Basic Commands

Question 1

What is the command to see the current working directory?

Answer 1

pwd

Question 2

What is the command to list items in current directory?

Answer 2

ls

Question 3

What is the command to change directory?

Answer 3

cd

Question 4

What symbol represents home?

Answer 4

~

tilda

Question 5

What is the command to change directory outside the current one?

Answer 5

cd ..

Question 6

What is the command to see all files and directories (including hidden)?

Answer 6

ls -a

Question 7

What denotes a file or folder being hidden?

Answer 7

.

i.e .hiddenfolder

Question 8

What is the command to create a file?

Answer 8

touch

i.e touch file.txt

Question 9

How can you read the contents of a text file?

Answer 9

cat

i.e cat file.txt

Question 10

What is the command to create a directory?

Answer 10

mkdir

i.e mkdir Folder1

Question 11

What is the command to move a file?

Answer 11

mv

i.e mv file.txt ..

Question 12

What is the command to remove an empty directory?

Answer 12

rmdir

i.e rmdir Folder1

Question 13

What is the command to remove a directory containing items?

Answer 13

rm -r

i. e rm -r Directory1
* rm without parameter -r only removes files, r means recursively

Question 14

What is the command to get help with a specific command?

Answer 14

man

i.e man mv

Question 15

What is the shortcut to go to the beginning of the line in the shell?

Answer 15

ctrl + a

Question 16

What is the shortcut to go to the end of the line in the shell?

Answer 16

ctrl + e

Question 17

What is the shortcut to do a history search of commands?

Answer 17

ctrl + r

press combination again to iterate through previous commands

Question 18

What is the command to create a symbolic link to an item?

Answer 18

ln

i. e ln -s /path/to/file /path/to/smylink
* must specify absolute path

Question 19

What is the command to see the first 10 lines of text in a file?

Answer 19

head

Question 20

What is the command to see the last 10 lines of text in a file?

Answer 20

tail

Question 21

What is the command to list items with detailed accompanying information?

Answer 21

ls -l

Question 22

What is the command to view the contents of a text file in real time?

Answer 22

tail -f

Question 23

What are some commands to shutdown/reboot the system?

Answer 23

poweroff
shutdown -r now
halt -r +1

Question 24

What is the command to see who is logged on?

Answer 24

w

Question 25

What is the command to see what is running on a machine?

Answer 25

top

Question 26

What is the command to see what internet ports are open?

Answer 26

netstat

i.e netstat -tupln

Question 27

How do you edit a text document from the command line?

Answer 27

nano
vi
i.e vi text.txt

Question 28

How doe you use vi?

Answer 28

vi
i - insert mode
d - delete mode
esc - escape current mode
\:wq! - save and exit
\:qa! - discard and exit

Question 29

What is the command to rename a file or directory?

Answer 29

mv file renamedfile

mv file without specifying location path

Question 30

What is the command to copy a file or directory?

Answer 30

cp

Question 31

What is the command to see a current list off all running processes?

Answer 31

ps

i.e ps -axu - to see all running processes