GNU/Linux

#linux
Table of Contents
About 1

Chapter 1: Getting started with GNU/Linux 2

Versions 2

Examples 2

Hello World 2

File Manipulation 2

File/Directory details 4

Basic Linux Utilities 5

File Management Commands 7

Directory navigation 8

Listing files inside a directory 8

File/directory create, copy and remove 9

File/directory permissions and groups 9

Useful shortcuts 10

Using The Terminal 10

Open terminal 10

Cursor movement 10

Text manipulation 10

History access 11

Terminal control 11

Special characters 12

Close Terminal 12

Searching for files by patterns in name/contents 12

Find files by name 12

Find files containing text 12

Chapter 2: Change root (chroot) 14

Introduction 14

Syntax 14

Examples 14

Manually changing root in a directory 14

 Requirements 15

Reasons to use chroot 15

Chapter 3: Check Disk Space 16

Examples 16

Checking Disk Space 16

Investigate Directories For Disk Usage 16

Chapter 4: Compiling the Linux kernel 20

Examples 20

Compilation of Linux Kernel on Ubuntu 20

Compilation in Ubuntu >=13.04 20

Chapter 5: Detecting Linux distribution name and version 22

Syntax 22

Examples 22

Detect what debian-based distribution you are working in 22

Detect what RHEL / CentOS / Fedora distribution you are working in 22

Detect what systemd-based distribution you are using 23

Uname - Print information about the current system 24

Example: 24

Detect basic informations about your distro 25

find your linux os (both debian & rpm) name and release number 25

cat /etc/*release 25

using GNU coreutils 25

Chapter 6: File Compression with 'tar' command 27

Parameters 27

Examples 27

Compress a folder 27

Extract a folder from an archive 28

List archive content 28

Compress and exclude one or multiple folder 28

Strip leading components 29

List contents of an archive 29

Chapter 7: Getting information on a running Linux kernel 30

 Examples 30

All information 30

Getting details of Linux kernel. 30

Chapter 8: Getting System Information 31

Introduction 31

Examples 31

List Hardware 31

Find CPU model/speed information 31

Process monitoring and information gathering 33

Static monitoring 33

Interactive monitoring 33

Statistics about CPU, Memory, Network and Disk (I/O operations) 34

CPU 34

Memory 34

Disk 34

Network 35

Optional 35

Using tools like lscpu and lshw 35

Chapter 9: GnuPG (GPG) 37

Introduction 37

Examples 37

Create and use a GnuPG key quickly 37

Exporting your public key 37

Chapter 10: LAMP Stack 39

Introduction 39

Examples 39

Installing LAMP on Arch Linux 39

HTTP 39

PHP 40

MySQL 40

Installing LAMP on Ubuntu 41

 Installing LAMP stack on CentoOS 41

Install Apache Web Server 41

Install MariaDB Server 42

Install PHP 42

Chapter 11: ls command 43

Examples 43

ls command with most used options. 43

Options for ls command 44

Chapter 12: Managing Services 45

Remarks 45

Examples 45

Starting and Stopping Services 45

Getting the status of a service 45

Diagnosing a problem with a service 45

Chapter 13: Midnight Commander 47

Introduction 47

Examples 47

Midnight Commander function keys in browsing mode 47

Midnight Commander function keys in file editing mode 47

Chapter 14: Modifying Users 49

Parameters 49

Remarks 49

Examples 49

Setting your own password 49

Setting another user's password 49

Adding a user 49

Removing a user 49

Removing a user and its home folder 49

Listing groups the current user is in 50

Listing groups a user is in 50

Chapter 15: Network Configuration 51

Introduction 51
 Examples 51

Interface details 51

Adding IP to an interface 52

Local DNS resolution 53

Configure DNS servers for domain name resolution 53

See and manipulate routes 54

Manipulate the IP routing table using route 54

Manipulate the IP routing table using ip 54

Configure a hostname for some other system on your network 55

Chapter 16: Package Managers 57

Examples 57

How to update packages with the apt package manager 57

How to update packages with the pacman package manager 57

How to install a package with the pacman package manager 57

How to update packages with yum 58

Chapter 17: SCP 59

Syntax 59

Examples 59

Basic Usage 59

Secure Copy 59

Copy local file in your CWD to new directory 59

Copy remote file to you current working directory 59

Copy file from one remote location to another remote location 59

To copy directory and sub-directories use '-r' recursive option to scp 59

Chapter 18: Secure Shell (SSH) 61

Introduction 61

Examples 61

Connecting to a remote server 61

Installing OpenSSH suite 61

Generate public and private key 62

Configuring an SSH server to accept connections 62

 Disable ssh service 62

Passwordless connection (using a key pair) 63

Chapter 19: Services 64

Examples 64

List running service on Ubuntu 64

Systemd service management 64

Listing services 64

Managing Targets (Similar to Runlevels in SysV) 64

Managing services at runtime 64

Managing autostart of services 64

Masking services 65

Restarting systemd 65

Chapter 20: Shell 66

Introduction 66

Examples 66

Changing default shell 66

chsh options: 67

Basic Shell Utilities 67

Customizing the Shell prompt 67

Some basic shell commands 68

Create Your Own Command Alias 68

Locate a file on your system 69

Chapter 21: tee command 70

Introduction 70

Syntax 70

Parameters 70

Remarks 70

Examples 70

Write output to stdout, and also to a file 70

Write output from the middle of a pipe chain to a file and pass it back to the pipe 71

write the output to multiple files 71

Instruct tee command to append to the file 71

Credits 72
About
You can share this PDF with anyone you feel could benefit from it, downloaded the latest version
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Chapter 1: Getting started with GNU/Linux
Versions

Examples
Hello World

Type the following code into your terminal, then press Enter:

echo "Hello World"

This will produce the following output:

Hello World

File Manipulation

Files and directories (another name for folders) are at the heart of Linux, so being able to create,
view, move, and delete them from the command line is very important and quite powerful. These
file manipulation commands allow you to perform the same tasks that a graphical file explorer
would perform.

Create an empty text file called myFile:

touch myFile

Rename myFile to myFirstFile:

mv myFile myFirstFile

View the contents of a file:

cat myFirstFile

View the content of a file with pager (one screenful at a time):

less myFirstFile

View the first several lines of a file:

head myFirstFile

View the last several lines of a file:

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 tail myFirstFile

Edit a file:

vi myFirstFile

See what files are in your current working directory:

ls

Create an empty directory called myFirstDirectory:

mkdir myFirstDirectory

Create multi path directory: (creates two directories, src and myFirstDirectory)

mkdir -p src/myFirstDirectory

Move the file into the directory:

mv myFirstFile myFirstDirectory/

You can also rename the file:

user@linux-computer:~$ mv myFirstFile secondFileName

Change the current working directory to myFirstDirectory:

cd myFirstDirectory

Delete a file:

rm myFirstFile

Move into the parent directory (which is represented as ..):

cd ..

Delete an empty directory:

rmdir myFirstDirectory

Delete a non-empty directory (i.e. contains files and/or other directories):

rm -rf myFirstDirectory

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Make note that when deleting directories, that you delete ./ not / that will wipe your whole
filesystem.

File/Directory details

The ls command has several options that can be used together to show more information.

Details/Rights

The l option shows the file permissions, size, and last modified date. So if the root directory
contained a dir called test and a file someFile the command:

user@linux-computer:~$ ls -l

Would output something like

-rw-r--r-- 1 user users 70 Jul 22 13:36 someFile.txt

drwxrwxrwx 2 user users 4096 Jul 21 07:18 test

The permissions are in format of drwxrwxrwx. The first character represents the file type d if it's a
directory - otherwise. The next three rwx are the permissions the user has over the file, the next
three are the permissions the group has over the file, and the last three are the permissions
everyone else has over the file.

The r of rwx stands for if a file can be read, the w represents if the file can be modified, and the x
stands for if the file can be executed. If any permission isn't granted a - will be in place of r, w, or x.

So from above user can read and modify someFile.txt but the group has only read-only rights.

To change rights you can use the chmod ### fileName command if you have sudo rights. r is
represented by a value of 4, w is represented by 2, and x is represented by a 1. So if only you want
to be able to modify the contents to the test directory

Owner rwx = 4+2+1 = 7

Group r-x = 4+0+1 = 5
Other r-x = 4+0+1 = 5

So the whole command is

chmod 755 test

Now doing a ls -l would show something like

drwxr-xr-x 2 user users 4096 Jul 21 07:20 test

Readable Size

Used in conjunction with the l option the h option shows file sizes that are human readable.
Running

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 user@linux-computer:~$ ls -lh

Would output:

total 4166
-rw-r--r-- 1 user users 70 Jul 22 13:36 someFile.txt
drwxrwxrwx 2 user users 4.0K Jul 21 07:18 test

Hidden

To view hidden files use the a option. For example

user@linux-computer:~$ ls -a

Might list

.profile
someFile.txt
test

Total Directory Size

To view the size of the current directory use the s option (the h option can also be used to make
the size more readable).

user@linux-computer:~$ ls -s

Outputs

total 4166
someFile.txt test

Recursive View

Lets say test directory had a file anotherFile and you wanted to see it from the root folder, you
could use the R option which would list the recursive tree.

user@linux-computer:~$ ls -R

Outputs

.:
someFile.txt test

./test:
anotherFile

Basic Linux Utilities

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Linux has a command for almost any tasks and most of them are intuitive and easily interpreted.

Getting Help in Linux

Command Usability

man <name> Read the manual page of <name>.

man <section> <name> Read the manual page of <name>, related to the given section.

Output all the software whose man pages contain <editor>

man -k <editor>
keyword.

man -K <keyword> Outputs all man pages containing <keyword> within them.

Output all the applications whose one line description matches

apropos <editor> the word editor. When not able to recall the name of the
application, use this command.

In Bash shell, this will display the list of all available bash
help
commands.

In Bash shell, this will display the info about the <name> bash
help <name>
command.

info <name> View all the information about <name>.

dpkg -l Output a list of all installed packages on a Debian-based system.

Will list out the files installed and path details for a given package
dpkg -L packageName
on Debian.

Return all .deb installed packages with <edit> irrespective of

dpkg -l | grep -i <edit>
cases.

less
/var/lib/dpkg/available Return descriptions of all available packages.

whatis vim List a one-line description of vim.

Display usage information about the <tool-name>. Sometimes

<command-name> --help
command -h also works, but not for all commands.

User identification and who is who in Linux world

Command Usability

hostname Display hostname of the system.

hostname -
f Displays Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the system.

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 Command Usability

passwd Change password of current user.

whoami Username of the users logged in at the terminal.

who List of all the users currently logged in as a user.

Display current system status, time, duration, list of users currently logged in on
w
system and other user information.

last Who recently used the system.

last root When was the last time root logged in as user.

lastb Shows all bad login attempts into the system.

chmod Changing permissions - read,write,execute of a file or directory.

Process related information

Command Usability

List all processes sorted by their current system resource usage. Displays a
top continually updated display of processes (By default 3 seconds). Use q key to
exit top.

ps List processes currently running on current shell session

ps -u root List all of the processes and commands root is running

ps aux List all the processes by all users on the current system

File Management Commands

Linux uses some conventions for present and parent directories. This can be a little confusing for
beginners.

Whenever you are in a terminal in Linux, you will be in what is called the current working directory.
Often your command prompt will display either the full working directory, or just the last part of that
directory. Your prompt could look like one of the following:

user@host ~/somedir $
user@host somedir $
user@host /home/user/somedir $

which says that your current working directory is /home/user/somedir.

In Linux .. represents the parent directory and . represents the current directory.

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Therefore, if the current directory is /home/user/somedir, then cd ../somedir will not change the
working directory.

The table below lists some of the most used file management commands

Directory navigation

Command Utility

pwd Get the full path of the current working directory.

cd - Navigate to the last directory you were working in.

cd ~ or just Navigate to the current user's home directory.

cd

Go to the parent directory of current directory (mind the space between cd

cd ..
and ..)

Listing files inside a directory

Command Utility

List the files and directories in the current directory in long (table) format (It is
ls -l
recommended to use -l with ls for better readability).

ls -ld dir-
name List information about the directory dir-name instead of its contents.

List all the files including the hidden ones (File names starting with a . are
ls -a
hidden files in Linux).

Appends a symbol at the end of a file name to indicate its type (* means
ls -F executable, / means directory, @ means symbolic link, = means socket, |
means named pipe, > means door).

List the files sorted by last modified time with most recently modified files
ls -lt showing at the top (remember -l option provides the long format which has
better readability).

ls -lh List the file sizes in human readable format.

ls -lR Shows all subdirectories recursively.

Will generate a tree representation of the file system starting from the current
tree
directory.

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File/directory create, copy and remove

Command Utility

Will copy the file from source to destination. -p stands for preservation.
cp -p source
destination It preserves the original attributes of file while copying like file owner,
timestamp, group, permissions etc.

cp -R source_dir
destination_dir Will copy source directory to specified destination recursively.

In Linux there is no rename command as such. Hence mv

mv file1 file2
moves/renames the file1 to file2.

Asks you before every file removal for confirmation. IF YOU ARE A
rm -i filename NEW USER TO LINUX COMMAND LINE, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS
USE rm -i. You can specify multiple files.

rm -R dir-name Will remove the directory dir-name recursively.

Will remove the directory dir recursively, ignoring non-existent files

rm -rf dir-name and will never prompt for anything. BE CAREFUL USING THIS
COMMAND! You can specify multiple directories.

Will remove the directory dir-name, if it's empty. This command can
rmdir dir-name
only remove empty directories.

mkdir dir-name Create a directory dir-name.

mkdir -p dir- Create a directory hierarchy. Create parent directories as needed, if

name/dir-name they don't exist. You can specify multiple directories.

Create a file filename, if it doesn't exist, otherwise change the

touch filename
timestamp of the file to current time.

File/directory permissions and groups

Command Utility

chmod Change the file permissions. Specifications = u user, g group, o other,

<specification>
filename + add permission, - remove, r read, w write,x execute.

chmod -R Change the permissions of a directory recursively. To change

<specification> dir- permission of a directory and everything within that directory, use this
name
command.

chmod go=+r myfile Add read permission for the owner and the group.

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 Command Utility

chmod a +rwx myfile Allow all users to read, write or execute myfile.

chmod go -r myfile Remove read permission from the group and others.

chown owner1
filename Change ownership of a file to user owner1.

chgrp grp_owner
filename Change primary group ownership of file filename to group grp_owner.

Change primary group ownership of directory dir-name to group

chgrp -R grp_owner
dir-name grp_owner recursively. To change group ownership of a directory and
everything within that directory, use this command.

Useful shortcuts

Using The Terminal

The examples in this document assume that you are using a POSIX-compliant (such
as bash, sh, zsh, ksh) shell.

Large portions of GNU/Linux functionality are achieved using the terminal. Most distributions of
Linux include terminal emulators that allow users to interact with a shell from their desktop
environment. A shell is a command-line interpreter that executes user inputted commands. Bash
(Bourne Again SHell) is a common default shell among many Linux distributions and is the default
shell for macOS.

These shortcuts will work if you are using Bash with the emacs keybindings (set by default):

Open terminal
• Ctrl + Alt + T or Super + T

Cursor movement
• Ctrl + A Go to the beginning of the line you are currently typing on.
• Ctrl + E Go to the end of the line you are currently typing on.
• Ctrl + XX Move between the beginning of the line and the current position of the cursor.
• Alt + F Move cursor forward one word on the current line.
• Alt + B Move cursor backward one word on the current line.
• Ctrl + F Move cursor forward one character on the current line.
• Ctrl + B Move cursor backward one character on the current line.

Text manipulation
• Ctrl + U

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 Cut the line from the current position to the beginning of the line, adding it to the clipboard. If
you are at the end of the line, cut the entire line.
• Ctrl + K Cut the line from the current position to the end of the line, adding it to the clipboard.
If you are at the beginning of the line, cut the entire line.
• Ctrl + W Delete the word before the cursor, adding it to the clipboard.
• Ctrl + Y Paste the last thing from the clipboard that you cut recently (undo the last delete at
the current cursor position).
• Alt + T Swap the last two words before the cursor.
• Alt + L Make lowercase from cursor to end of word.
• Alt + U Make uppercase from cursor to end of word.
• Alt + C Capitalize to end of word starting at cursor (whole word if cursor is at the beginning
of word).
• Alt + D Delete to end of word starting at cursor (whole word if cursor is at the beginning of
word).
• Alt + . Prints the last word written in previous command.
• Ctrl + T Swap the last two characters before the cursor.

History access
• Ctrl + RLets you search through previously used commands.
• Ctrl + G Leave history searching mode without running a command.
• Ctrl + J Lets you copy current matched command to command line without running it,
allowing you to make modifications before running the command.
• Alt + R Revert any changes to a command you’ve pulled from your history, if you’ve edited it.
• Ctrl + P Shows last executed command, i.e. walk back through the command history
(Similar to up arrow).
• Ctrl + N Shows next executed command, i.e. walk forward through the command history
(Similar to down arrow).

Terminal control
• Ctrl + L Clears the screen, similar to the clear command.
• Ctrl + S Stop all output to the screen. This is useful when running commands with lots of
long output. But this doesn't stop the running command.
• Ctrl + Q Resume output to the screen after stopping it with Ctrl+S.
• Ctrl + C End currently running process and return the prompt.
• Ctrl + D Log out of the current shell session, similar to the exit or logout command. In some
commands, acts as End of File signal to indicate that a file end has been reached.
• Ctrl + Z Suspends (pause) currently running foreground process, which returns shell
prompt. You can then use bg command allowing that process to run in the background. To
again bring that process to foreground, use fg command. To view all background processes,
use jobs command.
• Tab Auto-complete files and directory names.
• TabTab Shows all possibilities, when typed characters doesn't uniquely match to a file or
directory name.

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Special characters
• Ctrl + H Same as Backspace.
• Ctrl + J Same as Return (historically Line Feed).
• Ctrl + M Same as Return (historically Carriage Return).
• Ctrl + I Same as Tab.
• Ctrl + G Bell Character.
• Ctrl + @ Null Character.
• Esc Deadkey equivalent to the Alt modifier.

Close Terminal
• Ctrl + Shift + W To close terminal tab.
• Ctrl + Shift + Q To close entire terminal.

Alternatively, you can switch to the vi keybindings in bash using set -o vi. Use set -o emacs to
switch back to the emacs keybindings.

Searching for files by patterns in name/contents

A common and task of someone using the Linux Command Line (shell) is to search for
files/directories with a certain name or containing certain text. There are 2 commands you should
familiarise yourself with in order to accomplish this:

Find files by name

find /var/www -name '*.css'

This will print out the full path/filename to all files under /var/www that end in .css. Example output:

/var/www/html/text-cursor.css
/var/www/html/style.css

For more info:

man find

Find files containing text

grep font /var/www/html/style.css

This will print all lines containing the pattern font in the specified file. Example output:

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 font-weight: bold;
font-family: monospace;

Another example:

grep font /var/www/html/

This doesn't work as you'd hoped. You get:

grep: /var/www/html/: Is a directory

You need to grep recursively to make it work, using the -R option:

grep -R font /var/www/html/

Hey nice! Check out the output of this one:

/var/www/html/admin/index.php: echo '<font color=red><b>Error: no dice</b></font><br/>';

/var/www/html/admin/index.php: echo '<font color=red><b>Error: try again</b></font><br/>';
/var/www/html/style.css: font-weight: bold;
/var/www/html/style.css: font-family: monospace;

Notice that when grep is matching multiple files, it prefixes the matched lines with the filenames.
You can use the -h option to get rid of that, if you want.

For more info:

man grep

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Chapter 2: Change root (chroot)
Introduction
Change root (chroot) is an operation that changes the apparent root directory for the current
running process and their children. A program that is run in such a modified environment cannot
access files and commands outside that environmental directory tree.

Syntax
• chroot [destination path] [shell or command]

Examples
Manually changing root in a directory

1. Ensure you met all requirements, as per Requirements

2. Mount the temporary API filesystems:

cd /location/of/new/root
mount -t proc proc proc/
mount --rbind /sys sys/
mount --rbind /dev dev/
mount --rbind /run run/ (optionally)

3. If you need to use an internet connection in the chroot environment, copy over the DNS
details:

cp /etc/resolv.conf etc/resolv.conf

4. Change root into /location/of/new/root, specifying the shell (/bin/bash in this example):

chroot /location/of/new/root /bin/bash

5. After chrooting it may be necessary to load the local bash configuration:

source /etc/profile
source ~/.bashrc

6. Optionally, create a unique prompt to be able to differentiate your chroot environment:

export PS1="(chroot) $PS1"

7. When finished with the chroot, you can exit it via:

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 exit

8. Unmount the temporary file systems:

cd /
umount --recursive /location/of/new/root

Requirements

• root privileges
• another working Linux environment,such as Live CD boot or an existing distribution
• matching environment architectures of chroot source and destination (check current
environment architecture with uname -m)
• kernel modules which you may need in chroot environment must be loaded (for example,
with modprobe)

Reasons to use chroot

Changing root is commonly done for performing system maintenance on systems where booting
and/or logging in is no longer possible.

Common examples are:

• reinstalling the bootloader

• rebuilding the initramfs image
• upgrading or downgrading packages
• resetting a forgotten password
• building software in a clean root environment

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Chapter 3: Check Disk Space
Examples
Checking Disk Space

It's quite common to want to check the status of the various partitions/drives on your
server/computer to see how full they are. The following command is the one you'll want to run:

df -h

This will produce output similar to the following:

[root@mail ~]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_root
19G 1.6G 16G 9% /
tmpfs 245M 0 245M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1 485M 47M 413M 11% /boot

In this basic example, we can see that the / partition only has 9% used.

For a more complex example that also covers using df to see various mountpoints, see below:

[root@mail ~]# df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VG-root 1.9T 1.7T 89G 95% /
/dev/mapper/VG-var 431G 145G 264G 36% /var
devtmpfs 7.8G 204K 7.8G 1% /dev
tmpfs 7.8G 4.0K 7.8G 1% /dev/shm
/dev/md1 495M 126M 344M 27% /boot
ku.example.com:9421 2.5T 487G 2.0T 20% /mnt/test
tmpfs 500M 86M 415M 18% /var/ngx_pagespeed_cache

In this example, we have a / partition that's 95% full along with an additional /var partition that's
only 36% full.

It's got an external network mount of 2T that's mounted on /mnt/test and a ramdisk/tmpfs mount of
500M mounted on /var/ngx_pagespeed_cache.

Investigate Directories For Disk Usage

Sometimes it may be required to find out which directory consuming how much disk space
especially when you are used df -h and realized your available disk space is low.

du:

du command summarizes disk usage of the set of FILEs, recursively for directories.

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It's often uses with -sh option:

-s, --summarize
display only a total for each argument
-h, --human-readable
print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M 2G)

For summarizing disk usages of the files in the current directory we use:

du -sh *

Example output:

572K Documents
208M Downloads
4,0K Music
724K Pictures
4,0K Public
4,0K Templates
4,0K Videos

We can also include hidden files with using:

du -sh .[!.]* *

Example output:

6,3M .atom
4,0K .bash_history
4,0K .bash_logout
8,0K .bashrc
350M .cache
195M .config
12K .dbus
4,0K .dmrc
44K .gconf
60K .gem
520K .gimp-2.8
28K .gnome
4,0K .ICEauthority
8,3M .local
8,0K .nano
404K .nv
36K .pki
4,0K .profile
8,0K .ssh
0 .sudo_as_admin_successful
4,0K .Xauthority
4,0K .xsession-errors
4,0K .xsession-errors.old
572K Documents
208M Downloads
4,0K Music
724K Pictures
4,0K Public

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 4,0K Templates
4,0K Videos

Thirdly, you can add total to the output by adding ,-c, option:

du -sch .[!.]* *

Result:

.
.
.
4,0K Templates
4,0K Videos
769M total

Most importantly using du command properly on the root directory is a life saving action to find
out what application/service or user is consuming your disk space wildly. For example, in case of a
ridiculously low level of disk space availability for a web and mail server, the reason could be a
spam attack to your mail service and you can diagnose it just by using du command.

Investigate root directory for disk usage:

sudo du -sch /.[!.]* /*

Example output:

16K /.VolumeIcon.icns
24K /.VolumeIcon.png
13M /bin
57M /boot
4,0K /cdrom
620K /dev
13M /etc
779M /home
0 /initrd.img
406M /lib
3,9M /lib32
4,0K /lib64
16K /lost+found
4,0K /media
4,0K /mnt
367M /opt
du: cannot access '/proc/18221/task/18221/fd/4': No such file or directory
du: cannot access '/proc/18221/task/18221/fdinfo/4': No such file or directory
du: cannot access '/proc/18221/fd/4': No such file or directory
du: cannot access '/proc/18221/fdinfo/4': No such file or directory
0 /proc
20K /root
du: cannot access '/run/user/1000/gvfs': Permission denied
9,4M /run
13M /sbin
4,0K /srv
0 /sys
72K /tmp

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 3,5G /usr
639M /var
0 /vmlinuz
5,8G total

Lastly, the best method forms when you add a threshold size value for directories to ignore small
ones. This command will only show folders with more than 1GB in size which located under root
directory up to the farthermost branch of the whole directory tree in your file system:

sudo du --threshold=1G -ch /.[!.]* /*

Example output:

1,4G /usr/lib
1,8G /usr/share
3,5G /usr
5,8G total

Read Check Disk Space online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/6650/check-disk-space

https://riptutorial.com/ 19
Chapter 4: Compiling the Linux kernel
Examples
Compilation of Linux Kernel on Ubuntu

Warning: be sure you have at least 15 GB of free disk space.

Compilation in Ubuntu >=13.04

Option A) Use Git

Use git if you want to stay in sync with the latest Ubuntu kernel source. Detailed instructions can
be found in the Kernel Git Guide. The git repository does not include necessary control files, so
you must build them by:

fakeroot debian/rules clean

Option B) Download the source archive

Download the source archive - This is for users who want to rebuild the standard Ubuntu
packages with additional patches. Use a follow command to install the build dependencies and
extract the source (to the current directory):

1. Install the following packages:

sudo apt-get build-dep linux-image-`uname -r`

Option C) Download the source package and build

This is for users who want to modify, or play around with, the Ubuntu-patched kernel source.

1. Retrieve the latest kernel source from kernel.org.

2. Extract the archive to a directory and cd into it:

tar xf linux-*.tar.xz
cd linux-*

3. Build the ncurses configuration interface:

make menuconfig

4. To accept the default configuration, press → to highlight < Exit > and then Return.

5. Press Return again to save the configuration.

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 6. Use make to build the kernel:

make

Note that you can use the -jn flag to compile files in parallel and take advantage of multiple
cores.

The compressed kernel image can be found at arch/[arch]/boot/bzImage, where [arch] is equal to
uname -a.

Read Compiling the Linux kernel online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/379/compiling-the-linux-

kernel

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Chapter 5: Detecting Linux distribution name
and version
Syntax
• uname - to print information about your operating system.

uname [OPTION]

Examples
Detect what debian-based distribution you are working in

Just execute lsb_release -a.

On Debian:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux testing (stretch)
Release: testing
Codename: stretch

On Ubuntu:

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty

In case when you don't have lsb_release installed you may want to try some guessing, for
example, there is a file /etc/issue that often contains distribution name. For example, on ubuntu:

$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS \n \l

Don't use file /etc/debian_version because its contents do not match distribution name!

Note that this will also work on non-Debian-family distributions like Fedora, RHEL, or openSUSE
— but that lsb_release may not be installed.

Detect what RHEL / CentOS / Fedora distribution you are working in

Look at the contents of /etc/redhat-release

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 cat /etc/redhat-release

Here is the output from a Fedora 24 machine: Fedora release 24 (Twenty Four)

As mentioned in the debian-based response, you can also use the lsb_release -a command,
which outputs this from a Fedora 24 machine:

LSB Version: :core-4.1-amd64:core-4.1-noarch:cxx-4.1-amd64:cxx-4.1-noarch:desktop-4.1-

amd64:desktop-4.1-noarch:languages-4.1-amd64:languages-4.1-noarch:printing-4.1-amd64:printing-
4.1-noarch
Distributor ID: Fedora
Description: Fedora release 24 (Twenty Four)
Release: 24
Codename: TwentyFour

Detect what systemd-based distribution you are using

This method will work on modern versions of Arch, CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Fedora, Mageia,
openSUSE, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Ubuntu, and others. This
wide applicability makes it an ideal as a first approach, with fallback to other methods if you need
to also identify older systems.

Look at /etc/os-release. In specific, look at variables NAME, VERSION, ID, VERSION_ID, and PRETTY_NAME.

On Fedora, this file might look like:

NAME=Fedora
VERSION="24 (Workstation Edition)"
ID=fedora
VERSION_ID=24
PRETTY_NAME="Fedora 24 (Workstation Edition)"
ANSI_COLOR="0;34"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:fedoraproject:fedora:24"
HOME_URL="https://fedoraproject.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugzilla.redhat.com/"
REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT="Fedora"
REDHAT_BUGZILLA_PRODUCT_VERSION=24
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="Fedora"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION=24
PRIVACY_POLICY_URL=https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:PrivacyPolicy
VARIANT="Workstation Edition"
VARIANT_ID=workstation

On CentOS, this file might look like this:

NAME="CentOS Linux"
VERSION="7 (Core)"
ID="centos"
ID_LIKE="rhel fedora"
VERSION_ID="7"
PRETTY_NAME="CentOS Linux 7 (Core)"
ANSI_COLOR="0;31"
CPE_NAME="cpe:/o:centos:centos:7"

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 HOME_URL="https://www.centos.org/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.centos.org/"

CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT="CentOS-7"
CENTOS_MANTISBT_PROJECT_VERSION="7"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT="centos"
REDHAT_SUPPORT_PRODUCT_VERSION="7"

This file is documented on the freedesktop web site; in principle, it is not systemd specific — but it
will exist on all systemd-based distributions.

From the bash shell, one can source the /etc/os-release file and then use the various variables
directly, like this:

$ ( source /etc/os-release && echo "$PRETTY_NAME" )

Fedora 24 (Workstation Edition)

Uname - Print information about the current system

Uname is the short name for unix name. Just type uname in console to get information about your
operating system.

uname [OPTION]

If no OPTION is specified, uname assumes the -s option.

-a or --all - Prints all information, omitting -p and -i if the information is unknown.

Example:

> uname -a

SunOS hope 5.7 Generic_106541-08 sun4m sparc SUNW,SPARCstation-10

All the options:

-s, --kernel-name Print the kernel name.

-n, --nodename Print the network node hostname.

-r, --kernel-release Print the kernel release.

-v, --kernel-version Print the kernel version.

-m, --machine Print the machine hardware name.

-p, --processor Print the processor type, or "unknown".

-i, --hardware-platform Print the hardware platform, or "unknown".

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 -o, --operating-system Print the operating system.

--help Display a help message, and exit.

--version Display version information, and exit.

Detect basic informations about your distro

just execute uname -a.

On Arch:

$ uname -a
Linux nokia 4.6.4-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Jul 11 19:12:32 CEST 2016 x86_64
GNU/Linuxenter code here

find your linux os (both debian & rpm) name and release number

Most of linux distros stores its version info in the /etc/lsb-release (debian) or /etc/redhat-release
(RPM based) file. Using below generic command should get you past most of the Debian and
RPM derivatives as Linux Mint and Cent-Os.

Example on Ubuntu Machine:

cat /etc/*release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu DISTRIB_RELEASE=14.04 DISTRIB_CODENAME=trusty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 14.04 LTS"

using GNU coreutils

So the GNU coreutils should be avaialable on all linux based systems (please correct me if I am
wrong here).

If you do not know what system you are using you may not be able to directly jump to one of the
examples above, hence this may be your first port of call.

`$ uname -a

On my system this gives me the following...

`Linux Scibearspace 3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt25-2+deb8u3 (2016-07-02)

x86_64 GNU/Linux

Here you can see the following :

Scibearspace : the name of my pc

https://riptutorial.com/ 25
 • Scibearspace : the name of my pc
• 3.16.0-4-amd64 : the kernel and architecture
• SMP Debian 3.16.7-CKT25-2+deb8u3 : tells me I am running debian with the 3.16 kernel
• Finaly the last part I am running debian 8 (update 3).

I would welcome any others to add in results for RHEL, and SuSe systems.

Read Detecting Linux distribution name and version online:

https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/872/detecting-linux-distribution-name-and-version

https://riptutorial.com/ 26
Chapter 6: File Compression with 'tar'
command
Parameters

Common Options -

-c --create Create a new archive.

-x --extract Extract files from an archive.

-t --list List the contents of an archive.

-f --file=ARCHIVE Use archive file or dir ARCHIVE.

-v --verbose Verbosely list files processed.

Compression Options -

-a --auto-compress Use archive suffix to determine the compression program.

-j --bzip2 Filter the archive through bzip2.

-J --xz --lzma Filter the archive through xz.

-z --gzip Filter the archive through gzip.

Examples
Compress a folder

This creates a simple archive of a folder :

tar -cf ./my-archive.tar ./my-folder/

Verbose output shows which files and directories are added to the archive, use the -v option:

tar -cvf ./my-archive.tar ./my-folder/

For archiving a folder compressed 'gzip', you have to use the -z option :

tar -czf ./my-archive.tar.gz ./my-folder/

You can instead compress the archive with 'bzip2', by using the -j option:

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 tar -cjf ./my-archive.tar.bz2 ./my-folder/

Or compress with 'xz', by using the -J option:

tar -cJf ./my-archive.tar.xz ./my-folder/

Extract a folder from an archive

There is an example for extract a folder from an archive in the current location :

tar -xf archive-name.tar

If you want to extract a folder from an archive to a specfic destination :

tar -xf archive-name.tar -C ./directory/destination

List archive content

There is an example of listing content :

tar -tvf archive.tar

The option -t is used for the listing. For listing the content of a tar.gz archive, you have to use the
-z option anymore :

tar -tzvf archive.tar.gz

Compress and exclude one or multiple folder

If you want to extract a folder, but you want to exclude one or several folders during the extraction,
you can use the --exclude option.

tar -cf archive.tar ./my-folder/ --exclude="my-folder/sub1" --exclude="my-folder/sub3"

With this folder tree :

my-folder/
sub1/
sub2/
sub3/

The result will be :

./archive.tar
my-folder/
sub2/

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Strip leading components

To strip any number of leading components, use the --strip-components option:

--strip-components=NUMBER
strip NUMBER leading components from file names on extraction

For example to strip the leading folder, use:

tar -xf --strip-components=1 archive-name.tar

List contents of an archive

List the contents of an archive file without extracting it:

tar -tf archive.tar.gz

Folder-In-Archive/
Folder-In-Archive/file1
Folder-In-Archive/Another-Folder/
Folder-In-Archive/Another-Folder/file2

Read File Compression with 'tar' command online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/5097/file-

compression-with--tar--command

https://riptutorial.com/ 29
Chapter 7: Getting information on a running
Linux kernel
Examples
All information

Using the -a/--all flag will print all the available information about the kernel.

$uname -a
Linux hostname 3.13.0-88-generic #135-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jun 8 21:10:42 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64
x86_64 GNU/Linux

In this example, we see the kernel name, the hostname, the kernel release number, the kernel
version, the machine hardware name, the processor type, the hardware platform , and the
operating system name.

Any of those fields can be queried individually using other flags.

Getting details of Linux kernel.

We can use command uname with various options to get complete details of running kernel.

uname -a Linux df1-ws-5084 4.4.0-64-generic #85-Ubuntu SMP Mon Feb 20 11:50:30 UTC 2017
x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

As per man page here few more options

Usage: uname [OPTION]... Print certain system information. With no OPTION, same as -s.

-a, --all print all information, in the following order, except omit -p and -i if unknown: -s, --kernel-
name print the kernel name -n, --nodename print the network node hostname -r, --kernel-release
print the kernel release -v, --kernel-version print the kernel version -m, --machine print the machine
hardware name -p, --processor print the processor type (non-portable) -i, --hardware-platform print
the hardware platform (non-portable) -o, --operating-system print the operating system --help
display this help and exit --version output version information and exit

Read Getting information on a running Linux kernel online:

https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/6041/getting-information-on-a-running-linux-kernel

https://riptutorial.com/ 30
Chapter 8: Getting System Information
Introduction
Collection of commands to fetch system related information.

Examples
List Hardware

Ubuntu:

lshw is a small tool to extract detailed information on the hardware configuration of the machine. It
can report exact memory configuration, firmware version, mainboard configuration, CPU version
and speed, cache configuration, bus speed, etc.

$ sudo lshw | less (or more)

$ sudo lshw -html > myhardware.html
$ sudo lshw -xml > myhardware.xml

To show PCI info

$ lspci -tv

To see USB info

$ lsusb -tv

To display BIOS informations

$ dmidecode -q | less

To see specific information about disk (disk sda in example) you can use:

$ hdparm -i /dev/sda

Few additional utilities/commands will help gather some extra information:

$ smartctl -A /dev/sda | grep Power_On_Hours # How long has this disk (system) been powered on
in total
$ hdparm -tT /dev/sda # Do a read speed test on disk sda
$ badblocks -s /dev/sda # Test for unreadable blocks on disk sda

Find CPU model/speed information

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Ubuntu:

$ cat /proc/cpuinfo

Sample Output:

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 1596.000
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 4
core id : 0
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush
dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts
rep_good pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi
flexpriority
bogomips : 4800.18
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:
....
..
processor : 3
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 15
model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
stepping : 11
cpu MHz : 1596.000
cache size : 4096 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 4
core id : 3
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 3
initial apicid : 3
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 10
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush
dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts
rep_good pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi
flexpriority
bogomips : 4800.30
clflush size : 64

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 cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

count processor (including cores):

$ grep -c processor /proc/cpuinfo

Process monitoring and information gathering

Overall you have two ways to monitor processes at linux host

Static monitoring
Most widely used command is ps (i.e., process status) command is used to provide information
about the currently running processes, including their process identification numbers (PIDs).

Here few useful options to gather specific informations.

List processes in a hierarchy

$ ps -e -o pid,args --forest

List processes sorted by % cpu usage

$ ps -e -o pcpu,cpu,nice,state,cputime,args --sort pcpu | sed '/^ 0.0 /d'

List processes sorted by mem (KB) usage.

$ ps -e -orss=,args= | sort -b -k1,1n | pr -TW$COLUMNS

List all threads for a particular process ("firefox-bin" process in example )

$ ps -C firefox-bin -L -o pid,tid,pcpu,state

After finding specific process you can gather information related to it using lsof to list paths that
process id has open

$ lsof -p $$

Or based on path find out list processes that have specified path open

$ lsof ~

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Interactive monitoring
Most commonly known tool for dynamic monitoring is:

$ top

That mostly default command that have huge amount options to filter and represent information in
real time (in comparison to ps command.

Still there are more advance options that can be considered and installed as top replacement

$ htop -d 5

or

$ atop

Which has ability to log all the activities into log file (default atop will log all the activity on every
600 seconds) To this list there are few specialised commands as iotop or iftop

$ sudo iotop

Statistics about CPU, Memory, Network and Disk (I/O operations)

To get general statistics about main components of Linux family of stat commands are extremely
useful

CPU
To get processors related statistics you can use mpstat command but with some options it will
provide better visibility:

$ mpstat 2 10

Memory
We all know command free to show amount of (remaining) RAM but to see all statistic including
I/O operations:

$ vmstat 2 10

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Disk
To get general information about your disk operations in real time you can utilise iostat.

$ iostat -kx 2

Network
To be able to see what is happening with your network services you can use netstat

$ netstat -ntlp # open TCP sockets

$ netstat -nulp # open UDP sockets
$ netstat -nxlp # open Unix sockets

But you can find useful monitoring to see network traffic in real time:

$ sudo iftop

Optional
To generate statistics in real time related to I/O operations across all components you can use
dstat. That tool that is a versatile replacement for vmstat, iostat and ifstat

Using tools like lscpu and lshw

By using tools like lscpu as lscpu is an easy way to get CPU information.

$ lscpu
Architecture: x86_64
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 4
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 4
Socket(s): 1
NUMA node(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 23
Stepping: 10
CPU MHz: 1998.000
BogoMIPS: 5303.14
Virtualization: VT-x
L1d cache: 32K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 2048K
NUMA node0 CPU(s): 0-3

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By using tool lshw

$ lshw | grep cpu

df1-ws-5084
description: Computer
width: 64 bits
capabilities: vsyscall32
*-core
description: Motherboard
physical id: 0
*-memory
description: System memory
physical id: 0
size: 5881MiB
*-cpu
product: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G3220 @ 3.00GHz
vendor: Intel Corp.
physical id: 1
bus info: cpu@0
size: 3GHz
capacity: 3GHz
width: 64 bits

Read Getting System Information online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/8932/getting-system-

information

https://riptutorial.com/ 36
Chapter 9: GnuPG (GPG)
Introduction
GnuPG is a sophisticated key management system which allows for secure signing or encrypting
data. GPG is a command-line tool used to create and manipulate GnuPG keys.

GnuPG is most widely used for having SSH (Secure Shell) connections without password or any
means of interactive authentication, which improves security level significantly.

Following sections describe ways to create, use, and maintain security of GnuPG keys.

Examples
Create and use a GnuPG key quickly

Install haveged (example sudo apt-get install haveged) to speed up the random byte process.
Then:

gpg --gen-key
gpg --list-keys

outputs:

pub 2048R/NNNNNNNN 2016-01-01

uid Name <[email protected]>
sub 2048R/xxxxxxxx 2016-01-01

Then publish:

gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --send-keys NNNNNNNN

Then plan to revoke: https://www.hackdiary.com/2004/01/18/revoking-a-gpg-key/

Exporting your public key

In order for your public-private keypair to be of use, you must make your public key freely available
to others. Be sure that you are working with your public key here since you should never share
your private key. You can export your public key with the following command:

gpg —armor —export EMAIL_ADDRESS > public_key.asc

where EMAIL_ADDRESS is the email address associated with the key

Alternately, you can upload your public key to a public key server such as keys.gnupg.net so that
others can use it. To do so, enter the following in a terminal:

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gpg —list-keys

Then, search for the 8-digit string (the primary ID) associated with the key you want to export.
Then, issue the command:

gpg —send-keys PRIMARY_ID

where PRIMARY_ID is the actual ID of that key.

Now, the private key has been uploaded to the key server and is publicly available.

Read GnuPG (GPG) online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/2533/gnupg--gpg-

https://riptutorial.com/ 38
Chapter 10: LAMP Stack
Introduction
LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) consists of the Linux operating system as development
environment, the Apache HTTP Server as web server, the MySQL relational database
management system (RDBMS) as DB(Data Base) system, and the PHP programming language
as Server side (Back End) programming language.

LAMP is used as a Open Source stack of technologies solution to web development area.
Windows version of this stack is called WAMP(Windows Apache MySQL PHP)

Examples
Installing LAMP on Arch Linux

With this line we will install all the necessary packages in one step, and the last update:

pacman -Syu apache php php-apache mariadb

HTTP
Edit

/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Change ServerAdmin [email protected] as you need.

The folder of the WEB Pages by default is ServerRoot "/etc/httpd". Directory must be set to the
same folder, so change the line

<Directory "/etc/httpd">

This folder must have read and execution access, so

chmod o+x /etc/httpd

Change AllowOverride from none (default) to All so .htaccess will works.

Now you need the ~/public_html folder for each user. (to get the root page of each user as
http://localhost/~yourusername/. Unremark this line:

Include conf/extra/httpd-userdir.conf

Now as root you need to create the ~/public_html for each user and change the access to (755) of
each one.

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 chmod 755 /home
chmod 755 /home/username
chmod 755 /home/username/public_html

You can comment out this line if you want to use SSL:

LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so

If you need to use virtual domains, uncomment the line:

Include conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

and in /etc/httpd/conf/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf you must to add all the virtual domains. (plus into
/etc/hosts if you want to test those virtuals domains)

Edit /etc/httpd/conf/extra/httpd-default.conf and change ServerSignature to Off and

ServerToken to Prod for hiding critical data

PHP
Edit: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

Comment out: LoadModule mpm_event_module modules/mod_mpm_event.so

Uncomment: LoadModule mpm_prefork_module modules/mod_mpm_prefork.so

As last item in the LoadModule list, add LoadModule php7_module modules/libphp7.so

As last item in the include list, add Include conf/extra/php7_module.conf

Edit /etc/php/php.ini

Uncomment extension=mysqli.so and extension=pdo_mysql.so

Change the timezone as you need, for example:

date.timezone = America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires, date.default_latitude = 0.0,

date.default_longitude = 0.0

MySQL
Run as root:

mysql_install_db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql

Now you have the root of the MySQL Server.

Start MySQL daemon:

systemctl enable mysqld

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 systemctl start mysqld

At last, run:

sh /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation

That all to get a web server ready to be customized as you need.

Installing LAMP on Ubuntu

Install apache:

sudo apt-get install apache2

Install MySql:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

Install PHP:

sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

Restart system:

sudo systemctl restart apache2

Check PHP installation:

php -r 'echo "\n\nYour PHP installation is working fine.\n\n\n";'

Installing LAMP stack on CentoOS

Install Apache Web Server

First step is to install web server Apache.

sudo yum -y install httpd

Once it is installed, enable (to run on startup) and start Apache web server service.

sudo systemctl enable --now httpd

Point your browser to:

http://localhost

You will see the default Apache web server page.

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Install MariaDB Server
Second step is to install MariaDB:

sudo yum -y install mariadb-server

Then start and enable (on startup) the MariaDB server:

sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb

As needed, use mysql_secure_installation to secure your database.

This script will allow you to do the following:

• Change the root user's password

• Remove test databases
• Disable remote access

Install PHP
sudo yum -y install php php-common

Then restart Apache's httpd service.

sudo systemctl restart httpd

To test PHP, create a file called index.php in /var/www/html.

Then add the following line to the file:

Then point your browser to:

http://localhost/index.php

You should see information related to your server. If you do not, ensure that php is for sure
installed correctly by running the following command:

php --version

If you receive something like:

PHP 5.4.16 (cli) (built: Nov 6 2016 00:29:02) Copyright (c) 1997-2013 The PHP Group

Then PHP is installed correctly. If this is the case, please ensure that you've restarted your web
server.

Read LAMP Stack online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/6573/lamp-stack

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Chapter 11: ls command
Examples
ls command with most used options.

ls shows files and directories in present working directory. (if no arguments are passed.) (It doesn't
show hidden files which starts with . by default.)

user@ubuntu14:/usr$ ls
bin games include lib lib32 local sbin share src

To see all files (hidden files/folders also). Use ls -a OR ls -all

user@ubuntu14:/usr$ ls -a
. .. bin games include lib lib32 local sbin share src

To differentiate between files and folders and symbolic links and other, use ls -F OR ls --classify

user@ubuntu14:~$ ls -F
bash_profile_course chat_apps/ Desktop/ Downloads/ foxitsoftware/
Public/ test/ bin/ ClionProjects/ Documents/ IDE/ Music/
Pictures/ Templates/ Videos/

Here, ending characters are used to distinguish files and folders.

“/” suggest directory.

“*”suggest executables.

“@” suggest symbolic links.

To get more details about the files and directories, use ls -l

user@ubuntu14:~/example$ ls -l
total 6464

-rw-r--r-- 1 dave dave 41 Dec 24 12:19 Z.txt

drwxr-xr-x 2 user group 4096 Dec 24 12:00 a_directory
-rw-r--r-- 1 user group 6 Dec 24 12:01 a_file
lrwxrwxrwx 1 user group 6 Dec 24 12:04 a_link -> a_file
-rw-r--r-- 1 user group 6 Dec 24 12:03 a_newer_file
-rw-r----- 1 user group 6586816 Dec 24 12:07 big.zip

In this example, the total size of the contents is 6460KB.

Then there is an entry for each file/directory in alphabetical order with upper case before lower
case.

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The first character is the type (e.g. d - directory, l - link).

The next 9 characters show the permissions for the user, group and other.

This is followed by the number of hard links, then the owner's name and group.

The next field is the size in bytes. This can be displayed in a human friendly form by adding the -h
option e.g. 6586816 is displayed as 6.3M

There then follows a timestamp (usually the modification time).

The final field is the name. Note: links also show the target of the link.

Options for ls command

Full list of options:

ls -a list all files including hidden file starting with '.'

ls --color colored list [=always/never/auto]

ls -d list directories - with ' */'

ls -F add one char of */=>@| to enteries

ls -i list file's inode index number

ls -l list with long format - show permissions

ls -la list long format including hidden files

ls -lh list long format with readable file size

ls -ls list with long format with file size

ls -r list in reverse order

ls -R list recursively directory tree

ls -s list file size

ls -S sort by file size

ls -t sort by time & date

ls -X sort by extension name

Read ls command online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/5956/ls-command

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Chapter 12: Managing Services
Remarks
Some systems with systemd, such as Ubuntu, still allow the use of the service <name>
[start|stop|status] command, redirecting it to systemctl [start|stop|status] <name>.

Examples
Starting and Stopping Services

On systems that use the System-V style init scripts, such as RHEL/CentOS 6:

service <service> start

service <service> stop

On systems using systemd, such as Ubuntu (Server and Desktop) >= 15.04, and RHEL/CentOS
>= 7:

systemctl <service> dnsmasq

systemctl <service> dnsmasq

Getting the status of a service

On systems that use the System-V style init scripts, such as RHEL/CentOS 6:

service <service> status

On systems using systemd, such as Ubuntu (Server and Desktop) >= 15.04, and RHEL/CentOS
>= 7.0:

systemctl status <service>

Diagnosing a problem with a service

On systems using systemd, such as Fedora => 15, Ubuntu (Server and Desktop) >= 15.04, and
RHEL/CentOS >= 7:

systemctl status [servicename]

...where [servicename] is the service in question; for example, systemctl status sshd.

This will show basic status information and any recent errors logged.

You can see further errors with journalctl. For example,journalctl -xe will load the last 1000
logged into a pager (like less), jumping to the end. You can also use journalctl -f, which will
follow log messages as they come in.

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To see logs for a particular service, use the -t flag, like this:

journalctl -f -t sshd

Other handy options include -p for priority (-p warnings to see only warnings and above), -b for
"since last boot", and -S for "since" — putting that together, we might do

journalctl -p err -S yesterday

to see all items logged as errors since yesterday.

If journalctl is not available, or if you are following application error logs which do not use the
system journal, the tail command can be used to show the last few lines of a file. A useful flag for
tail is -f (for "follow"), which causes tail continue showing data as it gets appended to the file. To
see messages from most services on the system:

tail -f /var/log/messages

Or, if the service is privileged, and may log sensitive data:

tail -f /var/log/secure

Some services have their own log files, a good example is auditd, the linux auditing daemon,
which has its logs stored in /var/log/audit/. If you do not see output from your service in
/var/log/messages try looking for service specific logs in /var/log/

Read Managing Services online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/4809/managing-services

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Chapter 13: Midnight Commander
Introduction
Midnight Commander or mc is a console file manager. This topic includes the descripton of it's
functionalities and examples and tips of how to use it to it's full potential.

Examples
Midnight Commander function keys in browsing mode

Here is a list of actions which can be triggered in the Midnight Commander filesystem browsing
mode by using function keys on your keyboard.

F1 Displays help

F2 Opens user menu

F3 Displays the contents of the selected file

F4 Opens the selected file in the internal file editor

F5 Copies the selected file to the directory open in the second panel

F6 Moves the selected file to the directory open in the second panel

F7 Makes a new directory in the directory open in the current panel

F8 Deletes the selected file or directory

F9 Focuses to the main menu on the top of the screen

F10 Exits mc

Midnight Commander function keys in file editing mode

Midnight Commander has a built in editor which is started by F4 function key when over the
desired file in the browse mode. It can also be invoked in standalone mode by executing

mcedit <filename>

Here is a list of actions which can be triggered in the edit mode.

F1 Displays help

F2 Saves current file

F3 Marks the start of the text selection. Move cursor any direction to select. Second hit marks the

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end of the selection.

F4 Brings up the text search/replace dialog

F5 Copies selected text to the cursor location (copy/paste)

F6 Moves selected text to the cursor location (cut/paste)

F7 Brings up the text search dialog

F8 Deletes selected text

F9 Focuses to the main menu on the top of the screen

F10 Exits the editor

Read Midnight Commander online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/9691/midnight-commander

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Chapter 14: Modifying Users
Parameters

Parameter Details

The name of the user. Do not use capital letters, do not use dots, do not end it
username in dash, it must not include colons, no special characters. Cannot start with a
number.

Remarks
• You cannot remove a logged in user
• To modify any user but your own, you need root privileges

Examples
Setting your own password

passwd

Setting another user's password

Run the following as root:

passwd username

Adding a user

Run the following as root:

useradd username

Removing a user

Run the following as root:

userdel username

Removing a user and its home folder

Run the following as root:

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 userdel -r username

Listing groups the current user is in

groups

More detailed information about user and group numerical IDs can be found with the id command.

Listing groups a user is in

groups username

More detailed information about user and group numerical IDs can be found with id username.

Read Modifying Users online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/6260/modifying-users

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Chapter 15: Network Configuration
Introduction
This document covers TCP/IP networking, network administration and system configuration
basics. Linux can support multiple network devices. The device names are numbered and begin at
zero and count upwards. For example, a computer with two NICs will have two devices labeled
eth0 and eth1.

Examples
Interface details

Ifconfig

List all the interfaces available on the machine

$ ifconfig -a

List the details of a specific interface

Syntax: $ ifconfig <interface>

Example:

$ ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
inet addr:x.x.x.x Bcast:x.x.x.x Mask:x.x.x.x
inet6 addr: xxxx::xxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:4426618 errors:0 dropped:1124 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:189171 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:382611580 (382.6 MB) TX bytes:36923665 (36.9 MB)
Interrupt:16 Memory:fb5e0000-fb600000

Ethtool - query the network driver and hardware settings

Syntax: $ ethtool <interface>

Example:

$ ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: No

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 Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: Twisted Pair
PHYAD: 1
Transceiver: internal
Auto-negotiation: on
MDI-X: on (auto)
Supports Wake-on: pumbg
Wake-on: g
Current message level: 0x00000007 (7)
drv probe link
Link detected: yes

ip - show / manipulate routing, devices, policy routing and tunnels

Syntax: $ ip { link | ... | route | macsec } (please see man ip for full list of objects)

Examples

List network interfaces

$ ip link show

Rename interface eth0 to wan

$ ip link set dev eth0 name wan

Bring interface eth0 up (or down)

$ ip link set dev eth0 up

List addresses for interfaces

$ ip addr show

Add (or del) ip and mask (255.255.255.0)

$ ip addr add 1.2.3.4/24 brd + dev eth0

Adding IP to an interface

An IP address to an interface could be obtained via DHCP or Static assignment

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DHCP If you are connected to a network with a DHCP server running, dhclient command can get
an IP address for your interface

$ dhclient <interface>

or alternatively, you could make a change to the /etc/network/interfaces file for the interface to be
brought up on boot and obtain DHCP IP

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Static configuration(Permanent Change) using /etc/network/interfaces file

If you want to statically configure the interface settings(permanent change), you could do so in the
/etc/network/interfaces file.

Example:

auto eth0 # Bring up the interface on boot

iface eth0 inet static
address 10.10.70.10
netmask 255.255.0.0
gateway 10.10.1.1
dns-nameservers 10.10.1.20
dns-nameservers 10.10.1.30

These changes persist even after system reboot.

Static configuration(Temporary change) using ifconfig utility

A static IP address could be added to an interface using the ifconfig utility as follows

$ ifconfig <interface> <ip-address>/<mask> up

Example:

$ ifconfig eth0 10.10.50.100/16 up

Local DNS resolution

File: /etc/hosts contains a list of hosts that are to be resolved locally(not by DNS)

Sample contents of the file:

127.0.0.1 your-node-name.your-domain.com localhost.localdomain localhost

XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX node-name

The file format for the hosts file is specified by RFC 952

Configure DNS servers for domain name resolution

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File: /etc/resolv.conf contains a list of DNS servers for domain name resolution

Sample contents of the file:

nameserver 8.8.8.8 # IP address of the primary name server

nameserver 8.8.4.4 # IP address of the secondary name server

In case internal DNS server you can validate if this server resolve DNS names properly using dig
command:

$ dig google.com @your.dns.server.com +short

See and manipulate routes

Manipulate the IP routing table using route

Display routing table

$ route # Displays list or routes and also resolves host names

$ route -n # Displays list of routes without resolving host names for faster results

Add/Delete route

Option Description

add or del Add or delete a route

-host x.x.x.x Add route to a single host identified by the IP address

-net x.x.x.x Add route to a network identified by the network address

gw x.x.x.x Specify the network gateway

netmask x.x.x.x Specify the network netmask

default Add a default route

Examples:

• add route to a host $ route add -host x.x.x.x eth1

• add route to a network $ route add -net 2.2.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 eth0
• Alternatively, you could also use cidr format to add a route to network route add -net
2.2.2.0/24 eth0
• add default gateway $ route add default gw 2.2.2.1 eth0
• delete a route $ route del -net 2.2.2.0/24

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Manipulate the IP routing table using ip

Display routing table

$ ip route show # List routing table

Add/Delete route

Option Description

add or del or change or

Change a route
append or replace

the command displays the contents of the routing tables or

show or flush
remove it

restore restore routing table information from stdin

this command gets a single route to a destination and prints its

get
contents exactly as the kernel sees it

Examples:

• Set default gateway to 1.2.3.254 $ ip route add default via 1.2.3.254

• Adds a default route (for all addresses) via the local gateway 192.168.1.1 that can be
reached on device eth0 $ ip route add default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0

Configure a hostname for some other system on your network

You can configure your Linux (or macOS) system in order to tie in an identifier <hostname> to some
other system's IP address in your network. You can configure it:

• Systemwide. You should modify the /etc/hosts file. You just have to add to that file a new line
containing:

1. the remote system's IP address <ip_rem>,

2. one or more blank spaces, and
3. the identifier <hostname>.

• For a single user. You should modify the ~/.hosts file --- you-d have to create it. It is not as
simple as for systemwide. Here you can see an explanation.

For instance, you could add this line using the cat Unix tool. Suppose that you want to make a ping
to a PC in yout local network whose IP address is 192.168.1.44 and you want to refer to that IP
address just by remote_pc. Then you must write on your shell:

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 $ sudo cat 192.168.1.44 remote_pc

Then you can make that ping just by:

$ ping remote_pc

Read Network Configuration online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/8206/network-configuration

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Chapter 16: Package Managers
Examples
How to update packages with the apt package manager

The Advanced Package Tool, aptly named the 'apt' package manager can handle the installation
and removal of software on the Debian, Slackware, and other Linux Distributions. Below are some
simple examples of use:

update
This option retrieves and scans the Packages.gz files, so that information about new and updated
packages is available. To do so, enter the following command:

sudo apt-get update

upgrade
This option is used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system.
Packages currently installed with new versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no
circumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages not already installed
retrieved and installed. To upgrade, enter the following command:

sudo apt-get upgrade

dist-upgrade
In addition to performing the function of upgrade, dist-upgrade also intelligently handles changing
dependencies with new versions of packages. It will attempt to upgrade the most important
packages at the expense of less important ones if necessary. To do so, enter the following
command:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

How to update packages with the pacman package manager

To update a specific program:

sudo pacman -S <programName>

To update entire the system:

sudo pacman -Syu

How to install a package with the pacman package manager

In order to search for packages in the databse, searching both in packages' names and
descriptions:

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 pacman -Ss string1 string2 ...

To install a single package or list of packages (including dependencies), issue the following
command:

sudo pacman -S package_name1 package_name2 ...

source

How to update packages with yum

Yellowdog Updater, Modified, one of the last remaining vestiges of Yellow Dog Linux, is the
package manager used by Red Hat, Fedora, and CentOS systems and their derivatives. It can
handle the installation and removal of software packaged as rpms for these Linux distributions.
Below are some simple examples of use:

search
This command will attempt to locate software packages in the configured software repositories
that match the given search criteria, and display the name / version / repository location of the
matches it finds. To use it, enter the following command:

yum search <queryString>

install
This command will attempt to locate and install the named software from the configured software
repositories, recursively locating and installing any needed prerequisite software as well. To use it,
enter the following command:

sudo yum install <packageName>

update
This option is used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system.
Packages currently installed with new versions available are retrieved and upgraded; new
prerequisites are also retrieved and installed as necessary, and replaced or obsoleted packages
are removed. To upgrade, enter the following command:

sudo yum update

Unlike apt, most yum commands will also automatically check for updates to repository metadata
if a check has not been done recently (or if forced to do so) and will retrieve and scan updated
metadata so that information about new and updated packages is available before the requested
operation is performed.

Read Package Managers online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/5703/package-managers

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Chapter 17: SCP
Syntax
• scp [-rv] [-i identity_file] [[user@]host1:]file1 ... [[user@]host2:]file2

Examples
Basic Usage

# Copy remote file to local dir

scp [email protected]:/remote/path/to/foobar.md /local/dest

# Copy local file to remote dir

scp foobar.md [email protected]:/remote/dest

# Key files can be used (just like ssh)

scp -i my_key.pem foobar.md [email protected]:/remote/dest

Secure Copy

scp command is used to securely copy a file to or from a remote destination. If the file is in current
working directly only filename is sufficient else full path is required which included the remote
hostname e.g. remote_user@some_server.org:/path/to/file

Copy local file in your CWD to new directory

scp localfile.txt /home/friend/share/

Copy remote file to you current working

directory
scp [email protected]:/home/rocky/game/data.txt ./

Copy file from one remote location to another

remote location
scp [email protected]:/beacon/light/bitmap.conf [email protected]:/beacon/night/

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To copy directory and sub-directories use '-r'
recursive option to scp
scp -r [email protected]:~/project/* ./workspace/

Read SCP online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/5960/scp

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Chapter 18: Secure Shell (SSH)
Introduction
A secure shell is used to remotely access a server from a client over an encrypted connection.
OpenSSH is used as an alternative to Telnet connections that achieve remote shell access but are
unencrypted. The OpenSSH Client is installed on most GNU/Linux distributions by default and is
used to connect to a server. These examples show use how to use the SSH suite to for accept
SSH connections and connecting to another host.

Examples
Connecting to a remote server

To connect to a server we must use SSH on the client as follows,

# ssh -p port user@server-address

• port - The listening ssh port of the server (default port 22).
• user - Must be an existing user on the server with SSH privileges.
• server address - The IP/Domain of the server.

For a real world example lets pretend that you're making a website. The company you chose to
host your site tells you that the server is located at web-servers.com on a custom port of 2020
and your account name usr1 has been chosen to create a user on the server with SSH privileges.
In this case the SSH command used would be as such

# ssh -p 2020 [email protected]

If account name on the remote system is the same as the one one the local client you may leave
the user name off. So if you are usr1 on both systems then you my simply use web-servers.com
instead of [email protected].

When a server you want to connect to is not directly accessible to you, you can try using
ProxyJump switch to connect to it through another server which is accessible to you and can
connect to the desired server.

# ssh -J [email protected]:2020 [email protected] -p 2222

This will let you connect to the server 10.0.0.2 (running ssh on port 2222) through server at
10.0.0.1 (running ssh on port 2020). You will need to have accounts on both servers of course.
Also note that the -J switch is introduced in OpenSSH version 7.3.

Installing OpenSSH suite

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Both connecting to a remove SSH server and accepting SSH connections require installation of
openssh

Debian:

# apt-get install openssh

Arch Linux:

# pacman -S openssh

Yum:

# yum install openssh

Generate public and private key

To generate keys for SSH client:

ssh-keygen [-t rsa | rsa1 | dsa ] [-C <comment>] [-b bits]

For example:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 - C [email protected]

Default location is ~/.ssh/id_rsa for private and ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub for public key.

For more info, please visit man.openbsd.org

Configuring an SSH server to accept connections

First we must edit the SSH daemon config file. Though under different Linux distributions this may
be located in different directories, usually it is stored under /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Use your text editor to change the values set in this file, all lines starting with # are commented out
and must have this character removed to take any effect. A list of recommendations follow as
such.

Port (chose a number between 0 - 65535, normaly greater than four digits)
PasswordAuthentication yes
AllowUsers user1 user2 ...etc

Note that it is preferable to disable password logins all together and use SSH Keys for improved
security as explained in this document.

Disable ssh service

This will disable the SSH server side service, as if needed this will insure that clients cannot

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connect via ssh

Ubuntu

sudo service ssh stop

Debian

sudo /etc/init.d/ssh stop

Arch Linux

sudo killall sshd

Passwordless connection (using a key pair)

First of all you'll need to have a key pair. If you don't have one yet, take a look at the 'Generate
public and private key topic'.

Your key pair is composed by a private key (id_rsa) and a public key (id_rsa.pub). All you need to
do is to copy the public key to the remote host and add its contents to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
file.

One simple way to do that is:

ssh <user>@<ssh-server> 'cat >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys' < id_rsa.pub

Once the public key is properly placed in your user's home directory, you just need to login using
the respective private key:

ssh <user>@<ssh-server> -i id_rsa

Read Secure Shell (SSH) online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/7388/secure-shell--ssh-

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Chapter 19: Services
Examples
List running service on Ubuntu

To get a list of the service on your system, you may run:

service --status-all

The output of service --status-all lists the state of services controlled by System V.

The + indicates the service is running, - indicates a stopped service. You can see this by running
service SERVICENAME status for a + and - service.

Some services are managed by Upstart. You can check the status of all Upstart services with
sudo initctl list. Any service managed by Upstart will also show in the list provided by service --
status-all but will be marked with a ?.

ref: https://askubuntu.com/questions/407075/how-to-read-service-status-all-results

Systemd service management

Listing services
• systemctl To list running services
• systemctl --failed To list failed services

Managing Targets (Similar to Runlevels in SysV)

• systemctl get-default To find the default target for your system
• systemctl set-default <target-name> To set the default target for your system

Managing services at runtime

• systemctl start [service-name] To start a service
• systemctl stop [service-name] To stop a service
• systemctl restart [service-name] To restart a service
• systemctl reload [service-name] To request service to reload its configuration
• systemctl status [service-name] To show current status of a service

Managing autostart of services

• systemctl is-enabled [service-name] To show whether a service is enabled on system boot

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 • systemctl is-active [service-name] To show whether a service is currently active(running)
• systemctl enable [service-name] To enable a service on system boot
• systemctl disable [service-name] To disable a service on system boot

Masking services
• systemctl mask [service-name] To mask a service (Makes it hard to start a service by mistake)
• systemctl unmask [service-name] To unmask a service

Restarting systemd
systemctl daemon-reload

Read Services online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/6516/services

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Chapter 20: Shell
Introduction
The shell executes a program in response to its prompt. When you give a command, the shell
searches for the program, and then executes it. For example, when you give the command ls, the
shell searches for the utility/program named ls, and then runs it in the shell. The arguments and
the options that you provide with the utilities can impact the result that you get. The shell is also
known as a CLI, or command line interface.

Examples
Changing default shell

Most modern distributions will come with BASH (Bourne Again SHell) pre-installed and configured
as a default shell.

The command (actually an executable binary, an ELF) that is responsible for changing shells in
Linux is chsh (change shell).

We can first check which shells are already installed and configured on our machine by using the
chsh -l command, which will output a result similar to this:

[user@localhost ~]$ chsh -l

/bin/sh
/bin/bash
/sbin/nologin
/usr/bin/sh
/usr/bin/bash
/usr/sbin/nologin
/usr/bin/fish

In some Linux distributions, chsh -l is invalid. In this case, the list of all available shells can be
found at /etc/shells file. You can show the file contents with cat:

[user@localhost ~]$ cat /etc/shells

# /etc/shells: valid login shells
/bin/sh
/bin/bash
/sbin/nologin
/usr/bin/sh
/usr/bin/bash
/usr/sbin/nologin
/usr/bin/fish

Now we can choose our new default shell, e.g. fish, and configure it by using chsh -s,

[user@localhost ~]$ chsh -s /usr/bin/fish

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 Changing shell for user.
Password:
Shell changed.

Now all that is left to do is preform a logoff-logon cycle, and enjoy our new default shell.

If you wish to change the default shell for a different user, and you have administrative privileges
on the machine, you'll be able to accomplish this by using chsh as root. So assuming we want to
change user_2's default shell to fish, we will use the same command as before, but with the
addition of the other user's username, chsh -s /usr/bin/fish user_2.

In order to check what the current default shell is, we can view the $SHELL environment variable,
which points to the path to our default shell, so after our change, we would expect to get a result
similar to this,

~ echo $SHELL
/usr/bin/fish

chsh options:
-s shell

Sets shell as the login shell.

-l, --list-shells

Print the list of shells listed in /etc/shells and exit.

-h, --help

Print a usage message and exit.

-v, --version

Print version information and exit.

Basic Shell Utilities

Customizing the Shell prompt

Default command prompt can be changed to look different and short. In case the current directory
is long default command prompt becomes too large. Using PS1 becomes useful in these cases. A
short and customized command pretty and elegant. In the table below PS1 has been used with a
number of arguments to show different forms of shell prompts. Default command prompt looks
something like this: user@host ~ $ in my case it looks like this: bruce@gotham ~ $. It can changed as
per the table below:

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 Command Utility

PS1='\w $ ' ~ $ shell prompt as directory name. In this case root directory is Root.

PS1='\h $ ' gotham $ shell prompt as hostname

PS1='\u $ ' bruce $ shell prompt as username

PS1='\t $ ' 22:37:31 $ shell prompt in 24 hour format

PS1='@ $ ' 10:37 PM shell prompt in 12 hour time format

PS1='! $ ' 732 will show the history number of command in place of shell prompt

PS1='dude $ ' dude $ will show the shell prompt the way you like

Some basic shell commands

Command Utility

Ctrl-k cut/kill

Ctrl-y yank/paste

Ctrl-a will take cursor to the start of the line

Ctrl-e will take cursor to the end of the line

Ctrl-d will delete the character after/at the cursor

Ctrl-l will clear the screen/terminal

Ctrl-u will clear everything between prompt and the cursor

Ctrl-_ will undo the last thing typed on the command line

Ctrl-c will interrupt/stop the job/process running in the foreground

Ctrl-r reverse search in history

~/.bash_history stores last 500 commands/events used on the shell

history will show the command history

will show all the commands in history having keyword <key-word>

history | grep
<key-word> (useful in cases when you remember part of the command used in the
past)

Create Your Own Command Alias

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If you are tired of using long commands in bash you can create your own command alias.

The best way to do this is to modify (or create if it does not exist) a file called .bash_aliases in your
home folder. The general syntax is:

alias command_alias='actual_command'

where actual_command is the command you are renaming and command_alias is the new name you
have given it. For example

alias install='sudo apt-get -y install'

maps the new command alias install to the actual command sudo apt-get -y install. This means
that when you use install in a terminal this is interpreted by bash as sudo apt-get -y install.

Locate a file on your system

Using bash you can easily locate a file with the locate command. For example say you are looking
for the file mykey.pem:

locate mykey.pem

Sometimes files have strange names for example you might have a file like
random7897_mykey_0fidw.pem. Let's say you're looking for this file but you only remember the mykey
and pem parts. You could combine the locate command with grep using a pipe like this:

locate pem | grep mykey

Which would bring up all results which contain both of these pieces.

Note that not all systems have the locate utility installed, and many that do have not enabled it.
locate is fast and efficient because it periodically scans your system and caches the names and
locations for every file on it, but if that data collection is not enabled then it cannot tell you
anything. You can use updatedb to manually initiate the filesystem scan in order to update the
cached info about files on your filesystem.

Should you not have a working locate, you can fall back on the find utility:

find / -name mykey.pem -print

is roughly equivalent to locate mykey.pem but has to scan your filesystem(s) each time you run it for
the file in question, rather than using cached data. This is obviously slower and less efficient, but
more real-time. The find utility can do much more than find files, but a full description of its
capabilities is beyond the scope of this example.

Read Shell online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/2731/shell

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Chapter 21: tee command
Introduction
tee - read from standard input and write to standard output and files.

The tee command is named after the T-splitter in plumbing, which splits water into two directions
and is shaped like an uppercase T.

tee copies data from standard input to each FILE, and also to standard output. In effect, tee
duplicates its input, routing it to multiple outputs at once.

Syntax
• tee [OPTION]... [FILE]...

Parameters

Options Description

-a, --append Append to the given FILEs. Do not overwrite.

-i, --ignore-interrupts Ignore interrupt signals.

--help Display a help message, and exit.

--version Display version information, and exit.

Remarks
If a FILE is specified as a dash ("-"), tee writes again to standard output.

Examples
Write output to stdout, and also to a file

The following command displays output only on the screen (stdout).

$ ls

The following command writes the output only to the file and not to the screen.

$ ls > file

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The following command (with the help of tee command) writes the output both to the screen
(stdout) and to the file.

$ ls | tee file

Write output from the middle of a pipe chain to a file and pass it back to the
pipe

You can also use tee command to store the output of a command in a file and redirect the same
output to another command.

The following command will write current crontab entries to a file crontab-backup.txt and pass the
crontab entries to sed command, which will do the substituion. After the substitution, it will be
added as a new cron job.

$ crontab -l | tee crontab-backup.txt | sed 's/old/new/' | crontab –

write the output to multiple files

You can pipe your output to multiple files (including your terminal) by using tee like this:

$ ls | tee file1 file2 file3

Instruct tee command to append to the file

By default tee command overwrites the file. You can instruct tee to append to the file using the –a
option as shown below.

$ ls | tee –a file

Read tee command online: https://riptutorial.com/linux/topic/10588/tee-command

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Credits
S.
Chapters Contributors
No

7heo.tk, Ajay Sangale, annaken, Armali, caped114, colelemonz,

Community, Daniel Käfer, depperm, e.dan, EsmaeelE, Jarryd,
Getting started with Jensd, karel, KerDam, likewhoa, Mateusz Piotrowski, Mike P,
1
GNU/Linux mnoronha, Mohammad, Naveen Chakravarthy, Nikhil Raj,
Paradox, Rubio, Sudip Bhandari, sudo, tedm1106, Tejus Prasad
, TiansHUo, Todd, user, vishram0709, Whoami, Zumo de Vidrio

2 Change root (chroot) BrightOne

3 Check Disk Space mertyildiran, zyio

Compiling the Linux

4 Léo Léopold Hertz , Nathan Osman
kernel

Detecting Linux
Ani Menon, DaveM, fedorqui, lardenn, lcipriani, mattdm, Neil,
5 distribution name
Nikhil Raj, Sergey Stolyarov, Teddy
and version

File Compression
6 Baard Kopperud, embedded, Marsso, Not22
with 'tar' command

Getting information
7 on a running Linux fdeslaur, S.Rohit
kernel

Getting System
8 christian x, Deepak K M, Kiran Vemuri, S.Rohit, Y4Rv1K
Information

9 GnuPG (GPG) Aaron Skomra, BrightOne, Paradox, v7d8dpo4

Arden Shackelford, EsmaeelE, FOP, Nhan, Philip Kirkbride,

10 LAMP Stack
S.Rohit

11 ls command foxtrot9, parkydr, Philip Kirkbride

12 Managing Services Flamewires, mattdm

Midnight
13 user
Commander

14 Modifying Users geek1011, mattdm

15 Network ctafur, Kiran Vemuri, Y4Rv1K

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 Configuration

16 Package Managers Paradox, Philip Kirkbride, Rubio

17 SCP manav m-n, Riley Guerin

Anagh Hegde, BrightOne, C.W.Holeman II, EsmaeelE, Filipe,

18 Secure Shell (SSH)
Manuel, Rajesh Rengaraj, Todd, user

19 Services Ajay Sangale, Anagh Hegde, BrightOne, Federico Ponzi, leeor

Anagh Hegde, Ani Menon, Arden Shackelford, caped114,

20 Shell Emmanuel Mathi-Amorim, Jahid, Jensd, lardenn, oznek,
Paradox, Philip Kirkbride, Quaker, Rubio, Samuel L., user

21 tee command BrightOne, kuldeep mishra

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