Advice for everyday Unix systems administration and some clever ways to approach more challenging problems.
The pidof and pgrep commands make selecting and using process IDs on the Linux command line painless.
Here's how to use screenfetch and neofetch tools to display some of the most important configuration information on your Linux system.
The Linux sort command has an impressive number of ways to sort, from alphanumeric to random. Here's a look at some of the more useful ones.
Failed logins can be legitimate human error or attempts to hack your Linux system, but either way they might flag something that warrants attention.
The ps command makes it fairly easy to sort its output by any column of data. In fact, you can sort it in the normal or reverse order. In this post, I'll present the --sort option and show how to use it. I'll also touch on how to pass ps ou....
Adding a tag to a Linux command can make it a little easier to reuse it. If you're struggling to remember complex commands or important locations in the file system, tags might help you out.
Midnight Commander is a powerful tool that provides an easy way to browse, compare, move, modify and manipulate files.
The usermod command allows you to make a lot of different changes to user accounts without having to carefully edit files like /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow and /etc/group. It's definitely worth your time to look into it.
When you disown a Linux process in bash, you keep it from being terminated when you log out and allow it to finish on its own. This post shows how to use the disown command.
Linux gives you lots of ways to create complexity in passwords that include a lot more than just length, such as mixing upper- and lower-case letters with numerals and punctuation marks along with other restrictions.
The youtube-dl tool makes it very easy to download both webm and mp4 files on Linux systems. You just need the tool and the right URLs.
Ranger is a great tool for providing a multi-level view of your Linux files and allowing you to both browse and make changes using arrow keys and some handy commands.
This post describes testdisk, one of the tools that comes in handy for recovering recently deleted files (along with fixing partitions in other ways).
The lshw (list hardware) command on Linux systems provides a lot more information on system devices than most of us might imagine is available.
The shopt builtin offers 53 settings that can alter how bash behaves. Read this post and then refer to bash's man page to follow up on how these settings might work for you.
The stat command isn't only for looking at file details one file at a time. It can also be used to create file listings that contain just the information you want to see – with considerably more than an ls -l command.
Using bash aliases in Linux can save time and having to remember complex commands - and it can be fun, too.
Linux commands can provide details on files and show options for customizing file listings, but can also reach as deeply into a file system as you care to look.
Process accounting can provide a lot of details that can help monitor user and system activity on Linux. Here's a look at how it works and what kind of data it provides.
Using Linux commands to find words that, when reversed, turn into other words turned out to be an enjoyable mental challenge. How many can you find?
There are quite a few ways to merge and sort text files on Linux. The command to choose depends on your data and your preferences.
The Linux operating system runs all 500 of the world’s fastest supercomputers, which help to advance artificial intelligence, machine learning and even COVID-19 research.
Dig is a powerful and flexible tool for interrogating domain name system (DNS) servers. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into how it works and what it can tell you.
With a modest string of commands, you can get a quick look at what commands you're using on your Linux system and how often.
A lot of encryption tools are available for Linux systems. In this post, we look at some easy-to-use commands and a script for making the process even easier.
Displaying and interpreting information about Linux releases is a bit more complicated than it might seem.
Extracting files from archives isn't difficult, but it can be tedious, especially with all the archive naming conventions in use today. But you can make the task a little easier by putting everything you know about the process into a clever litt....
Stressing your Linux servers can be a good idea if you'd like to see how well they function when they're loaded down. In this post, we'll look at some tools that can help you add stress and gauge the results.
In this post, we look at commands that Linux server admins can use to view user activity
Looping forever on the command line or in a bash script is easy. Coming up with the reasons why you want to interrupt an infinite loop and how you want to do that requires a little more effort.
How to use the cat, more, head and tail commands to look at the content of Linux files, not just text files.
A symlink or "symbolic link" is a Linux file that simply points at another file. If the referenced file is removed, the symlink will remain but not indicate there's a problem until you try to use it. Here are some easy ways to find and....
tmux is a terminal multiplexer – a tool that allows you to open multiple panes in a single terminal window and run separate commands in each of them. This post provides an introduction to tmux including how to navigate between the panes and pr....
Opening a Linux terminal on a Windows 10 desktop can help you practice your Linux skills and explore Windows from an entirely different point of view. In this post, we look at Ubuntu 18.04 running through Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).
The ls command is far from the only command that can let you examine running processes on Linux. Let's run through some command options and what they can tell you.
You can easily set up a Linux command that keeps trying until it succeeds. Let's look at how to loop your way to success
Attending Red Hat Summit 2020 from my home office was not just informative. It was encouraging and reassuring. And, while it's over now, you can still go.
Linux systems don't only know a lot of words, it has commands that can help you use them by finding words that are on the tip of your tongue or fixing your typos.
There are a number of tools that you use to compress files on Linux systems, but they don't all behave the same way or yield the same level of compression. In this post, we compare five of them.
The bash shell's history command in Linux makes it easy to review and reuse commands, but there's a lot you do to control how much it remembers and how much forgets.
The at command makes it easy to schedule Linux tasks to be run at any time or date you choose. Check out what it can do for you.
The cd command is probably one of the first 10 that any Linux user learns, but it's not the only way to navigate the Linux file system.Here are some other ways.
We take a look at ufw - the uncomplicated firewall - on Linux, providing some insights and commands for making changes.
Linux system log files are by default set to rotate. Depending on the age or size, a sequence of files moves back a step, the oldest being removed and a new one taking over as the current log file. When needed, however, you can manually invoke the ....
With proper settings, Linux users can be forced to periodically change their passwords. Here's how to view password aging settings and how to configure some of the settings.
Linux systems offer a number of easy commands for sending messages to other logged in users. In this post, we examine some very handy messaging tools.
The watch and tail commands can help monitor activity on Linux systems. This post looks at some helpful ways to use these commands.
The find command has a huge array of options to help you locate exactly the files you're looking for on a Linux system. This post explores a series of extremely useful commands.
The dig command is extremely versatile both for retrieving information from domain name servers and for troubleshooting.
The man pages on a Linux system can do more than provide information on particular commands. They can help discover commands you didn't realize were available.
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