- pwd prints working directory (prints to screen, ie displays the full path, or your location on the filesystem)
- ls lists contents of current directory
- ls –l lists contents of current directory with extra details
- ls /home/user/*.txt lists all files in /home/user ending in .txt
- cd change directory to your home directory
- **cd ~** ### change directory to your home directory
- cd /scratch/user change directory to user on scratch
- cd - change directory to the last directory you were in before changing to wherever you are now
- mkdir mydir makes a directory called mydir
- rmdir mydir removes directory called mydir. mydir must be empty
- touch myfile creates a file called myfile. updates the timestamp on the file if it already exists, without modifying its contents
- **cp myfile myfile2 copies myfile to myfile2. if myfile2 exists, this will overwrite it!
- rm myfile removes file called myfile
- rm –f myfile removes myfile without asking you for confirmation. useful if using wildcards to remove files ***
- cp –r dir newdir copies the whole directory dir to newdir. –r must be specified to copy directory contents recursively
- rm –rf mydir this will delete directory mydir along with all its content without asking you for confirmation! ***
- nano opens a text editor. see ribbon at bottom for help. ^x means CTRL-x. this will exit nano
- nano new.txt opens nano editing a file called new.txt
- cat new.txt displays the contents of new.txt
- more new.txt displays the contents of new.txt screen by screen. spacebar to pagedown, q to quit
- head new.txt displays first 10 lines of new.txt
- tail new.txt displays last 10 lines of new.txt
- tail –f new.txt displays the contents of a file as it grows, starting with the last 10 lines. ctrl-c to quit.
- mv myfile newlocdir moves myfile into the destination directory newlocdir
- mv myfile newname renames file to newname. if a file called newname exists, this will overwrite it!
- mv dir subdir moves the directory called dir to the directory called subdir
- mv dir newdirname renames directory dir to newdirname
- top displays all the processes running on the machine, and shows available resources
- du –h --max-depth=1 run this in your home directory to see how much space you are using. don’t exceed 5GB
- ssh servername goes to a different server. this could be queso, brie, or provolone
- grep pattern files searches for the pattern in files, and displays lines in those files matching the pattern
- date shows the current date and time
- anycommand > myfile redirects the output of anycommand writing it to a file called myfile
- date > timestamp redirects the output of the date command to a file in the current directory called timestamp
- anycommand >> myfile appends the output of anycommand to a file called myfile
- date >> timestamp appends the current time and date to a file called timestamp. creates the file if it doesn’t exist
- command1 | command2 “pipes” the output of command1 to command2. the pipe is usually shift-backslash key
- date | grep Tue displays any line in the output of the date command that matches the pattern Tue. (is it Tuesday?)
- tar -zxf archive.tgz this will extract the contents of the archive called archive.tgz. kind of like unzipping a zipfile. ***
- tar -zcf dir.tgz dir this creates a compressed archive called dir.tgz that contains all the files and directory structure of dir
- time anycommand runs anycommand, timing how long it takes, and displays that time to the screen after completing anycommand
- man anycommand gives you help on anycommand
- cal -y free calendar, courtesy unix
- CTRL-c kills whatever process you’re currently doing