Linux Commands Cheat Sheet for Developers

linuxbashclisysadmin

Frequently used Linux commands for day-to-day development and server administration.

Process Monitoring

bash

      # Real-time process viewer
top

# Interactive process monitor (better UI)
htop

# Monitor disk I/O per process
iotop

Finding Files

bash

      # Find by name (case-sensitive)
find ~ -name "foo"

# Find by name (case-insensitive)
find ~ -iname "foo"

# Find only directories
find . -type d -name "Doc*"

# Find only files
find . -type f -name "*.log"

# Find files containing a string
find . -type f -exec grep -l "search_term" {} +

# Find PHP files by extension
find /search/dir/ -type f -name "*.php" -print0 | xargs -I {} -0 grep "foo" "{}"

File Type Flags for `find`

Flag	Type
`d`	Directory
`f`	File
`l`	Symbolic link
`s`	Socket
`p`	Named pipe (FIFO)
`b`	Block special

Searching File Content

bash

      # Recursively find PHP files NOT starting with a comment
grep -rvlz $'^[[:space:]]*<?php\n/\*' --include='*.php'

Archiving

bash

      # Create tar.gz archive
tar -czf backup.tar.gz /path/to/dir

# Extract tar.gz
tar -xzf backup.tar.gz

# Zip multiple files
zip archive.zip file1 file2 file3

Journal Logs

bash

      # View system logs
journalctl -xe

# Follow logs in real-time
journalctl -f

# Filter by service
journalctl -u nginx.service --since "1 hour ago"

Process Monitoring

Finding Files

File Type Flags for find

Searching File Content

Archiving

Journal Logs

File Type Flags for `find`