Linux Command Cheat Sheet

Master the command line with these essential Linux tools. Click/tap any command for detailed usage examples.

This index is designed for quick command lookup during debugging, deployment, file cleanup, and shell automation. Start with the common commands below, then move to the individual guides for examples, pitfalls, and copy-ready syntax.

Popular

Commands developers use every week for search, networking, and disk inspection.

sedgrepcurldu

Start Here

If you are refreshing shell basics, begin with file navigation and text inspection.

lsfindheadtail

Remote Ops

Useful when deploying, copying files, or working on remote Linux hosts.

sshscpchmodlsof

Text Processing

sed

Stream editor for filtering and transforming text

grep

Search text using patterns

awk

Pattern scanning and processing language

tail

Output the last part of files

head

Output the first part of files

cat

Concatenate files and print on the standard output

File Management

tar

Archiving utility

find

Search for files in a directory hierarchy

ls

List directory contents

File Permissions

chmod

Change file modes or Access Control Lists

System Monitoring

ps

Report a snapshot of the current processes

top

Display Linux processes

df

Report file system disk space usage

du

Estimate file space usage

kill

Send a signal to a process

lsof

List open files

Networking

curl

Transfer data from or to a server

ssh

OpenSSH remote login client

scp

Secure copy (remote file copy program)