10 Lesser‑Known Linux Commands Every Sysadmin Should Master

This article introduces ten useful Linux commands that many users may not have encountered, explaining their purpose and providing example usages.

pgrep

Lists process IDs matching criteria, similar to using ps combined with grep and awk.

$ pgrep -u hchen
22441
22444

Equivalent to:

ps -ef | egrep '^hchen' | awk '{print $2}'

pstree

Displays the process hierarchy as a tree.

[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]$ pstree
init-+-acpid
     |-auditd-+-python
     |        `-{auditd}
     |-automount---4*[{automount}]
     |-backup.sh---sleep
     |-dbus-daemon
     |-events/0
     |-events/1
     |-hald---hald-runner---hald-addon-acpi
     |-httpd---10*[httpd]
     |-irqbalance
     |-khelper
     |-klogd
     |-ksoftirqd/0
     |-ksoftirqd/1
     |-kthread-+-aio/0
     |         |-aio/1
     |         |-ata/0
     |         |-ata/1
     |         |-ata_aux
     |         |-cqueue/0
     |         |-cqueue/1
     |         |-kacpid
     |         |-kauditd
     |         |-kblockd/0
     |         |-kblockd/1
     |         |-kedac
     |         |-khubd
     |         |-6*[kjournald]
     |         |-kmirrord
     |         |-kpsmoused
     |         |-kseriod
     |         |-kswapd0
     |         |-2*[pdflush]
     |         |-scsi_eh_0
     |         |-scsi_eh_1
     |         |-xenbus
     |         `-xenwatch
     |-migration/0
     |-migration/1
     |-6*[mingetty]
     |-3*[multilog]
     |-mysqld_safe---mysqld---9*[{mysqld}]
     |-smartd
     |-sshd---sshd---sshd---bash---pstree
     |-svscanboot---svscan-+-3*[supervise---run]
     |                     |-supervise---qmail-send-+-qmail-clean
     |                     |                        |-qmail-lspawn
     |                     |                        `-qmail-rspawn
     |                     `-2*[supervise---tcpserver]
     |-syslogd
     |-udevd
     |-watchdog/0
     |-watchdog/1
     `-xinetd

bc

A calculator language for arbitrary‑precision arithmetic, useful for operations like square‑root calculations.

#!/bin/bash
if [ $ ]; then
    echo 'Usage: sqrt number'
    exit 1
else
    echo -e "sqrt($1)
quit
" | bc -q -i
fi

Example usage:

[hchen@RHELSVR5]$ ./sqrt 36
6
[hchen@RHELSVR5]$ ./sqrt 2.0000
1.4142
[hchen@RHELSVR5]$ ./sqrt 10.0000
3.1622

split

Divides a large file into smaller pieces of a specified size.

[hchen@RHELSVR5 applebak]# ls -l largefile.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 436774774 04-17 02:00 largefile.tar.gz
[hchen@RHELSVR5 applebak]# split -b 50m largefile.tar.gz LF_
[hchen@RHELSVR5]# ls -l LF_*
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 52428800 05-10 18:34 LF_aa
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 52428800 05-10 18:34 LF_ab
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 52428800 05-10 18:34 LF_ac
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 52428800 05-10 18:34 LF_ad
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 52428800 05-10 18:34 LF_ae
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 52428800 05-10 18:35 LF_af
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 52428800 05-10 18:35 LF_ag
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 52428800 05-10 18:35 LF_ah
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen 17344374 05-10 18:35 LF_ai

Recombine the parts:

[hchen@RHELSVR5]# cat LF_* >largefile.tar.gz

nl

Numbers lines of a file, similar to cat but adds line numbers.

[hchen@RHELSVR5 include]# nl stdio.h | head -n 10
     1  /* Define ISO C stdio on top of C++ iostreams.
     2  Copyright (C) 1991,1994-2004,2005,2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     3  This file is part of the GNU C Library.
     4  The GNU C Library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
     5  modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
     6  License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
     7  version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
     8  The GNU C Library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,

mkfifo

Creates a named pipe (FIFO) for inter‑process communication.

[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# mkfifo /tmp/hchenpipe
[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# ls -l /tmp
prw-rw-r-- 1 hchen hchen 0 05-10 18:58 hchenpipe

Write to the pipe (blocks until read):

[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# ls -al > /tmp/hchenpipe

Read from the pipe (unblocks the writer):

[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# head /tmp/hchenpipe
drwx------ 8 hchen hchen    4096 05-10 18:27 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root  root     4096 03-05 00:06 ..
drwxr-xr-x 3 hchen hchen    4096 03-01 18:13 backup
-rw------- 1 hchen hchen     721 05-05 22:12 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen      24 02-28 22:20 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen     176 02-28 22:20 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen     124 02-28 22:20 .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root    14002 03-07 00:29 index.htm
-rw-r--r-- 1 hchen hchen   31465 03-01 23:48 index.php

ldd

Shows the shared libraries required by an executable.

[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# ldd /usr/bin/java
        linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0x00cd9000)
        libgij.so.7rh => /usr/lib/libgij.so.7rh (0x00ed3000)
        libgcj.so.7rh => /usr/lib/libgcj.so.7rh (0x00ed6000)
        libpthread.so.0 => /lib/i686/nosegneg/libpthread.so.0 (0x00110000)
        librt.so.1 => /lib/i686/nosegneg/librt.so.1 (0x009c8000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x008b5000)
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0x00bee000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00aa7000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/i686/nosegneg/libc.so.6 (0x0022f000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/i686/nosegneg/libm.so.6 (0x00127000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00214000)

col

Converts formatted man pages to plain text.

# PAGER=cat
# man less | col -b > less.txt

xmlwf

Validates an XML file for well‑formedness.

[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# curl 'https://coolshell.cn/?feed=rss2' > cocre.xml
[...download progress omitted...]
[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# xmlwf cocre.xml
[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# perl -i -pe 's@<link>@<br>@g' cocre.xml
[hchen@RHELSVR5 ~]# xmlwf cocre.xml
cocre.xml:13:23: mismatched tag

lsof

Lists open files; useful for finding which processes hold network sockets.

[root@RHELSVR5 ~]# lsof | grep TCP
httpd       548    apache    4u     IPv6   14300967    TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd       548    apache    6u     IPv6   14300972    TCP *:https (LISTEN)
httpd       561    apache    4u     IPv6   14300967    TCP *:http (LISTEN)
httpd       561    apache    6u     IPv6   14300972    TCP *:https (LISTEN)
sshd       1764      root    3u     IPv6       4993    TCP *:ssh (LISTEN)
... (additional lines omitted for brevity) ...