Important Linux and Unix Commands

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Necessary Linux / Unix Commands

There are a lot of articles on the web regarding Linux commands. Here I have listed some of my favorite Linux commands.  These commands are little bit more advanced than those mentioned in the general blog but very useful.

      • Check top usages process
        ps -eo pid,user,ppid,cmd,%mem,%cpu --sort=-%cpu | head
      • Start service at startup in CentOS/Redhat 7
        systemctl enable httpd
      • Check the listening port on Linux 
        netstat -atupn | grep LISTEN
        netstat -atupn | grep LISTEN | grep ":22"
        lsof -i:22
      • Check the IO performance
        iostat -x 5

        The above command continuously prints the IO stat on the screen at 5-second intervals

      • Check the Process performance
        pidstat -h -U -r -d 5

        The above command continuously prints the process stat on the screen at 5-second intervals

      • Find all files following a pattern
        find /home/mdn2000/ms-h/bin  -name "core*"

        Description:  The above command finds all files prefixed with core and show them on the screen

      • Find all files following a pattern and older than a specific time
        find /home/mdn2000/ms-h/bin  -name "core*"  -ctime +7

        Description: The above command finds all files  prefixed with core  and older than 7 day

      • Find all files following a pattern and older than a specific time and then move them specific directory
        find /home/huawei/mdn2000/ms-h/bin -name "core.hmsserver*"  -ctime +7 -exec mv  {} /home/hms/data/c/core_backup/   \;

        Description: The above command finds all the files  prefixed with core and older than a specific time and then move them to specific directory

      • Compress and archive all files of a specific pattern
        i) tar -czvf test.tar.gz *.unl
        ii) tar –czvf test.tar.gz prm*
        

        Description: The first command will compress and archive all files with the suffix /file extension  “.unl”. The second one will compress and archive all files with the prefix  “prm” .  Here gzip compress is used which is very efficient.

      •  Uncompress and Untar
        tar -xzvf  test.tar.gz

        Description: The above command will untar and uncompress  all  files that were previously   archived  and compressed  as file name test.tar.gz  by “ tar –czvf” command

      • Copy all files recursively from the web
        wget --recursive --no-parent --no-clobber --execute robots=off http://public-yum.oracle.com/repo/OracleLinux/OL5/latest/
      • Check how many HTTP processes are running
        # ps -ylC  httpd  | wc  -l

        Description: The above command shows how many httpd processes are running.  When more requests come to the  Webserver ( Apache, Nginx etc.), it spawns more processes.   Generally, the process  consumes  more memory and CPU.

      • Boot Redhat / Oracle Linux in Single user/Rescuew mode
        During boot time press e and then add rd.break at the end of linux kernel reference line. CTRl +X will let
        you log in single use rmode. After log in run the following command
        mount -o remount,rw /
        chroot /sysroot/
        
        or 
        replace "ro" of kernel reference line with "rw init=/sysroot/bin/sh" and CTRL +X. After log in run
        chroot /sysroot/
      • Rescan newly added space on an existing disk (Especially applicable on Cloud & Virtual environment)
        dd iflag=direct if=/dev/sdg of=/dev/null count=1
        echo "1" | sudo tee /sys/class/block/sdg/device/rescan
        or 
        partprobe

        Description: /dev/sdg is already present in the server. From Cloud / virtual management console disk space is increased.

      • Rescan all disks (Especially applicable on Virtual environment)
        for device in /sys/class/scsi_disk/*; do
        echo "Rescanning $device"
        echo 1 > "$device/device/rescan"
        done
      • Check total and average  memory consumption of a process For httpd process:
        # ps -ylC httpd | awk '{x += $8;y += 1} END {print "Apache Memory Usage (MB): "x/1024; print "Average Process Size (MB): "x/((y-1)*1024)}'
        
        Apache Memory Usage (MB): 284.121
        
        Average Process Size (MB): 10.523
        

        For mysqld process:

        # ps -ylC mysqld  | awk '{x += $8;y += 1} END {print "MySQL Memory Usage (MB): "x/1024; print "Average Process Size (MB): "x/((y-1)*1024)}'
        
        MySQL Memory Usage (MB): 15840.1
        Average Process Size (MB): 15840.1
        

        Description:  The above two commands will output how much total memory is consumed by Apache and MySQL server  as well as the average memory consumption of a process. For Apache many httpd process are spawned but for MySQL only one mysqld process is spawned.

      • Increase partition szie in AIX:
        chfs -a size=+500000 /var

        The above command will increase the size of /var parttion with 50 MB. /var must be part of LV that can take free sapce from its VG

      • Check which package is required to be installed for a command  by yum for Centos/Redhat
        # [root@localhost ~]# yum whatprovides netstat
        Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
        Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
         * base: centosmirror.go4hosting.in
         * extras: centos.ustc.edu.cn
         * updates: centos.ustc.edu.cn
        net-tools-2.0-0.17.20131004git.el7.x86_64 : Basic networking tools
        Repo : @base
        Matched from:
        Filename : /usr/bin/netstat

        Description:  The above command will show to activate netstat command( if it is not already installed on your Linux server), you need to install  net-tools package. So the next command will be

        #yum install net-tools

      • Activate tcp/udp port in firewall at Redhat7/Cen0S7Allow the  port  through firewalld:
      •     firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=21/tcp

        And reload the firewall:

            firewall-cmd --reload

                Description: Here we activate ftp port 21 so that the remote host can get FTP access

         

      • Block an ip/network at Linux firewalls
        firewall-cmd --permanent --add-rich-rule="rule family='ipv4' source address='' reject"
        firewall-cmd --reload

        Remove the previous bloked IP/Network

        firewall-cmd --permanent --remove-rich-rule="rule family='ipv4' source address='' reject"
        firewall-cmd --reload 
        
      • Split a big file into smaller ones according to the line
      •     split -l 200000  -d  NID_formatted.txt  nid

         Description:  The file  NID_formatted.txt contains 2000000 lines.  The split command will divide it into 10 files containing each 200000 lines. -d option will add a numeric suffix (length 2) and nid is the prefix. so the splitted files name will be nid00, nid01, nid02 ……. nid19. If you do not use -d option, the suffix will be alphanumeric which will generate files like nidaa, nidbb … and so on.