RedHat Linux Commands Cheat Sheet [Free PDF Download]

RedHat Linux is a widely used operating system that offers many powerful tools and commands. This Linux distro is popular for its reliability, security and enterprise-level development environments. In this article, I will give you an extensive list of various RedHat Linux commands along with a cheat sheet in different formats.

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Red Hat Linux Commands

RedHat Linux is a distribution of Linux operating systems developed by RedHat. It provides commands and tools of various categories such as system configuration, security and identity, system information, software management, file and disk management and so on. The list of this article includes frequently used RedHat Linux commands of each category.

System Configuration Commands

System configuration commands in Linux are used to manage and configure various settings of the operating system, networking, storage devices etc. of the system. RedHat Linux provides a variety of tools and commands to configure the above aspects of the system.

Commands	Description
system -config -*	Configure various system settings
system -confiq -*-tui	Open text user interface version of system configuration tool
system -confiq -printer	Configure printer settings
system -confiq -date	Configure date and time settings
timedatectl	View and modify system’s date and time
date	Displays current date and time in the system’s default format
ntpdate	Manually synchronize system’s clock with a specified NTP server
chronyc	Monitor and manage system’s time synchronization
system -confiq -keyboard	Configure keyboard settings
localectl	Query and configure system’s locale and keyboard settings
ssh -keygen	Generate, manage and convert authentication keys

System Information Commands

The commands below help a user retrieve various information about the system such as system resources, running processes, connections, etc.

Commands	Description
subscription -manager identity	Display the identity of the currently subscribed system in Red Hat’s subscription management system
rhn_register	Register with Red Hat network Classic for software updates and support
sosreport	Collect system diagnostic information for troubleshooting purposes
demidecode	Display hardware information
lstopo	Display the topology of the system’s hardware, such as CPU cores and caches
lscpu	Display information about the system’s CPU architecture
cat /proc/cpuinfo	Display detailed information about the system’s CPU

Services Commands

Service commands are used to start, stop, enable, disable and check the status of system services. The following list contains a few of them.

Commands	Description
chkconfig –list	Displays the current status of services
ls /etc/init.d/	Lists the available startup scripts
systemctl -at service	Displays a list of all available services on the system
ls /etc/systemd/system/*.service	Lists all systemd unit files ending in .service
service — status -all	Displays the status of all available system services
systemctl -t service — state=active	Displays a list of active services managed by systemd
service name start	Starts the specified system service
service name stop	Stops the specified system service
systemctl start name .service	Starts the specified systemd service
systemctl stop name .service	Stops the specified systemd service
chkconfig name on	Enables the specified service to start automatically at boot time
chkconfig name off	Disables the specified service from starting automatically at boot time
systemctl enable name.service	Enables the specified systemd service to start automatically at boot time
systemctl disable name.service	Disables the specified systemd service from starting automatically at boot time
service name status	Displays the status of the specified system service

File and Disk Management Commands

Every Linux distro has a lot of file and disk management commands. The RedHat distro is no exception. These types of commands allow users to create, modify, delete, and mount files and directories.

Commands	Description
xfs	A file system format that supports large file sizes, high scalability and fast performance
gdisk	Manage GPT partition tables
ssm_create	Creates simple storage service volumes on AWS
fdisk	Manage traditional MBR partition tables
parted	Manage partition tables including support for GPT and MBR formats
ssm create	Create and manage SSM volumes on AWS
mkswap	Format a device or partition as swap space
mkfs.filesystem_type (ext4, xfs)	Format a device or partition with a specified file system type, such as ext4 or xfs
xfs_fsr	Defragment XFS file systems
ssm mount	Mount SSM volumes on AWS
fsck (look for ‘non-contiguous inodes’)	Check and repair the file system on a device or partition including checking for non-contiguous inodes
mount	Mount a file system to a specific directory
swapon -a	Activate all defined swap devices
lvdisplay	Display information about logical volumes
lvs	Display a summary of logical volumes
vgdisplay	Display information about volume groups
vgs	Display a summary of volume groups
pvdisplay	Display information about physical volumes
pvs	Display a summary of physical volumes
ssm create (if backend in lvm)	Create an SSM volume using Logical Volume Manager as the backend on AWS
pvcreate	Initialize a physical volume for use with LVM
vgcreate	Create a new volume group using one or more physical volumes
lvcreate	Create a new logical volume within a volume group
xfs_growfs	Expand an XFS file system after resizing a logical volume or partition
ssm resize	Resize an SSM volume on AWS
vgextend	Add one or more physical volumes to an existing volume group
lvextend	Expand the size of an existing logical volume
lvreduce	Shrink the size of an existing logical volume
ssm check	Check the health status of SSM volumes on AWS
showmount -e	Display the NFS exports on a given NFS server
systemctl reload nfs.service	Reload the configuration of the NFS service
chmod	Change the permissions of a file or directory
chown	Change the owner of a file or directory
chgrp	Change the group ownership of a file or directory
umask	Set the default file creation permissions
chattr	Set or remove file attributes such as making a file immutable or undeletable
setfacl	Modify file access control lists which allow fine-grained control over file permissions and access

Software Management Commands

This section includes the software management commands of Red Hat Linux. These commands are super helpful to install, update and remove software packages from the system.

Commands	Description
yum install	Install packages and dependencies from configured repositories
yum group install	Install a group of related packages from configured repositories
yum info	Display information about a specific package, including its version, size, and dependencies
yum group info	Display information about a group of packages and their dependencies
yum update	Update installed packages to the latest available versions
yum upgrade	Upgrade all packages on the system to their latest available versions
subscription -manager repos	Manage subscriptions and repositories
rpm -qf	Display the package name that owns a specified file
yum provides filenames -glob	Display which package provides a specific file or feature
rpm -q packagename	Display information about a specified package, including its version and architecture
yum list installed	Display a list of all installed packages
yum module install	Install a specific module stream and its dependencies
yum module info	Display information about a module, including its streams and profiles
yum module remove module_name:stream	remove a specific module stream and its dependencies
yum module reset module:stream	reset a specific module stream and remove all of its profiles
yum module list	Display a list of all available modules and their streams
rpm –checksig	Check RPM signature

Resource Management Commands

There are a variety of commands in RedHat Linux to monitor and manage system resources. They provide information about the system’s resource allocation and performance issues.

Commands	Description
strace	Traces system calls signals of a running program
ltrace	Traces library calls of a running program
nice or renice	Sets and modifies the priority of a running process
taskset	Assigns a specific processor or a set of processors to a running process
kill	Terminate a running process
pkill	Terminate a process or processes by their name or other attribute
killall	Terminate all processes with a specific name
ss	Displays network connections statistics and information
tuna	Tune system performance
pcp atop	Monitors system resources and performance, including CPU usage, memory usage, and disk I/O
top	Displays real-time information about the processes running on the system
ps	Displays a snapshot of the processes running on the system, including process IDs, resource usage, and other attributes
sar	Collects and reports system activity data, including CPU usage, memory usage, disk I/O, and network activity
iostat	Reports input/output statistics for block devices, including CPU utilization, I/O operations per second
vmstat	Displays virtual memory statistics, including systemwide statistics on CPU usage, memory usage, and disk I/O
mpstat	Reports processor-related statistics, including utilization, idle time, and other metrics
numastat	Reports non-uniform memory access allocation statistics for a system
pcp dstat	Collects system performance data
pmiostat	Reports input/output statistics for block devices with advanced features
df	Reports disk usage statistics for a file system, including the amount of free and used space

Archieve Commands

These types of commands are useful to create, manage, and extract files and directories from compressed archives. The below list contains only a few commands of this type

Commands	Description
tar	Create, extract and manage files in various archive formats
cpio	Create or extract archives in the cpio format
zip	Compress files and directories into a .zip archive format
xz	Compress and decompress files using .xz compression format

Network Commands

RedHat Linux offers a wide range of network commands. These commands are useful for checking network connectivity, testing DNS resolution, diagnosing network issues, and so on. The following commands are frequently used to manage and troubleshoot network-related problems.

Commands	Description
dig	Queries DNS servers to get DNS details
nmcli	Manage network connections
ip addr show	Display IP addresses and network information of the system
nmcli con show	Show the available network connections and their status
address	Specifies the IP address to assign to a network interface
nmcli con up	Bring up a network connection
nmcli con mod	Modify a network connection
hostnamectl set-hostname	Set the system’s hostname
netstat -rn	Display the system’s routing table
route -n	Show the routing table of the system
tcpdump -i	Capture and analyze network traffic
tcpdump	Capture and analyze network packets
ping	Test connectivity between two network hosts
telnet	Connect to a remote host using the Telnet protocol
nslookup	Query DNS servers to get information about domain names and IP addresses
netstat	Display network connections and routing tables

Kernel, Boot and Hardware Management Commands

Commands of this section are crucial to update the kernel, configure boot options and manage hardware resources etc. The brief list below may help a user quickly recall important commands to perform the above tasks.

Commands	Description
append 1 or s or rd.break	Adds kernel boot parameters to modify the default behavior during boot process
init=/bin/bash	Tells the init process to start a bash shell
shutdown	Stops the system and powers it off
systemctl poweroff	Shuts down the system and turns off the power
poweroff	Shuts down the system and turns off the power
systemctl halt	Halts the system and leaves it powered on
halt	Halts the system and leaves it powered on
systemctl reboot	Reboots the system
reboot	Reboots the system
systemctl set -default	Sets the default for the system at the boot time
grub2 -mkconfig	Regenerate GRUB configuration file
grub -set -default	Sets the default GRUB entry
lshw	Displays detailed information about the system’s hardware configuration
modprobe	Add or remove kernel modules from the Linux kernel
udev	Dynamic device management system for Linux
sysctl -a	Displays kernel parameters and their values
modprobe -r	Remove kernel modules from the Linux kernel
rpm -q kernel uname -r	Display information about the installed kernel version

User Management Commands

Use RedHat user management commands to create, modify, and delete users and groups, as well as to manage user privileges. Frequently used commands of this type are listed below:

Commands	Description
system -config -user	Manage user and group accounts
gnome -control -center	Manage system settings
useradd	Create a new user
userdel	Delete a user account
usermod	Modify an existing user account
vipw	Edit /etc/passwd file
id	Display user and group ID information
groupadd	Create a new group
groupdel	Delete a group
groupmod	Modify an existing group
/etc/group	Stores group information
passwd	Change a user’s password
visudo	Edit /etc/sudoers file
chage	Manage password expiration and aging policies
w	Display information about logged-in users

Security and Identity Commands

Commands of this section are used to monitor system activity, configure security settings and protect against unauthorized access. The following brief list of commands will help a user to perform the above tasks quite easily:

Commands	Description
semanage	Manage SELinux policy modules and configuration
setsebool	Modify SElinux boolean values
system -config -selinux	Manage SELinux policy settings
restorecon	Restore default SELinux security contexts on files and directories
chcon	Modify SELinux security contexts on files and directories
sealert	Analyze SELinux audit logs and provide recommendations for policy changes
authconfig	Configure various system authentication settings, including LDAP and Kerberos
authconfiq -tui	Launch the text-based user interface version of the authconfig tool
authconfiq -gtk	Launch the graphical user interface version of the authconfig tool
authselect	Configure authentication settings for local users and services
getend	Retrieve system account information, including user and group information

Conclusion

In conclusion, the RedHat Linux commands cheat sheet provides a quick reference for accessing various commands of different categories. It can be handy for any users to execute necessary commands in the quickest amount of time.

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