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Cheat Sheet

Linux

Filesystem Navigation

ls
List directory contents
cd
Change directories
pwd
Print current working directory
mkdir, rmdir
Create / remove directories
touch, cp, mv, rm
Create, copy, move, remove files

File Inspection

cat, less, more
View file contents
head, tail
View start / end of a file
grep
Search text within files
wc
Word, line, and character counts

Permissions & Ownership

chown user:group file
Change file owner and group
chgrp group file
Change group ownership
chmod +x file
Add execute permission
chmod u/g/o/r/w/x
Modify permissions for user, group, other
chmod 644 file
Octal notation, equivalent to symbolic u+rw,g+r,o+r

Networking

ip addr show
Show network interfaces and IP info (or ifconfig)
ping
Check connectivity to a host
curl, wget
Retrieve files / web content from a URL
ss
Display network connections, routing tables, open ports (or netstat)
traceroute
Trace the route to a network host
dig, nslookup
DNS queries and domain resolution checks

Process Management

ps
List running processes
top / htop
Interactive real-time view of processes
kill, pkill, killall
Terminate processes by PID or name
&, bg, fg, jobs
Run jobs in the background, bring them to the foreground
nice, renice
Adjust process priorities

Environment & Users

env
Show all environment variables
echo $VAR_NAME
Display a variable's value
export VAR="value"
Set a variable for the current shell/session (add to ~/.bashrc to persist)
useradd, userdel
Add / remove user accounts
usermod -aG group user
Modify a user account, e.g. add to a group
passwd
Set or change a user's password
groupadd, groupdel
Create / delete groups
gpasswd -a user group
Add a user to a group

VIM Basics

h j k l
Move left / down / up / right
i, Esc
Insert mode; return to command mode
:wq
Save and quit
x
Delete a character
dd
Delete the current line
yy, p
Yank (copy) the current line, paste
u, Ctrl+r
Undo, redo
/pattern, ?pattern
Search forward / backward
:%s/old/new/g
Replace all occurrences of "old" with "new"