🐧 50 Essential Linux Commands for Cloud Engineers

File & Directory Management

• ls -la – list all files with permissions
• pwd – print working directory
• cd /path – change directory
• mkdir newdir – create directory
• rm file.txt – remove file
• touch file.txt – create empty file
• cp source dest – copy file
• mv old new – move or rename

Viewing & Searching

• cat file.txt – display full content
• less largefile.log – paginated view
• head -n 20 file.txt – first 20 lines
• tail -f logfile – follow live log
• grep "error" app.log – search pattern
• find /home -name "*.conf" – find files

Process Management

• ps aux – list all processes
• kill -9 PID – force kill process
• top – live process monitor

Permissions & Ownership

• chmod 755 script.sh – change mode
• chown user:group file – change owner
• sudo – execute as superuser

Disk & System Info

• df -h – disk free (human readable)
• du -sh /home – disk usage summary

Networking & Transfer

• ssh user@host – secure shell
• wget https://example.com/file.zip – download file
• curl -O https://example.com/file.zip – download

Archiving

• tar -cvf archive.tar /folder – create tar
• tar -xvf archive.tar – extract tar

Aliases & Shell

• alias ll='ls -la' – create shortcut
• echo "Hello" – print string
• exit – close shell

📚 Quick Reference Table