Useful Terminal Commands
Table of contents
whois
Get Information for a Domain Name
whois google.com
hostinfo
Get information about system hardware, kernel, processors and memory.
hostinfo
alias
Create a shortcut for a command or multiple commands
alias mfs="php artisan migrate:fresh --seed"
mfs # runs php artisan migrate:fresh --seed
host
Get IP Address / DNS records for a given domain name
host github.com
# Returns nameservers for domain
host -t ns google.com
compgen
List all commands that could be run on the system
compgen -c
Pipe output through grep to find a specific command
compgen -c | grep searchTerm
List builtin commands
command -b
less
Read a file - can move up and down through file
less index.js
Can use j and k to traverse up and down the file.
head & tail
head file.js # Gets first 10 lines of file
tail file.js # Gets last 10 lines of file
tar
Create compressed archive files.
# Command structure
tar -czf [compressedFileName] [directoryToCompress]
tar -czf compressed.tar.gz folder/
The -c flag creates a new archive, -z uses gzip compression and -f specifies archive file
lsof
List what process is running on a specific port
lsof -i :3000
df
Show free disk space information
df -h # -h flag formats file sizes in human readable format
printenv
Print environment variables
printenv
grep
Search a given input file
less file.txt | grep searchTerm
The grep command is often used in conjunction with piping - sending an output of a command as an input to another.
man
Show manual pages for a command
man chmod
The output of the man command is shown in a vim-like editor. You can use j, k and other vim shortcuts to traverse the output.