CentOS is a free and open-source Linux distribution based on the Red Hat Linux source code. Because of its stability, security, and ease of management, it is widely used in server environments. In this article, I have tried to provide a comprehensive CentOS command list, as well as a CentOS Commands Cheat Sheet, covering important commands, file management, network configurations, package management, and more. In simple words, you will have access to a handy reference guide that will allow you to recall CentOS commands and configurations as needed quickly.
Download Centos Cheat Sheet
What is CentOS Mostly Used for?
CentOS is a stable, reliable, and secure operating system which is commonly used for servers and workstations. It provides a plethora of tools and features for managing system resources, networking, security, and software packages. It is known for its long-term support and predictable release cycles. That’s why it is a popular choice for organizations and businesses that require a stable and secure operating system for their infrastructure.
Furthermore, this operating system is maintained and supported by a community of developers and users who contribute to its development and provide support through online forums and documentation. That’s why some developers may prefer this for web servers, cloud computing, virtualization, database servers, development environments, and desktops.
Centos Commands List
In this section, I’ve compiled a comprehensive CentOS Commands List to serve as a useful guide for system administrators and other users. I have divided this list into the following sections: system management and administration commands, user and group management, partitions and disk management, networking, process management, package management, and help commands. You can also save this list as a Centos cheat sheet.
System Management and Administration Commands
This section gives an overview of the most important commands for managing and administering CentOS systems. The commands in this section cover many functions, such as system monitoring, system reporting, process monitoring, and more.
The commands I have listed in this section cover a wide range of functions related to user and group management, such as creating and deleting users and groups, modifying user and group attributes, managing passwords, and more. Here you can find commands to perform a variety of tasks, such as listing files and directories, changing permissions and ownership, copying and moving files, navigating the file system, creating and removing directories, searching for files, and more. The commands I have covered here perform a wide range of tasks, such as showing disk usage, mounting and unmounting file systems, figuring out which processes are using which files or directories, and more. The commands that I have listed here perform a wide range of functions, such as network scanning, packet capturing, configuring network interfaces, routing, pinging, and more. In this section, I have listed commands that you can use to identify and manage processes, including terminating them when necessary. Here, you will find commands that can be used in listing running processes, displaying process trees, monitoring system resource usage, terminating processes, and more. You can use these commands for locating command binaries, identifying command locations, searching for command names or descriptions, and more. In this section, I have listed commands that can be used for tasks like clearing and exiting terminal, and displaying kernel module. To summarize, knowing how to use the CentOS commands is a must-have skill for system administrators and users who want to manage their systems effectively. Users can save time and effort by referring to this Centos cheat sheet when performing tasks on their CentOS systems. Moreover, this cheat sheet is an excellent starting point and reference guide for anyone learning how to use CentOS commands. I hope you found this article useful. Please leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions.Commands
Description
rpm -ql <packagename>
Lists the files installed by a specific RPM package
dpkg -L <packagename>
Lists the files installed by a specific Debian package
sosreport
Gathers information about the system’s configuration and status for troubleshooting purposes
bcwipe
Securely erases files or partitions
chkconfig
Controls the services that start automatically when a SysVinit system boots
dstat
Displays system resource usage statistics
fdisk
Enables users to view information regarding a disk’s partition layout as well as create, modify, and delete disk partitions.
systemd
Manages system services and processes
systemcl
Controls and manages systemd services and other system components
systemctl halt
Halts the Linux system
systemctl poweroff
Turns off the power of the system
systemctl reboot
Restarts the system
systemctl suspend
Suspends the Linux system
systemctl hibernate
Hibernates system
systemctl hybrid-sleep
Suspends and hibernates the system
systemctl disable firewalld
Disables the firewalld
systemctl start firewalld
Starts the firewalld
strace
Traces system calls and signals
shutdown
Shuts down or reboots a system
service
Calls the script to start, stop, and restart a daemon or service
lspci
Lists information about all the PCI buses and devices in the system
lsusb
Lists information about all the USB buses and devices in the system
last
Shows a list of all the users who have logged in and out of the system, along with the time and date of their sessions
quota
Displays and manages disk quotas for users and groups
strace
Traces system calls and signals
xrandr
Configurs display settings
xwininfo
Displays information about X windows
uname
Displays system information such as the operating system name, version, and architecture
localectl status
Displays locale settings
localectl list-locales
Lists all locales
locale list-keymaps
Lists keyboard mappings
timedatectl set-timezone time_zone
Sets timezone
timedatectl set-time YYYY-MM-DD
Sets date
timedatectl set-time HH:MM:SS
Sets time
timedatectl set-ntp yes
Enables ntp server
hostnamectl status
Views and modifies the system’s hostname and related settings
hostnamectl set-hostname <host-name>
Changes hostnames
hostnamectl set-hostname -H username@hostname
Sets hostname remotely
lsblk
Lists the block devices on the system
User and Group Management Commands
Commands
Description
alias
Create an alias or shortcut for another command
sudo
Allows a user to run commands with the security privileges of another user
useradd
Creates a new system user account
userdel
Removes a user from the system
usermod
Modifies an existing user account on the system
passwd
Changes a user account’s password
vipw
Edits the password file on the system
vigr
Changes the system’s group file
groupadd
Creates a new group on the system
groupdel
Removes a group from the system
groupmod
Modifies an existing group on the system
chage
Changes a user account’s password expiration and other account aging information
who
Displays users who are currently logged in
File and Directory Management Commands
Commands
Description
ls
Displays a list of the files and directories in the current working directory
ls -a
Lists all files and directories in the current directory, including hidden files
ls -aF
List every file and directory in the current directory, including hidden files, and add a character to every entry to denote the type of the file or directory.
ls -l
Lists in long format all files and directories in the current directory, including details such as permissions, owner, size, and modification time.
chmod
Changes a file’s permissions
chown
Changes a file’s ownership
cp
Copies files and directories
mv
Moves or renames files and directories
cd
Changes the current working directory
cd ..
Moves one level up from the current directory
cd ~
Moves one level back from the current directory
pwd
Shows the current working directory
ll
Provides detailed information about the files and directories in the current working directory
find
Searches for files and directories in a specified location
rm
Deletes files and directories
ln
Creates a hard or symbolic link between files
touch
Creates an empty file or updates the access and modification times of an existing file
less
Displays a file’s contents one page at a time
head
Displays the first ten lines of a file
tail
Displays the last ten lines of a file
wc
Counts the number of lines, words, and characters in a file
stat
Displays file information such as the owner, permissions, and timestamps
cut
Extracts specific columns or fields from a text file
paste
Combines lines from multiple files
diff
Compares two files and shows the differences between them
mkdir
Creates a new directory
rmdir
Removes an empty directory
grep
Searches text files or streams for a given pattern or regular expression
unzip
Unzips the archived files
dd
Copies a file, converting and formatting it according to the options specified
fsck
Checks and repairs filesystem integrity on unmounted filesystems.
locate
Uses a database to quickly locate files rather than searching the file system
tar
Archives and compresses files and directories
Partitions and Disk Management Commands
Commands
Description
fuser
Identifies which processes are currently using a particular file, directory, or socket
df
Provides information about the amount of disk space used by the file system
mount
Attaches a file system to a directory
unmount
Detaches a mounted file system from its mount point
du
Displays disk usage statistics for a file or directory
Networking Commands
Commands
Description
nmap
Scans for open ports and services on a network.
tcpdump
Captures and displays network traffic in real-time
ifconfig
Displays and configures network interface information
route
Displays and configures the network routing table
ip
Displays and sets up network interfaces, addresses, and routes
ping
Sends packets to a remote host in order to check the network’s connectivity
hostname
Displays or changes the hostname of the system
ifup
Brings up a network interface
ifdown
Brings a network interface down
iftop
Displays a list of network connections sorted by their bandwidth usage
iptop
Displays network traffic in real-time
netstat
Displays network connection information such as active connections and listening ports.
ss
Similar to netstat, but offers more thorough information
firewall-cmd
Allows users to open or close ports, enable or disable services, and create custom rules for network traffic management
iptraf
Views various network statistics, such as network traffic by IP address, port activity, and protocol distribution
jwhois
Obtains registration information for domain names and IP addresses
rsync
Copies and synchronizing files and directories between two system
Process Management Commands
Commands
Description
ps
Displays information about currently active processes
pstree
Displays a tree of currently running processes
top
Shows current system performance indicators and the processes utilizing the system’s resources
kill
Sends a signal to a process to end it
killall
Terminates all processes with the specified name
pkill
Sends signals to processes based on their name or other attributes
pgrep
Lists the process IDs (PIDs) of processes based on their name or other attributes
jobs
Lists the currently active jobs in the shell
init
Starts a process control
Package Management Commands
Commands
Description
yum
Enables users to install, update, and uninstall software packages and dependencies from local or remote repositories
yum search <package_name>
Searches for a package in the configured repositories
yum install <package_name>
Installs a package and its dependencies from the configured repositories
yum help install
Provides information on the options and syntax for the command
yum update
Updates all installed packages to their latest available version
yum check-update
Checks for available package updates in the configured repositories
yum update –security
Updates only the packages that have security updates available in the configured repositories
yum update <package_name>
Updates a specific package and its dependencies to their latest available version
yum remove <package_name>
Removes a package and its dependencies from the system
yum clean all
Removes all cached packages from the system to free up disk space
yum list installed
Lists all packages installed on the system
yum list all
Lists all packages available in the configured repositories, including installed and available packages
yum list updates
Lists only the packages that have available updates
yum list available
Lists all packages available in the configured repositories that are not currently installed on the system
yum info <package_name>
Displays detailed information about a package, including its description, version, and dependencies
yum deplist <package_name>
Displays the dependencies of a package and their details
yum erase <package_name>
Uninstalls a package and removes its dependencies that are no longer needed
yum autoremove
Removes packages that were installed as dependencies but are no longer required
yum grouplist
Lists all available package groups that can be installed or removed
yum clean all
Removes all cached package data from the system
yum check
Checks the system for any issues with dependencies and missing files
yum repolist
Displays a list of all configured repositories and their status, including the number of packages available
yum info <package_name>
Displays detailed information about a package
yum provides <file_name>
Finds which package provides a specific file on the system
yum history
Displays the system’s yum transaction history
yum groupinstall <group_name>
Installs a group of packages
yum groupremove <group_name>
Removes a group of packages
Help Commands
Commands
Description
whatis
Displays a brief description of a command
which
Locates the binary executable file associated with a command
whereis
Locates the binary, source, and manual page files associated with a command
apropos
Searches a specified database file set, then output the results as standard output
man
Shows the manual pages for a specific command
Miscellaneous Commands
Commands
Description
lsmod
Displays currently loaded kernel modules
exit
Exits a login terminal or session as a specific user
clear
Clears the terminal screen
cal
Displays a calendar for a specific month or year in the terminal
ncal
Displays calendar in a different format than cal command
bc
Performs mathematical calculations in a command line calculator
cron
Allows to schedule and automate recurring tasks on your system
crontab
Edits, creates, or views the cron jobs that are scheduled to run on a Linux system
date
Displays or set the system date and time
neofetch
Displays system information, such as the operating system, kernel version, CPU and GPU information, and more, in a visually appealing way
tree
Displays the directory structure of a file system in a tree-like format
at
Schedules a one-time task to run at a specified time in the future
tee
Redirects output from a command to a file and also display it on the terminal at the same time
Conclusion