Linux-Commands-Cheat-Sheet

A compilation of some commonly used Linux commands for beginners (and those of us who often just forget :))

Files & Folders

Some common commands for navigating, moving, deleting & more!

Navigate to a folder

cd /path/to/folder

Create a folder

mkdir folder

Create a folder, then navigate to it (One command)

mkdir folder && cd folder

Move a file or folder to another folder

mv /path/to/file.txt /path/to/dest/
mv /path/to/folder1 /path/to/dest/

Move multiple folders

mv folder1 folder2 /path/to/dest/

Display files (with details) in a folder

ls -l

Zip up a file or folder

tar -cvzf filename.tar.gz folder/

Unzip a file or folder

tar -xvzf filename.tar.gz

Find and replace in a file

sed -i '' 's/old/new/g' file.ext

• sed = Stream EDitor
• -i = in-place (i.e. save back to original file)
• old = regex to replace
• new = text to replace it with
• g = global (i.e. replace all, not just first)

Transferring files

Securely (over SSH) and locally

Copy a file from one location to another

cp /path/to/file.txt /path/to/dest

Copy a folder from one location to another

cp -r /path/to/folder /path/to/dest

Sync two folders

rsync -a /path/to/folder /path/to/dest

• -a = Archive, syncs recursively and preserves sym links, special and device files, modification times, group, owner, and permissions
• Source folder can be a remote, e.g. username@server.com:/path/to/folder

Permissions

For more info on types of permissions and what they mean, go here

Change permissions of a file

chmod 755 file.txt

Change permissions of a folder

chmod -R 755 /path/to/folder