linux-unix

recent posts related to linux and unix

Linux lsof command - list open files

Linux lsof FAQ: Can you share some examples of the Linux lsof command?

The Linux lsof command lists information about files that are open by processes running on the system. (The lsof command itself stands for "list of open files".) In this brief article I'll just share some Linux lsof command examples. If you have any questions, just let me know.

One other note: I'll also assume that you're logged in as the Unix/Linux root user. If not, you're lsof command output may be significantly limited.

By Alvin Alexander on March 5, 2013

The Linux more command

Linux/Unix more command FAQ: Can you share some Linux more command examples?

The Unix/Linux more command lets you scroll through large files, or large amounts of output from other commands.

Linux more command examples

To scroll through the contents of a large file named "large_file" you can use the Unix more command like this:

more large_file

As a quick aside, I see a lot of people use the Linux cat command and more commands this way:

By Alvin Alexander on August 8, 2011

Exploring the Linux locate command

The Linux locate command lets you easily find files in the filesystem. It works by maintaining a system-wide database of "all files which are publicly accessible". The database itself is updated periodically by a background process. Because of this approach it returns results much faster than the find command, which only looks for files when you tell it to. Depending on your system, the locate command may need to be configured initially, or it may be pre-configured to work out of the box.

By Alvin Alexander on August 8, 2011

Linux mkdir command examples

As its name implies, the Linux mkdir ("make directory") command lets you create new directories.

Creating a new directory in your current directory is very simple. In our first mkdir example, we'll show how to create a new directory named "dir1":

mkdir dir1

If you want to create several directories at one time you can use a mkdir command like this:

By Alvin Alexander on August 6, 2011

The Linux head and tail commands

Linux head/tail FAQ: Can you share some examples of the Linux head and tail commands?

Sure. The Linux head and tail commands are very similar, so I've included them here together. The head command command prints lines from the beginning of a file (the head), and the tail command prints lines from the end of files. There's one very cool extra thing you can do with the tail command, and I'll show that in the tail example commands below.

By Alvin Alexander on August 30, 2011

Linux cat command examples

The Linux cat command means "concatenate and print files". Usually all I use it for is to display a file's contents, like this command that displays the contents of a file named "lighten-images.sh":

By Alvin Alexander on August 8, 2011

More Linux find command examples

The Linux find command is used to locate files and directories based on a wide variety of criteria. I'll try to cover the most common find examples here.

Basic find command examples

To find a file or directory named "foo" somewhere below your current directory use a find command like this:

find . -name foo

If the filename begins with "foo" but you can't remember the rest of it, you can use a wildcard character like this:

By Alvin Alexander on March 25, 2013

Linux mv command examples

The Linux mv command lets you move one or more files or directories. Since it's very similar to the cp command, I'll move through this post quickly.

Basic Linux mv examples

To rename a file currently named "foo" to a new file named "bar" just type:

mv foo bar

Although it's called the Linux mv command, it's commonly used to rename files.

To move a file named "foo" to the /tmp directory type:

By Alvin Alexander on August 30, 2011

Linux cp command examples

The Linux cp command lets you copy one or more files or directories. To be clear, the cp command makes a duplicate copy of your information, whereas the mv command moves your information from one location to another.

Let's take a look at some Linux cp command examples.

Simple file copying

Using a Linux or Unix system, to copy a file named "foo" to a new file named "bar" just type:

By Alvin Alexander on February 13, 2013

More Linux grep command examples

The Linux grep command is used to search for text. The name "grep" means something like "general regular expression parser", and if you look at the grep man page it says "print lines matching a pattern". I always tell people that if they don't like the name "grep" they can think of it as "search" instead.

In "grep tutorial", we'll share a number of grep example commands. Let's get started.

By Alvin Alexander on April 10, 2011
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