20 Linux Commands Every DevOps Engineer Needs to Know

Straight to the point:

1. man – Understanding Linux Commands

One thing you will quickly discover when working with Linux is that there are many commands, and each command comes with different options and ways of using it.

You don't have to memorise everything. Linux provides manual pages (man pages) that explain how commands work, their available options, and their usage.

For example:

man ls

This opens the manual page for the ls command.

You can navigate through the manual using the arrow keys or Page Up and Page Down. When you are done, press q to quit.

This is particularly useful when working on servers where you may not have access to a browser or when you need to understand an option before using it.

2. sudo – Running Commands with Elevated Privileges

In Linux, not every user has permission to perform every operation.

For example, installing software, modifying certain system files, and managing system services usually require administrative privileges.

This is where sudo comes in.

sudo apt install nginx

The command runs with elevated privileges, allowing you to install Nginx on your system.

You may also come across:

sudo su

This opens a root shell, allowing you to run multiple commands with administrative privileges.

However, I would recommend using sudo for individual commands rather than staying logged in as root for prolonged periods. Running everything as root increases the risk of accidentally modifying or deleting important system files.

To leave a root shell, run:

exit

3. pwd – Knowing Your Current Location

Have you ever navigated through several directories and suddenly forgotten where you are?

The pwd command solves that problem.

It stands for Print Working Directory and displays the full path of your current location.

pwd

Example output:

/home/michael/DevOps

When managing servers, you will often move between application directories, configuration folders, log directories, and other system locations.

Knowing your current directory helps you avoid running commands against the wrong files or folders.

4. ls – Listing Files and Directories

The ls command allows you to see the files and directories in your current location.

ls

However, there are a few options that make it more useful.

ls -l

Displays files in a detailed format, including permissions, ownership, file size, and modification dates.

ls -a

Displays hidden files and directories, including files such as .bashrc and .ssh.

ls -lah

Combines the options to show hidden files, detailed information, and human-readable file sizes.

This is one of the commands you will use regularly when inspecting application directories, checking configuration files, and investigating file permissions.

5. cd – Navigating Between Directories

The cd command allows you to change your current directory.

For example:

cd /var/www

This moves you into the /var/www directory.

To move one directory backwards:

cd ..

To move up two levels:

cd ../..

You can also return to your home directory by running:

cd ~

One small habit worth developing is using the Tab key for autocomplete. Instead of typing an entire directory name, start typing the first few characters and press Tab.

It saves time and reduces mistakes, especially when working with long directory paths.

6. mkdir – Creating Directories

The mkdir command allows you to create directories.

For example:

mkdir DevOps

This creates a directory called DevOps in your current location.

You can also create multiple directories at once:

mkdir logs backups scripts

Another useful option is -p, which allows you to create nested directories even when the parent directories do not exist.

mkdir -p /var/www/myapp/logs

You will find this useful when preparing server environments and organising application files.

7. touch – Creating Files

While mkdir creates directories, touch can create empty files.

touch app.py

This creates an empty file called app.py.

You can also create several files at once:

touch Dockerfile requirements.txt .env

An important detail is that touch does not overwrite the contents of an existing file. It updates its timestamps instead.

You will often use it when creating configuration files, scripts, and other application files.

8. cp – Copying Files and Directories

The cp command allows you to copy files from one location to another.

For example:

cp app.py backups/

This creates a copy of app.py inside the backups directory while leaving the original file in place.

To copy an entire directory and its contents, use the recursive option:

cp -r myapp backups/

This can be useful when creating backups of configuration files or application directories before making changes.

9. mv – Moving and Renaming Files

The mv command is used to move files and directories from one location to another.

For example:

mv app.py /var/www/myapp/

This moves the file into the specified directory.

You can also use mv to rename files:

mv old_config.conf new_config.conf

Unlike cp, mv does not leave a second copy behind.

When working with Linux servers, you may use it to organise application files, move configuration files, or rename files during deployment.

Be careful when moving files into directories where another file has the same name, as it may replace the existing file.

10. rm – Removing Files and Directories

The rm command allows you to delete files.

rm app.py

To remove a directory and everything inside it, you can use:

rm -r myapp

You may also encounter:

rm -rf myapp

Here, -r means recursive, while -f forces removal without prompting for confirmation in many situations.

Be very careful with this command.

A wrong path can result in deleting important application files, configuration files, or even critical system data.

Always check your current directory using pwd and inspect the target using ls before running destructive commands. Avoid running recursive deletion commands with sudo unless you fully understand what you are removing.

11. cat – Reading File Contents

The cat command allows you to display the contents of a file directly in the terminal.

cat config.txt

This is particularly useful when checking configuration files or reading application settings.

For example:

cat /etc/hosts

Displays the contents of the system's hosts file.

You can also combine cat with other commands using a pipe.

cat config.txt | grep "DATABASE"

This displays only the lines containing the word DATABASE.

For very large files, commands such as less are often more convenient because they allow you to navigate through the contents without printing everything at once.

12. echo – Printing and Writing Text

The echo command prints text to the terminal.

echo "Hello DevOps"

However, it is also useful when writing information into files and working with environment variables.

For example:

echo "Hello DevOps" > message.txt

The > operator writes the text into the file. If the file already exists, its previous contents will be replaced.

To append instead of replacing the contents, use >>.

echo "Learning Linux commands" >> message.txt

You can also use echo to check environment variables.

echo $HOME
echo $PATH

This becomes useful when troubleshooting application environments, checking configuration values, and working with deployment scripts.

One important thing: avoid using echo to write secrets into shell commands or scripts that may end up in shell history or logs.

13. grep – Searching Through Files

Imagine you are working on a server and have a configuration file containing hundreds of lines. You want to find a particular setting without reading everything.

This is where grep becomes useful.

For example:

grep "DATABASE" .env

This searches for lines containing DATABASE in the .env file.

You can also search recursively through directories:

grep -r "DEBUG" /var/www/myapp/

Some useful options include:

• -i ignores uppercase and lowercase differences.
• -n displays line numbers.
• -r searches recursively through directories.
• -v displays lines that do not match the search.

For example:

grep -in "error" application.log

This searches for the word error, regardless of case, and displays the matching line numbers.

For DevOps engineers, grep is particularly useful when investigating application logs, checking configuration files, and troubleshooting deployment issues.

14. find – Finding Files and Directories

The find command allows you to search for files and directories based on their names, types, sizes, modification times, and other conditions.

For example:

find /var/www -name "Dockerfile"

This searches the /var/www directory and its subdirectories for files named Dockerfile.

To find all files ending in .log:

find /var/log -type f -name "*.log"

To find directories:

find /var/www -type d

Unlike locate, which searches an indexed database, find searches the specified directory tree directly.

This is useful when investigating where application files are stored, locating configuration files, and identifying old files that may need attention.

You may also encounter locate, which can quickly search for files by name using a pre-built index. Its database may need updating before newly created files appear.

15. history – Viewing Previously Executed Commands

The history command displays commands you have previously executed in your terminal.

history

This can be particularly useful when you have forgotten a command you ran earlier or want to repeat a previous operation.

You can search through your command history using:

history | grep "docker"

You may also execute a previous command using its history number:

!25

This executes command number 25 from your history.

You can configure Bash to display timestamps alongside your command history:

export HISTTIMEFORMAT="%d-%m-%Y %T "

This makes it easier to see when commands were executed, provided the shell has recorded the relevant timestamps.

However, remember that shell history is not a complete audit log. Commands may not be recorded, and it should not be treated as a reliable security record.

16. chmod – Managing File Permissions

Linux uses permissions to control who can read, write, and execute files and directories.

There are three main permission types:

• Read (r): Allows a user to read a file.
• Write (w): Allows a user to modify a file.
• Execute (x): Allows a user to execute a file or access a directory.

These permissions are assigned to three categories:

• Owner: The user who owns the file.
• Group: Users belonging to the assigned group.
• Others: Everyone else.

The chmod command allows us to modify these permissions.

For example:

chmod 755 deploy.sh

This gives the owner read, write, and execute permissions, while the group and others receive read and execute permissions.

Another example:

chmod 644 config.txt

This gives the owner read and write permissions, while the group and others can only read the file.

You can also use:

chmod +x deploy.sh

This adds execute permission without replacing the other existing permissions.

This is particularly useful when working with deployment scripts, application files, and server configuration.

A common mistake is using chmod 777 on everything because an application is having permission issues. This gives everyone read, write, and execute permissions, which can create serious security problems. It is better to understand the actual permission requirement and assign only what is necessary.

17. chown – Changing File Ownership

While chmod manages permissions, chown allows you to change the ownership of files and directories.

For example:

sudo chown michael app.py

This changes the owner of app.py to michael.

You can also change both the owner and group:

sudo chown michael:developers app.py

To apply the change recursively to a directory and its contents:

sudo chown -R michael:developers /var/www/myapp

This is especially useful when deploying applications.

For example, if an application runs under a particular Linux user, the application files may need to be owned by that user or a suitable group.

Understanding the difference between ownership and permissions is important when troubleshooting issues such as applications being unable to read configuration files or write to log directories.

18. useradd – Creating Linux Users

Linux allows you to create different user accounts with different permissions and access levels.

The useradd command is used to create new users.

For example:

sudo useradd michael

This creates a user account called michael.

If you want to create a user with a home directory and an interactive Bash shell, you can use:

sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash michael

You can then set the user's password using:

sudo passwd michael

Another useful command is groupadd, which creates a new group.

sudo groupadd developers

You can add an existing user to that group using usermod:

sudo usermod -aG developers michael

The -aG options append the user to the specified supplementary group without removing their existing supplementary group memberships.

These commands are useful when managing server access, separating responsibilities, and ensuring that different users have only the permissions they need.

19. apt – Installing and Managing Software

Most Linux distributions have a package manager that helps you install, update, and remove software.

On Ubuntu and other Debian-based distributions, one of the package managers you will frequently encounter is APT.

To update the package information from configured repositories, run:

sudo apt update

To upgrade installed packages:

sudo apt upgrade

To install a package:

sudo apt install nginx

To remove a package:

sudo apt remove nginx

You can also install multiple packages in one command:

sudo apt install nginx docker.io git curl

As a DevOps engineer, you will regularly install and configure software such as Nginx, Docker, Git, Python, and other server dependencies.

Understanding package management is important because keeping software updated is part of maintaining a secure and reliable server.

Note that APT is used on Debian-based distributions. Other Linux distributions use different package managers, such as dnf on Fedora and many RHEL-based systems.

20. systemctl – Managing Linux Services

This is one of the commands I consider particularly important for anyone working with Linux servers.

Linux runs several background services that perform different tasks. These may include web servers, databases, SSH, monitoring agents, and other application services.

On most modern Linux distributions using systemd, systemctl is used to manage these services.

For example, to check the status of Nginx:

sudo systemctl status nginx

To start a service:

sudo systemctl start nginx

To stop it:

sudo systemctl stop nginx

To restart it:

sudo systemctl restart nginx

To make a service start automatically when the server boots:

sudo systemctl enable nginx

You can also check whether a service is enabled:

sudo systemctl is-enabled nginx

Imagine you have deployed a Django application behind Nginx and Gunicorn. If your website suddenly stops responding, checking the status of these services is one of the first things you may want to do.

For example:

sudo systemctl status nginx
sudo systemctl status gunicorn

Understanding how to manage services is an important part of server administration and application troubleshooting.

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Other Commands Worth Learning

The 20 commands above provide a good starting point, but there are several others from the book that I would recommend adding to your learning list.

For processing command output:

awk
cut
xargs

• awk helps extract specific columns or process structured text.
• cut extracts specific characters or fields from lines of text.
• xargs takes input from one command and passes it as arguments to another.

For example:

who | awk '{print $1}'

This extracts the usernames from the output of who.

cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd

This extracts the first field from each line of the Linux user account file.

For monitoring and troubleshooting:

ps aux
top
df -h
du -sh /var/log
free -h
ss -tulpn

These are particularly important for DevOps work.

• ps aux displays running processes.
• top provides a live view of system processes and resource usage.
• df -h shows available and used disk space across mounted filesystems.
• du -sh shows the size of a directory or file.
• free -h displays memory usage.
• ss -tulpn helps inspect listening network sockets and associated processes (some process details require elevated privileges).

For example, if an application stops responding, you may need to investigate whether the server has run out of memory, whether a process has stopped, or whether the required network port is listening.

For reading logs:

journalctl -u nginx

This displays logs for the Nginx service managed by systemd.

To follow new log entries as they appear:

journalctl -u nginx -f

This is useful when investigating why a service failed or monitoring what happens after restarting an application.

Final Thoughts

Learning Linux commands is not about memorising hundreds of commands or trying to become an expert in every available option. It is about understanding what you are trying to achieve and knowing which tools can help you get there.

As a DevOps engineer, you will spend a considerable amount of time working with servers, deploying applications, managing services, checking logs, configuring permissions, and troubleshooting problems.

You may not use every command every day, but you should be comfortable navigating the terminal and knowing where to look when something goes wrong. My advice is to practise these commands on an Ubuntu virtual machine or a Linux environment using WSL. Create files, move them around, install packages, create users, change permissions, and inspect running services.

Don't just read the commands. Use them.

The more comfortable you become with the Linux terminal, the easier it becomes to work with Docker, CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure, and other DevOps tools.