General Linux Commands

Below are some general commands that work in almost every Linux distro.

passwd -- allows you to change your password

ls -- lists the files in your directory

ls -la -- lists all files in your directory and displays their permissions

cd <dir> -- change directory, if you type cd by itself it will take you to your home directory.

cd .. -- takes you up one level

who -- shows you a list of people who are on the server

ps -- displays a list of processes you are running

ps -ux displays the processes you are running along with information about each process. Such as it's PID (Process ID Number)

kill -9 -1 -- kills all your processes (programs) that you have running

kill -9 <PID> -- replace <PID> with the ID of the program that you want to stop

uptime -- displays how long the server has been up and the loads of the server

pico -- a simple file editor

sudo -- a simple file editor

rm <file> -- allows you to remove a file

rm -rf <dir> -- allows you to remove a directory without prompting for confirmation

mkdir <dirname> -- allows you to create a directory

cp <file1> <file2> -- copy a file to another file

mv <file1> <file2> -- move or rename a file

date -- displays the server date and time

grep -- will search files for a certain line

chmod -- allows you to change the permissions of a file

su <user> -- log in to another user on your vps

tar -xf -- allows you to extract a .tar file