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Top 300 Linux Commands Asked in Interviews

1. ls – Lists files and directories in the current directory.

2. ls -al – Lists all files, including hidden ones, with detailed information.

3. pwd – Prints the current working directory.

4. cd /path/to/directory – Changes the directory to the specified

path.
5. cd .. – Moves up one directory level.

6. mkdir new_directory – Creates a new directory.

7. rmdir empty_directory – Removes an empty directory.

8. rm -rf directory_name – Deletes a directory and its contents

recursively.

9. touch file.txt – Creates a new empty file.

10.cat file.txt – Displays the contents of a file.

11.tac file.txt – Displays the contents of a file in reverse order.

12.nano file.txt – Opens a file in the nano text editor.

13.vim file.txt – Opens a file in the Vim editor.

14.vi file.txt – Opens a file in the vi editor.

15.echo "Hello, World!" – Prints text to the terminal.

16.echo "Hello" > file.txt – Writes text to a file (overwrites

existing content).

17. echo "Hello" >> file.txt – Appends text to a file.

18. cp source.txt destination.txt – Copies a file.

19. cp -r source_directory destination_directory – Copies a

directory recursively.

20. mv old_name.txt new_name.txt – Renames a file.

21. mv file.txt /path/to/destination/ – Moves a file to anothe

directory.

22.rm file.txt – Deletes a file.

23.find / -name "file.txt" – Searches for a file by name starting
from the root directory.

24. find . -type f -name "*.log" – Finds all log files in the current
directory.

25. locate file.txt – Finds the location of a file using a pre-built index.

26. updatedb – Updates the locate command's index.

27. grep "search_term" file.txt – Searches for a term inside a file.

28. grep -i "search_term" file.txt – Case-insensitive search.

29. grep -r "search_term" /path/to/search/ – Searches

recursively in a directory.

30. awk '{print $1}' file.txt – Prints the first column of a file.

31. awk -F: '{print $1}' /etc/passwd – Prints the first field of the
/etc/passwd file, separated by colons.

32. sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt – Replaces all occurrences of "old"

with "new" in a file.

33.sed -i 's/old/new/g' file.txt – Replaces text in a file in place.

34.sort file.txt – Sorts lines in a file.

35. sort -r file.txt– Sorts lines in reverse order.

36. uniq file.txt– Removes duplicate lines from a sorted file.

37.wc -l file.txt – Counts the number of lines in a file.

38.wc -w file.txt – Counts the number of words in a file.

39.wc -c file.txt – Counts the number of bytes in a file.

40. head -n 10 file.txt– Displays the first 10 lines of a file.

41.tail -n 10 file.txt – Displays the last 10 lines of a file.

42.tail -f file.txt – Continuously monitors a file for changes.

43.df -h – Shows disk space usage in a human-readable format.

44.du -sh directory_name – Shows the size of a directory.

45.free -m – Displays memory usage in megabytes.

46.uptime – Shows system uptime and load average.

47.who – Displays currently logged-in users.

48.whoami – Displays the current logged-in username.

49.id – Displays the user ID (UID) and group ID (GID).

50.groups username – Displays groups a user belongs to.

51.ps aux – Displays running processes.

52.top – Displays real-time process information.

53.htop – An interactive process viewer (if installed).

54.kill -9 PID – Forcefully terminates a process.

55.pkill process_name – Kills processes by name.

56.killall process_name – Kills all processes with a specific name.

57.jobs – Lists background jobs.

58.bg – Resumes a background job.

59.fg – Brings a background job to the foreground.

60.nohup command & – Runs a command in the background, ignoring

hangups.

61.crontab -e – Edits the crontab file to schedule tasks.

62.crontab -l – Lists scheduled cron jobs.

63.crontab -r – Removes all scheduled cron jobs.

64.history – Displays command history.

65.!100 – Runs command number 100 from history.

66.chmod 755 file.sh – Changes file permissions.

67.chown user:group file.txt – Changes file ownership.

68.chgrp group_name file.txt – Changes file group ownership.

69.ls -l | grep "^d" – Lists only directories.

70.df -i – Shows inode usage.

71.du -a – Shows size of all files and directories.

72.tar -cvf archive.tar directory/ – Creates a tar archive.

73.tar -xvf archive.tar – Extracts a tar archive.

74.tar -czvf archive.tar.gz directory/ – Creates a

compressed tar archive.
75.tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz – Extracts a compressed tar archive.

76.zip -r archive.zip directory/ – Compresses a directory into a

zip file.

77. unzip archive.zip – Extracts a zip file.

78. scp file.txt user@remote:/path/ – Securely copies a file to a

remote server.

79. scp -r directory user@remote:/path/ – Securely copies a

directory to a remote server.

80.rsync -av source/ destination/ – Synchronizes directories.

81.wget URL – Downloads a file from a URL.

82.curl -O URL – Downloads a file from a URL.

83.curl -I URL – Retrieves HTTP headers from a URL.

84.ping google.com – Checks network connectivity.

85.traceroute google.com – Traces network route to a server.

86.netstat -tulnp – Shows network connections and listening ports.

87.ss -tulnp – Displays active connections (alternative to netstat).

88. ip a – Shows IP addresses.

89. ifconfig– Displays network interfaces (deprecated).

90.hostname – Displays the system hostname.

91.uptime – Shows system uptime.

92.uname -a – Displays system information.

93.lscpu – Shows CPU details.

94. – Lists information about storage devices.

lsblk

95.blkid – Shows UUIDs of partitions.

96.mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt – Mounts a device.

97.umount /mnt – Unmounts a device.

98.df -Th – Displays file system types and disk usage.

99.fdisk -l – Lists partition tables.

100. mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 – Formats a partition with ext4.

101.fsck /dev/sdb1 – Checks a filesystem for errors.

102.echo $? – Displays the exit status of the last command.

103.time command – Measures command execution time.

104.date – Displays the current date and time.

105. cal – Displays a calendar.

106.env – Displays environment variables.

107.export VAR=value – Sets an environment variable.

108.unset VAR – Unsets an environment variable.

109.alias ll='ls -al' – Creates a command alias.

110.unalias ll – Removes an alias.

111.basename /path/to/file.txt – Extracts the filename from a

given path.

112. dirname /path/to/file.txt – Extracts the directory path from

a given file path.

113.diff file1.txt file2.txt – Compares two files line by line.

114.cmp file1.txt file2.txt – Compares two files byte by byte.

115.stat file.txt – Displays detailed information about a file.

116.file file.txt – Determines the file type.

117.cut -d':' -f1 /etc/passwd – Extracts the first field from a

colon-separated file.

118. paste file1.txt file2.txt – Merges two files line by line.

119. tee file.txt – Writes output to both a file and the standard
output.

120. yes "text" – Continuously outputs "text" until interrupted.

121. watch -n 5 df -h – Runs a command every 5 seconds.

122. lsattr – Lists file attributes.

123. chattr +i file.txt – Makes a file immutable (cannot be

modified or deleted).

124.chattr -i file.txt – Removes immutability from a file.

125.nohup command & – Runs a command in the background and

ignores hangups.
126. jobs – Lists active background jobs.

127. fg %1 – Brings job number 1 to the foreground.

128. bg %1 – Resumes a background job.

129. disown -h %1 – Removes a job from the shell’s job table.

130. xargs – Passes standard input as command arguments.

131. ls | xargs rm – Deletes all files in a directory.

132. echo "file1 file2" | xargs rm – Deletes specified files.

133. uptime -p – Shows how long the system has been running.

134. uptime -s – Shows the system start time.

135. who -b – Displays the last system boot time.

136. last reboot – Shows the system reboot history.

137. dmesg | tail – Displays the latest kernel messages.

138. dmesg | grep error – Searches the kernel logs for errors.

139. journalctl -xe – Views system logs.

140. journalctl -f – Monitors logs in real time.

141. systemctl status service_name – Checks the status of a

systemd service.

142. systemctl start service_name – Starts a systemd service.

143. systemctl stop service_name – Stops a systemd service.

144. systemctl restart service_name – Restarts a systemd

service.

145. systemctl enable service_name – Enables a service to start

on boot.

146. systemctl disable service_name – Disables a service from

starting on boot.

147. systemctl list-units --type=service – Lists all active

system services.

148. systemctl daemon-reload – Reloads systemd configuration

files.

149. service service_name status – Checks the status of a SysV

service.

150. service service_name start – Starts a SysV service.

151. service service_name stop – Stops a SysV service.

152.chkconfig --list – Lists services managed by SysV init.

153. chkconfig service_name on – Enables a service on boot using

SysV.

154. chkconfig service_name off – Disables a service from boot

using SysV.

155. modprobe module_name – Loads a kernel module.

156. lsmod – Lists currently loaded kernel modules.

157. rmmod module_name – Removes a kernel module.

158. insmod module.ko – Inserts a module into the kernel.

159. uname -r – Displays the currently running kernel version.

160. cat /proc/version – Shows kernel version details.

161. hostnamectl – Displays and modifies the hostname.

162. nmcli device status – Shows network interfaces and their

statuses.

163. nmcli connection show – Lists saved network connections.

164. nmcli connection up eth0 – Brings up a network interface.

165. nmcli connection down eth0 – Brings down a network

interface.

166. dhclient -r – Releases the DHCP lease.

167. dhclient eth0 – Obtains a new DHCP lease.

168. ip link set eth0 up – Brings up an interface.

169. ip link set eth0 down – Brings down an interface.

170. tcpdump -i eth0 – Captures network packets on an interface.

171. tcpdump -nn port 80 – Captures HTTP traffic.

172. tcpdump -c 10 -i eth0 – Captures 10 packets and exits.

173. iptables -L – Lists firewall rules.

174. iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT –

Allows SSH access.

175. iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j DROP – Blocks

HTTP access.

176. iptables -D INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j DROP –

189. lsof -i :80 – Lists processes using port 80.

190.strace -c ls – Traces system calls used by a command.

191.strace -e open ls – Shows file open system calls used by ls.

192. tcpdump -XX – Captures packets with hex and ASCII output.

193.watch -d -n 5 free -m – Monitors memory usage every 5

seconds.

194. iotop – Monitors disk I/O usage by processes.

195. lsusb – Lists USB devices.

196. lspci – Lists PCI devices.

197. uptime -p – Shows how long the system has been running in a
human-friendly format.

198. dmidecode -t memory – Displays RAM information.

199. mpstat 1 – Displays CPU usage statistics.

200. iostat -c 2 5 – Shows CPU statistics every 2 seconds for 5

iterations.

201.vmstat 1 5 – Displays system performance statistics every second

 for 5 iterations.

202. sar -u 5 3 – Reports CPU usage every 5 seconds for 3 iterations.

203. sar -r 5 3 – Reports memory usage every 5 seconds for 3

iterations.

204. uptime -s – Displays system startup time.

205. iotop -o – Shows processes doing the most disk I/O.

206. dstat – Displays system resource usage dynamically.

207. mpstat -P ALL 5 – Displays CPU usage for all cores every 5
seconds.

208. nice -n 10 command – Runs a command with lower priority.

209. renice -n 10 -p PID – Changes priority of an existing process.

210. ulimit -a – Shows system resource limits.

211. ulimit -n 10240 – Changes the maximum number of open file

descriptors.

212.getfacl file.txt – Displays ACL (Access Control List) permissions

of a file.
213. setfacl -m u:username:rwx file.txt – Grants a user
additional file permissions.

214. setfacl -x u:username file.txt – Removes ACL

permissions for a user.

215. getsebool -a – Lists all SELinux booleans and their statuses.

216. setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect on – Allows

Apache to make network connections in SELinux.

217. semanage fcontext -l – Lists default SELinux file contexts.

218. restorecon -Rv /var/www/html – Restores SELinux context for

files.

219. getenforce – Displays the current SELinux mode

(Enforcing/Permissive/Disabled).

220.setenforce 0 – Switches SELinux to permissive mode.

221. auditctl -l – Lists all active audit rules.

222.ausearch -m avc – Searches SELinux denial messages.

223. ausearch -m USER_LOGIN – Searches authentication logs using

audit logs.
224.modinfo module_name – Displays information about a kernel
module.

225. modprobe -r module_name – Unloads a kernel module.

226. ls -Z – Displays SELinux contexts of files.

227. ps -eZ – Displays SELinux contexts of processes.

228. firewall-cmd --list-services – Lists allowed services in

Firewalld.

229. firewall-cmd --permanent --add-service=https –

Allows HTTPS traffic permanently.

230. firewall-cmd --permanent --remove-service=https –

Removes HTTPS access.

231. firewall-cmd --reload – Reloads Firewalld rules.

232.ufw enable – Enables UFW firewall.

233.ufw disable – Disables UFW firewall.

234.ufw status numbered – Displays UFW rules with numbering.

235.ufw delete 2 – Deletes UFW rule number 2.

236. iptables -P INPUT DROP – Sets default INPUT policy to DROP.

237. iptables -P FORWARD DROP – Drops forwarded packets by

default.

238. iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT – Allows all outgoing traffic by

default.

239. iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT –

Allows SSH access.

240. iptables-save > rules.v4 – Saves iptables rules to a file.

241. iptables-restore < rules.v4 – Restores iptables rules from a

file.

242. lsof -p PID – Lists open files by a process.

243. lsof -i :443 – Displays processes using port 443.

244. lsof /path/to/file – Shows processes accessing a specific file.

245. strace -o trace.log -p PID – Traces system calls of a running

process.

246.strace -c ls – Summarizes system calls used by a command.

247. tcpdump -i eth0 – Captures network packets on interface eth0.

248. tcpdump -nn -s0 -X -i eth0 port 80 – Captures and
displays raw HTTP traffic.

249. nc -zv google.com 443 – Checks if port 443 is open on

google.com.

250. nc -lvp 1234 – Starts a netcat listener on port 1234.

251. rsync -avz /src/ user@remote:/dest/ – Syncs files

securely over SSH.

252. rsync -a --delete /src/ /dest/ – Synchronizes directories

and removes extra files.

253. scp -P 2222 file.txt user@remote:/path/ – Transfers a

file using a non-default SSH port.

254. ssh user@remote -p 2222 – Connects to a server using a

different SSH port.

255. ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C

"[email protected]" – Generates an SSH key.

256. ssh-copy-id user@remote – Copies the SSH key to a remote

host.

257. ssh-agent bash – Starts an SSH agent session.

258. eval "$(ssh-agent -s)" – Initializes the SSH agent.

259.chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa – Sets secure permissions on an SSH

private key.

260. chage -l username – Displays password expiration details for a

user.

261. chage -M 90 username – Sets the password to expire every 90

days.

262. passwd username – Changes a user's password.

263. useradd -m -s /bin/bash newuser – Creates a new user with

a home directory.

264. usermod -aG sudo username – Adds a user to the sudo group.

265.deluser username – Removes a user.

266. groupadd newgroup – Creates a new group.

267. usermod -G groupname username – Adds a user to a group.

268. groupdel groupname – Deletes a group.

269. crontab -e – Opens the user's crontab for editing.

270. crontab -l – Lists scheduled cron jobs.

271.crontab -r – Removes all cron jobs for a user.

272. echo "0 2 * * * /path/to/script.sh" | crontab - –

Schedules a cron job to run a script at 2 AM daily.

273. at now + 10 minutes – Schedules a command to run in 10

minutes.

274. at -l – Lists pending scheduled jobs.

275. systemctl list-timers – Lists active systemd timers.

276. timedatectl – Displays system time settings.

277. timedatectl set-timezone America/New_York – Changes

system timezone.

278. hwclock --systohc – Synchronizes hardware clock with system

clock.

279. date "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" – Displays date and time in a

specific format.

280. find /var/log -type f -mtime +30 -delete – Deletes log

files older than 30 days.
281.journalctl --vacuum-time=30d – Removes journal logs older
than 30 days.

282. du -ah /var/log | sort -rh | head -10 – Lists the 10

largest log files.

283. logrotate -d /etc/logrotate.conf – Tests log rotation

configuration.

284. fsck -y /dev/sda1 – Checks and repairs a filesystem.

285. tune2fs -m 5 /dev/sda1 – Reserves 5% of space for root user.

286. blkid – Lists partitions and their UUIDs.

287. mount -o remount,rw / – Remounts the root filesystem as

read/write.

288. mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 – Formats a partition with ext4.

289. tune2fs -c 100 /dev/sda1 – Forces a filesystem check every

100 mounts.

290. swapoff -a && swapon -a – Restarts the swap space.

291.free -h – Displays RAM and swap usage in human-readable format.

292. grep -i error /var/log/syslog – Searches syslog for errors.

293.dmidecode -t memory – Displays memory module details.

294.systemctl poweroff – Shuts down the system.

295.systemctl reboot – Reboots the system.

296.shutdown -h now – Immediately shuts down the system.

297.shutdown -r +10 – Reboots the system in 10 minutes.

298. wall "System maintenance in 5 minutes" – Broadcasts a

message to all users.

299.uptime – Displays system uptime and load average.

300. exit – Logs out of the shell session.