Unix commands are the first thing needed by a unix sysadmin who are starting to work

in unix operating system . Unix operating systems comes with online manual system which can be
used to see the command details , syntax options and examples on while working on a unix system.
Unix manual can be accessed using man <command name> and it requires the man package
installed and MANPATH set to man directories. The manual page directories may differ in
different unix operating systems and man package may not be installed in all systems .

Following are a few of the most popular and useful commands used in unix operating system
wildcard characters
* The * wildcard character substitutes for one or more characters in a
filename. For instance, to list all the files in your directory that end
with .c, enter the command
ls *.c

? ? (question mark) serves as wildcard character for any one character

in a filename. For instance, if you have files named prog1, prog2,
prog3, and prog3 in your directory, the Unix command:

ls prog?

dir
Change cd dir Change to directory d
Make mkdir dir Create new directory d
Move mv dir1 dir2 Rename directory d1 as d2
Remove rmdir dir Remove directory d
file
list , no details only
ls filename , filename with wildcard character/s.
names
list , details ls -1 filename , filename with wildcard character/s.
move to directory mv filename dirname (wildcard character/s supported)
copy file to
other/current cp file directory/newfile or cp directory/oldfile .
directory
rm file , rm -rf directory - Recursively remove files & directly
Delete the file
without any warning.
file file filename , file command tries to determine the file type , text ,
executable etc after comparing the values in /etc/magic .

File
edit/create/view
vi - vi full screen
vi filename , Opens a existing file or creates
editor
ed - Line Text editor ed filename
count - Line, word, & wc filename
char
Text content display -
List contents of file at cat filename
once
Text content display
by screen : List
more filename
contents of file screen
by screen
Concatenate - file1 &
cat file1 file2 >file3
file2 into file3
File operation
Change
read/write/execute chmod mode file
mode of fil
chown chown [-R] [-h] owner[:group] file
move (rename ) file mv file1 file2 Rename file file1 as file2
Remove rm file Delete (remove) file f
Compare two files cmp file1 file2
Copy file file1 into file2 cp file1 file2
Sort Alphabetically sort file
Sort Numerically sort -n file
Split f into n-line pieces split [-n] f
match pattern grep pattern file Outputs lines that
Lists file differences diff file1 file2
head f Output
beginning of file
head file
Output end of file tail file
PROCESS
Suspend current
CTRL/z *
process
Interrupt processes CTRL/c *
Stop screen scrolling CTRL/s *
Resume screen
CTRL/q *
scrolling
Sleep for n seconds sleep n
Print list of jobs jobs
Kill job n kill %
Remove process n kill -9 n
status process status ps
stats
Resume background
bg [%n]
job n
Resume foreground
fg [%n]
job n
Exit from shell exit
User admin
add a new user login to # useradd -u 655 -g 20 -d /home/ttes testlogin loginname
the system -u is userid , if not specified system takes highest available .
-g group id should be existing in /etc/group , if not specified other or user
is assigned.
-d home directory , default is to use user as the directory name under the
home directory.
loginname - new login name to be created .

#useradd testlogin will create a user by the name 'testlogin' with all
default values .
password Change passwd <user>
alias (csh/tcsh) -
alias name1 name2
Create command
alias (ksh/bash) -
alias name1="name2"
Create alias command
alias - Remove alias unalias name1[na2...]
printer
Output file f to line
lp -d printer file
printer

System Status
Display disk quota quota
Print date & time date
List logged in users who
Display current user whoami
Output user
finger [username]
information
Display recent
history
commands

Environment
Variable
set set command alone displays the environment variables, it is used to
 set options in ksh like set -o vi
export export variable , export makes variable visible in sub shells.
Set environment
variable (csh/tcsh) to sentenv name v
value v
Set environment
variable (ksh/bash) export name=v example : export TERM=vt100
to value v
Connectivity
Connecting to a $telnet hostname/ip address or $telnet
remote host
Telnet brings up the login prompt of remote host and expects you to
enter your user name & password .Without argument it enters
command mode (telnet>) and accepts command listed by ? at telnet>
prompt.
Communication is not encrypted between two hosts.
Securely connecting to ssh username@hostname or ssh -l username hostname
a remote host Depending on ssh setting for your account you may or may not be
asked a password to login. Your login/passwd will be same login
password as you would use with telnet connection.
Communication is encrypted between two hosts so if someone
intercepts your communication he will not be able to use it.
Copy files from/to ftp hostname
remote host ftp expects you to enter your username/passwd or if it is ftp only
account it will require ftp account password .
put , mput (multipleput) command is used to transfer files to remote
host.
get , mget (multipleput) command is used to transfer files from
remote host.
ftp allows some limited number of commands to be executed at ftp>
prompt & summary of ftp command can be found by using ? at ftp>
prompt
Securely copy files sftp username@hostname:remotefile localfile
from/to remote host
Communication is encrypted between two hosts.

Test the tcp/ip ping hostname

connectivity between If you can ping a host the host is reachable from the machine that
two hosts you are using .
Router/firewall configuration may prevent ping to succeed .
Backup and
Restore
backup and restore tar tvf filename.tar --- View the table of content of a tar archive
using tar , tar xvf filename.tar --- Extract content of a tar archive
TApeaRchive tar cvf filename.tar file1 file2 file3 --- Create a tar archive
 called filename.tar using file1, file2,file3 .
tar can't copy the special files , device files .Not suitable for taking root
backup.
backup and restore cpio is mostly used in conjunction with other commands to generate a list
using cpio , of files to be copied :
CopyInputOutput #ls | cpio -o > /dev/rmt/c0t0d0 -- Copy the contents of a
directory into a tape archive:
#find . -depth -print | cpio -pd newdir --- copy entire directory to
other place:
#find . -cpio /dev/rmt/c0t0d0 --- Copy files in current directory to
a tape
cpio can copy special files and hence useful in taking root backup
containing device file.
Find files , directories
find files , Find command is used to find the files , directories and to run
directories commands on the list of files thus generated .By default, find does not
follow symbolic links.

find . -name *.log -print --- Simple find to list log files
find . -name '*.log' -exec rm {} \; -- Simple find to find log files
and delete them .
find accepts a long list of options to find the files based on different
parameters such as create time , modified time , of certain size etc.
Please refer to man find for more option.