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Common SSH Commands (An Idiot's Guide)

Posted on 09/25/2010 at 09:25 am by Kevin Wentworth
Viewed 13,441 times | 2 comments

Well, I never thought I would be saying this, but I'm starting to love using SSH to manage certain elements of my server.  Now that I'm using ssh bash to make some updates to my server, I find myself constantly hunting for the simple commands.  I'm going to put all the commands I need below, because I'm the idiot and it's my guide.

Changing Directories / Navigating

cd /dir/to/go/to/

cd .. (up a directory; that's a space, then dot-dot)

cd - (back to last directory, space-hyphen)

dir  (list directories in current directory)

Delete/Remove a Directory

rm -r -f <directory> (-r = recursive; -f = without any confirmation prompts)

List File/Folder Attributes

ls -laF (-laF = no clue; that's why I'm making this guide)

Change Ownership

chown -R <user> <directory> (-R = recursive, capital R)

Change Group

chgrp -R <group> <directory> (-R = recursive)

Targeting Current Directory

. = current directory

Change Current User (create shell)

su <username> (will stay in same directory, just switch user)

su - <username> (- = will go to home directory of the user)

exit - to exit the current su/shell

Making a SymLink

ln -s /home/source/dir/ /home/target/sym/link/dir

Removing a Symlink (see)

rm /home/target/sym/link/dir (no trailing slash)

unlink /home/target/sym/link/dir (no trialing slash)

From the above list, you can see how advanced my knowledge of bash is...

Cheers,
-Kevin Wentworth