One of the most used command is "cd", it is used to access a directory, here are some examples:
cd # go to the personal directory cd .. # back one level cd ../.. # back two levels cd - # go to previous directory cd /home # go to /home directory cd ~user1 # go to the directory user1
If you want to know the current route:
pwd # display the current directory path
Once inside a directory, you might want to see the content, hidden files, permissions or details of each files or subdirectories, in this case "ls" is the solution:
ls # list the contents of a directory ls -F # distinguishing the directories with a slash ls -l # showing the details ls -lh # showing the details(in a size format of K, M) ls -a # including hidden files ls *[0-9] # list the files and folders that contain numbers tree # show files and folders in a tree starting by the root
To create directories we use "mkdir" like this:
mkdir dir1 # create a directory called dir1 mkdir dir1 dir2 # create two directories at once mkdir -p /dir1/dir2/dir3 # create a directory structure, if not there
To delete files and directories:
rm file1 # delete the file file1 rm -f file1 # remove file1 in forced mode rm -r dir1 # recursively delete the directory dir1 with all contents rm -rf dir1 dir2 # remove two directories with their contents recursively and forced
To move (rename), copy files and folders we need two different commands:
mv old_dir new_dir # rename or move a file or directory cp file1 /path/to/destiny/ # copy a file to destiny cp file1 file2 destiny/ # copy two files simultaneously cp file1 file2 # copy file1 in file2 cp -r dir1 destiny/ # copy a directory
To create symbolic links (shortcuts):
ln -s file link # create a symbolic link to the file or directory
To find files there are several options one of the most common is using the command "find", though some users find it annoying as it may wait too much time in large systems, so they prefer to use "locate", for this command to work properly, the database must be updated by means of "updatedb" command.
find / -name file1 # search file and directory from the system root find / -user user1 # belonging to user1 find /home/user1 -name \*.bin # with .bin extention in the directory / home/user1 find /usr/bin -type f -atime +100 # unused binary files in the last 100 days find /usr/bin -type f -mtime -10 # files created or changed within the last 10 days locate \*.ps # find files with .ps extentions whereis file # show the location of a binary file, help, or source which command # show the full path to a command
References
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux: Manual de referencia
