Details

This is a selection of some useful and important terminal commands. Most modern Linux distributions ship with a graphic interface and you will not likely need to use any terminal commands. However, you may enjoy the simplicity of the command line, or may find yourself using a system without a GUI or may need a special command.

Basics

Copy highlighted text from a terminal window

Ctrl + Shift + C

Paste text to a terminal window

Ctrl + Shift + V

Restart the OS

sudo reboot

Shutdown the machine

sudo shutdown now

or

sudo poweroff

Check the version of an installed package

packagename --version

This example is checking the version of python3:

testuser@testing-server:~$ python3 --version
Python 3.11.2

File Management

List files in the current directory

ls

List files and show more information

ls -lh

Change directories

cd directory_name

Move 'up' one directory

cd ..

Return to your user 'home' directory

cd

Make a new directory

mkdir new_directory_name

Copy a file

cp existing_filename new_filename

Move / Rename a file or directory

This example is moving/renaming a file

mv file_name.txt new_file_name.txt

This example is moving a directory into the "backup" directory

mv /server-folder/save-1 /backup/server-folder/save-1

Remove a file

Warning: be careful when removing files and directories.

rm filename

Remove a directory and the contents

rm -r directory_name

Remove a directory and the contents without prompts

rm -rf directory_name

Networking

Check your IP address(es)

ip a

Ping an address

ping examplesite.com

Interface information

ip link

DNS Lookup

nslookup examplesite.com

Trace route via 'My traceroute'

mtr examplesite.com

Administration

Check system boot time

systemd-analyze

Check how long it took each service to initialize
These times can take longer than the boot time.

systemd-analyze blame

Change a user's password
In this example replace user_name with the user you want modify the password for.

passwd user_name