Frequently used Linux commands 2
Xargs command
Copy all images to external hard-drive
# ls *.jpg | xargs -n1 -i cp {} /external-hard-drive/directory
Search all jpg images in the system and archive it.
# find / -name *.jpg -type f -print | xargs tar -cvzf images.tar.gz
Download all the URLs mentioned in the url-list.txt file
# cat url-list.txt | xargs wget –c
Ls command
display filesize in human readable format (e.g. KB, MB etc.,)
$ ls -lh
-rw-r----- 1 ramesh team-dev 8.9M Jun 12 15:27 arch-linux.txt.gz
Order Files Based on Last Modified Time (In Reverse Order) Using ls -ltr
$ ls -ltr
Visual Classification of Files With Special Characters Using ls -F
$ ls -F
Pwd command
pwd is Print working directory. What else can be said about the good old pwd who has been printing the current directory name for ages.
$ pwd
/home/user/projects
Cd command
Use “cd -” to toggle between the last two directories
Use “shopt -s cdspell” to automatically correct mistyped directory names on cd
Gzip command
To create a *.gz compressed file:
$ gzip test.txt
To uncompress a *.gz file:
$ gzip -d test.txt.gz
Display compression ratio of the compressed file using gzip -l
$ gzip -l *.gz
Bzip2 command
To create a *.bz2 compressed file:
$ bzip2 test.txt
To uncompress a *.bz2 file:
bzip2 -d test.txt.bz2
Unzip command
To extract a *.zip compressed file:
$ unzip test.zip
View the contents of *.zip file (Without unzipping it):
$ unzip -l jasper.zip
Shutdown command
Shutdown the system and turn the power off immediately.
# shutdown -h now
Shutdown the system after 10 minutes.
# shutdown -h +10
Reboot the system using shutdown command.
# shutdown -r now
Force the filesystem check during reboot.
# shutdown -Fr now
Ftp command
Both ftp and secure ftp (sftp) has similar commands. To connect to a remote server and download multiple files, do the following.
$ ftp IP/hostname
To view the file names located on the remote server before downloading, mls ftp command as shown below.
ftp> mls *.html -
Crontab command
View crontab entry for a specific user
# crontab -u john -l
Schedule a cron job every 10 minutes.
*/10 * * * * /home/ramesh/check-disk-space
