Vicente Hernando's web site

Useful commands to administer a Linux based system.

sudo command

Execute a command as another user.
It will ask for your user password and will execute the command if you have permissions enough in /etc/sudoers file.

By default sudo executes a command as root:
$ sudo cat /etc/sudoers # Show content of /etc/sudoers file.

Execute a command as user vincent:
$ sudo -u vincent ls /tmp # List /tmp directory as user vincent.

Run a login shell for another user (root by default):
$ sudo -i

Edit sudo permissions for users in /etc/sudoers file:
$ visudo

ps command

ps tool lists unix processes

List all processes in the system:
$ ps -e

top

It shows processes, CPU consumption, PID, etc.

htop

Improved version of top tool.

iotop

Monitor input and outputs (disk reads and writes) in a top like manner.

Show only processes that perform I/O and accumulate values:
$ sudo iotop -o -a

free

Show amount of free and used memory in the system:

In human readable format:
$ free -h

uname

Print system information:
$ uname -a
Linux mySystem 4.4.0-1-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.4.8-2 (2016-05-16) x86_64 GNU/Linux

lsusb

List USB devices

$ lsusb
Bus 002 Device 022: ID 1c4f:0002 SiGma Micro Keyboard TRACER Gamma Ivory
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0020 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

udevadm

udev management tool.

Show usb related (--subsystem-match=usb) kernel uevents (--kernel), events sent out by udev rules (--udev) and display properties too (--property):
$ sudo udevadm monitor --subsystem-match=usb --kernel --property --udev

STORAGE AND FILESYSTEM RELATED COMMANDS

lsblk

List block devices, partition sizes, mount points, etc

$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 931.5G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 100G 0 part /
├─sda2 8:2 0 100G 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 50G 0 part [SWAP]
└─sda4 8:4 0 681.5G 0 part /home
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom


Show info about filesystems
$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1 ext4 system cb3d3c17-0865-448e-b7c1-04a50f2a7e80 /
├─sda2 ext4 secondary c0fb3dca-eb48-49e8-ace3-4326fd168439
├─sda3 swap ee7d92ec-a542-4c42-8b2e-f9e14b8b9980 [SWAP]
└─sda4 ext4 home 9f93bcb8-8723-43e1-8d08-8e40d3f5340a /home

fdisk

fdisk manipulates disk partition tables.

List current partitions:
$ fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sdb: 15 GiB, 16131293184 bytes, 31506432 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x04030201

Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 63 31503464 31503402 15G b W95 FAT32


Partition /dev/sdb device
$ fdisk /dev/sdb

mkfs.ext4

Create an ext4 filesystem in /dev/sdb1 partition:
$ sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1

Create an ext4 filesystem in /dev/sdb1 partitional and label the volume 'myLabel':
$ sudo mkfs.ext4 -L 'myLabel' /dev/sdb1

Same but disabling journaling to minimize writes to disk:
$ sudo mkfs.ext4 -O "^has_journal" -L 'myLabel' /dev/sdb1

mount, umount

Mount and umount a filesystem in the big tree that pends from / root

Show all currently mounted filesystems:
$ mount

Mount sda2 device as an ext4 filesystem in /home directory:
$ sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/sda2 /home


Remount part of filesystem hierarchy (/home) in another place (/tmp/foo):
$ sudo mount --bind /home /tmp/foo

Remount part of filesystem hierarchy and also its submounts in another place:
$ sudo mount --rbind /dev chroot/dev


Mount again but in read only way:
$ sudo mount -o remount,ro /dev/sda1 /


Unmount a directory or a device:
$ sudo umount /dev/sda2
$ sudo umount /home

Unumount a directory recursively: (it will fail if any submount fails)
$ sudo umount -R /home

lsof

Without arguments lsof lists all open files in the system belonging to active processes.

Passing a file path to lsof it returns info about processes which have opened that file.
$ lsof /dev/tty1
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
bash 1482 vicente 0u CHR 4,1 0t0 1042 /dev/tty1
bash 1482 vicente 1u CHR 4,1 0t0 1042 /dev/tty1

NETWORK RELATED COMMANDS

netstat

netstat - Print network connections, routing tables, interface statistics, masquerade connections, and multicast memberships

Show network interfaces:
$ netstat -i

Show routing table:
$ netstat -r
$ netstat -rn # -n option make netstat show numerical addresses, ports, etc instead of determining host, port, etc.

Show listening connections:
$ netstat -l

Show name and PID of processes running each socket:
$ netstat -p

ip command

ip - show / manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels

Show devices and their IPv4 and IPv6 associated addresses:
$ ip address

Show routing table:
$ ip route

List all network devices:
$ ip link

Enable or disable enp0s3 device:
$ ip link set enp0s3 up
$ ip link set enp0s3 down

dhclient

Client for DHDP

Get an IP address for enp0s3 device from DHCP server:
$ dhclient enp0s3

Release current IP address for enp0s3 device:
$ dhclient -r enp0s3

wget

wget is a non-interactive network downloader. It can download web sites recursively.

Download a file:
$ wget https://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/testing/linux-4.9-rc8.tar.xz


Download a ftp site:
$ wget -c -r -l 0 --timeout 60 ftp://my_user:my_pass@www.foo.net/dir_app
Options stand for:
-c : continue downloading partially downloaded files
-r : download directories recursively
-l 0 : recurse levels indefinitely
--timeout 60 : timeout after 60 seconds.


Download a http site:
$ wget -k -r -l 3 -D www.kernel.org https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/
-D : follow links only to this address.
-k : convert links


curl vs wget:
https://daniel.haxx.se/docs/curl-vs-wget.html

REFERENCE

Chapter 17. System and Administrative Commands (Advanced Bash Scripting Guide)