Useful Linux Commands for System Administrators

jmlopez · Aug 2, 2016

As a Linux administrator, you will need to know more commands to control your hosting server effectively. I would sum up some of the most basic commands required for sysadmins and webmasters. The command has been tested on CentOS 5 and 6 operating system.

1. The basic commands

Code:

# ls // like dir command in windows
# vi // open the text editor 
# passwd // change the current user password
# chmod // grant permissions for folders and files 
# chgrp //change group for folders and files
# chown // change the directory and file owner
# cp a b // copy a file into the folder b
# reboot // reboot the system //
# shutdown -h now // shutdown system (shutdown)
# shutdown -r now // shutdown system (restart)

2. Networking (limited use when in remote mode)

Code:

# ifconfig // view and config ip of server
# setup // select Network Configuration to set IP for server
# vi /etc/resolv.conf // configure dns for server
# ifdown eht0 // down network card eth0
# ifup eht0 // up network card eth0
# service network restart // restart network service

3. Check System

Code:

# top // whether the resource usage of RAM, the system's CPU
# uptime // average view the status of the system and the system was online time
# fdisk -l // see the HDD on server
# df -h // check usage HDD
# cat /proc/cpuinfo // Check CPU
# cat /proc/meminfo // Check RAM ussage
# du -hs // check folder usage

4. Webserver and MySQL

Code:

# service httpd status // view webserver status
# service httpd restart // restart  webserver
# service mysqld restart // restart mysql
# mysqlcheck -Aao -auto-repair -u[MySqlAdmin] -p[Password] // check and optimize mysql database

5. Zip and unzip

Code:

# tar -cvzpf archive.tgz /home/example/public_html/folder // compress a folder
# tar -tzf backup.tar.gz // list gz files
# tar -xvf archive.tar // decompress a tar file

If you have any other useful commands for Linux, please write down and I appreciate that.

Hope it helps!

VirtuBox · Aug 3, 2016

Very good thread, it will be useful for beginners.

Some commands you could also use :

Use the good argument for ls. -a for all, -l for list it's easier to read, -h for human readable and I'm sure you prefer to read 512M than 536870912 B.

Code:

ls -alh

Update your server in a single command on debian/ubuntu

Code:

 apt-get update && apt-get update -y

rename a file

Code:

mv yourfileoldname yourfilenewname

and move a file

Code:

mv yourfile /var/www/yourfilemoved

if you have a zip to extract

Code:

apt-get install unzip
unzip yourfile.zip

if you don't love vi, go with nano

Code:

nano myfile.txt

liveinhost · Feb 24, 2017

Thank you for the information. This thread will help to learn new things for beginners.

Robert Plummer · Feb 24, 2017

RedHat/CentOS

Let's not forget RedHat/CentOS based systems...

Update pacakges on RHEL/CentOS

Code:

# yum upgrade

If there are pacakge dependency issues and you just want to get the ones that are patchable right now

Code:

# yum upgrade --skip-broken

On CentOS 7.x we use SystemCTL instead of Service

Code:

//status
# systemctl status httpd
//restart
# systemctl restart httpd
//stop
# systemctl stop httpd
//start
# systemctl start httpd

++++1 for the use of Nano/Pico over vi/vim for beginners. There is much steeper learning curve for vi/vim, but as you progress you should learn how to use it, as it's installed almost everywhere in unix/linux by default and pico/nano is not.

HostingWaves · Feb 27, 2017

Its really good thread for newby.

If you are on CentOS 7 then you will need to use command 'ip addr' to check IP address on the server.

Useful Linux Commands for System Administrators

jmlopez

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VirtuBox

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liveinhost

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Robert Plummer

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HostingWaves

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