Some Basic Linux Commands for beginners

pwd

Print the present working directory with full path

user1@raj:~/hadoop> pwd
/home/user1/hadoop

ls

List contents of a Directory OR shows contents of the current directory if no directory is specified

//List content of the directory /home
ls /home

//List content of the current directory
ls

//List contents of the Directory /home in long listing fashion
ls -l /home
OR
ll /home

//List contents of the current Directory in long listing fashion
ls -l
OR
ll

//List contents of the directory /home in increasing order of Last modified Time
ls -ltr /home

//List contents of the current directory in increasing order of Last modified Time
ls -ltr

//List contents(including hidden files) of the Directory /home
ls -a /home

//List contents(including hidden files) of current Directory
ls -a

cd

Changes current working directory to the given directory.

//Change current working directory to the /home/hadoop directory
cd /home/hadoop

//Go to the parent directory of the current directory
cd ..

//Go to the home directory of the logged in User
cd ~

//Go to the last visited directory
cd -

rm

This command is used to remove a file or Directory

//Remove the file /home/hadoop/example.txt
rm /home/hadoop/example.txt

//Remove all the contents of the directory /home/hadoop recursively. 
//This will delete all the files and sub-directories of the given directory
rm -r /home/hadoop

cp

Copy a file or Directory from one location to another location.

//Copy the file example.txt from the current directory to /home/hadoop directory
cp example.txt /home/hadoop

//Copy the hadoop directory to /home/backup/ directory recursively.
//This will copy all the files and sub-directories of the given directory to the target directory
cp -r /home/hadoop /home/backup

mv

Move the file or directory from one location to another.

//Move the file /home/hadoop/abcTest.txt to the location /home/hadoop/examples/
mv /home/hadoop/abcTest /home/hadoop/examples/
OR
mv /home/hadoop/abcTest /home/hadoop/examples/abcTest.txt

//Move the directory /home/hadoop/wordcount to /home/hadoop/examples
mv /home/hadoop/wordcount /home/hadoop/examples

tail

tail command is used to print the data at the end of the file. By default it prints last 10 lines.

//print the data at the end of the file examples.txt. By default it prints last 10 lines.
tail examples.txt

//Print n number of lines from the tail of the file.
//This will print last 20 lines from the file examples.txt.
tail -n 20 examples.txt

//Print the real time data from the end of a growing file. 
//If the file is being written by some other process, 
//then the current data being added to the file will get printed. 
//For e.g. This command can be used to see the data being written to a log file. 
//Press CTRL-C to terminate the command.
tail -f examples.txt

ps

ps command is used to display information about the running Processes.

//List all the running processes
ps -ef

//List all the running processes and show hierarchy
ps -efH

//List all the running processes for the current logged in user
ps fux

tar

tar command is used to handle tar files.

//Create tar file from the content of the directory /home/hadoop
tar -cvf hadoop.tar /home/hadoop

//Extract the content of the tar file hadoop.tar to the directory /home/hadoop/extract/
tar -xvf hadoop.tar /home/hadoop/extract

//List the contents of the hadoop.tar
tar -tvf hadoop.tar

//Append to archive. Add file examples.txt to the archive hadoop.tar
tar -rvf hadoop.tar examples.txt

scp

scp is a command which files to be copied to, from, or between different hosts.

//Copy the file examples.txt from a remote host to the /home/hadoop directory of the localhost
scp username@remotehost:examples.txt /home/hadoop 

//Copy the file example.txt from the localhost to a remote host's /home/hadoop/samples directory
scp examples.txt username@remotehost:/home/hadoop/samples 

//Copy the directory /home/hadoop/examples from the local host to a remote host's /home/user1 directory
scp -r /home/hadoop/examples username@remotehost:/home/user1/

df

df command is used to see the amount of disk space used on each mounted filesystem.

//This will display the output in bytes. 
df

//To display output in readable formats like Kb, Mb, GB, use this command.
df -h

vi

Some commands to use vi editor.

//Go to insert mode and start editing
i

//Go to the command mode
esc

//Go to any line number n
shift:n

//Save the current file and exit
shift:wq

//Exit the current open file without saving
shift:!q


/Find the text in the file. Press n to find next occurrence of the text in the forward direction
//and N to find the next occurrence of the text in backward direction.
shift:/text

 

The sudo (super user do) command allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser.
sudo

du
du -sh directory OR shows stats about current directory if no directory is specified

uname

gives the hostname of the machine
hostname

Check whether any process is running on a given port
netstat -npl | grep 10000

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