical order.

     The following options are available:
...

cd

Change Directory Use is very simple, and just like use of `cd` in DOS

cd ~/l33t/h4x/

Note that ~ is your home directory, if you need to see where you are (if your prompt doesn't display it, use:

pwd

mv

MoVe or rename a file

mv oldname.dix newname.dix

mv ~/olddirectory/file ~/newdirectory/file

Note that on *nix, moving and renaming files is essentially the same thing, as the entire path is considered part of the file name

cp

Captian Planet. I mean... CoPy

cp ~/old ~/new

Options

cp -R

Copies everything in a directory and subdirectories

scp

SFTP CoPy Like cp, but allows copying from one machine to another.

scp user@remote.machine.com:~/list.txt ./

If you wanted to copy an entire directory:

scp -r user@remote.machine.com:~/cake ./cake

Note that ./ is the current directory.

cat, more etc

Note, that you can use Unix_operands with this commands

cat

Printing the whole file to teh screen.

$ cat some.file
i am faggot hhahahah
gsgffsdf
agfsd.. (file content)

Now, try this:

$ cat faggot.txt >> copypasta.txt

This appends the content of faggot.txt to copypasta.txt

head

Showing the begining of the file

$ head ussr.txt
Союз нерушимый
республик свободных
сплотила на веки великая Русь!

tail

OMG, works like head, but in opposit way!

~/vk% tail album.pl                                                     
                       unless $response->is_success or $response->code == 302;
               print "Success.\n";

               $response = $ua->get("$url\?gid=$gid");
               $_ = $response->content;
               @_ = /\"photos.php\?act=album&id=(\d+)\"/gm;
               # return album ID
               return $_[$#_];
       }

more & less

Useful for working with big txt files. With this tool you can scroll the content.

$ more big.fil3

ls

Just listing file in current dirrectory

   ~% ls                                                             
   Mail            codes           mail            mbox            vk
   centericq.core  dead.letter     mails           public_html     zed

Options

Note, that options can be combined.

ls <dir>

Listing files in <dir> directory.

   ~% ls vk         
   album.pl     graffiti.pl  img

ls -a

Listing ALL files (include hidden).

   ~% ls -a                                                                
   .               .emacs.d        .ssh            codes           vk
   ..              .irssi          .subversion     dead.letter     zed
   .bash_history   .libetpan       .vifm           mail
   .bash_profile   .links          .zshrc          mails
   .elinks         .mc             Mail            mbox
   .elm            .pinerc         centericq.core  public_html

ls -l

Showing items in nice list format.

   ~% ls -l                                                               
   total 4292
   drwx------  2 dany  users      512 Apr  3  2007 Mail
   -rw-------  1 dany  users  2138112 Oct 29  2007 centericq.core
   drwxr-xr-x  3 dany  users      512 Sep  1 17:54 codes
   -rw-------  1 dany  users        1 May  2  2007 dead.letter
   drwx------  2 dany  users      512 Apr  9  2007 mail
   drwxr-xr-x  2 dany  users      512 Apr  2  2007 mails
   -rw-------  1 dany  users    16926 Oct 29  2007 mbox
   drwxrwxrwx  5 dany  users      512 Sep 10 16:20 public_html
   drwxr-xr-x  3 dany  users      512 Jun 26 20:14 vk
   -rwxrwxrwx  1 dany  users     1408 Jan 26  1999 zed

See also

• Batch
• Unix_operands