SSH Commands
Your Bluehost Account includes SSH access. This is a list of common commands that you might use.
Common SSH Commands or Linux Shell Commands
Commands | Description |
cat | Print file contents to the screen |
cat filename.txt | Cat the contents of filename.txt to your screen |
cd - | Change directory |
cd .. | Go up a directory |
cd /usr/local/apache | Go to /usr/local/apache/ directory |
cd ~ | Go to your home directory |
cp -a /home/burst/new_design/* /home/burst/public_html/ | Copies all files, retaining permissions form one directory to another. |
cp | Copy a file |
cp filename filename.backup | Copies filename to filename.backup |
du | Shows disk usage. |
du -sh | Shows a summary in human-readable form of total disk space used in the current directory, including subdirectories. |
du -sh * | Same thing goes with (du -sh), but for each file and directory. This is helpful when finding large files taking up space. |
file | Attempts to guess what type of file a file is by looking at its content. |
file* | Prints out a list of all files/directories in a directory |
find * -type d|xargs -i cp --verbose php.ini {} | Copies your php.ini file into all directories recursively. |
grep | Looks for patterns in files |
grep -v root /etc/passwd | Shows all lines that do not match the root |
grep root /etc/passwd | Shows all matches of root in /etc/passwd |
kill | Terminate a system process |
kill : 9 PID EG | kill -9 431 |
kill PID EG | kill 10550 Use top or ps ux to get system PIDs (Process IDs) |
last | Shows who logged in and when |
last -20 | Shows only the last 20 logins |
last -20 -a | Shows last 20 logins, with the hostname in the last field |
ln | Create's "links" between files and directories |
ln -s /home/username/tmp/webalizer webstats | Now you can display http://www.yourdomain.com/webstats to show your Webalizer stats online. You can delete the symlink (webstats), and it will not delete the original stats on the server. |
ls | List files/directories in a directory, comparable to dir in windows/dos. |
ls -al | Shows all files (including ones that start with a period), directories, and details attributes for each file. |
more | Like a cat, but opens the file one screen at a time rather than all at once |
more /etc/userdomains | Browse through the userdomains file. hit Space to go to the next page, q to quit |
netstat | Shows all current network connections. |
netstat -an | Shows all connections to the server, the source, and destination IPs and ports. |
netstat -rn | Shows routing table for all IPs bound to the server. |
pico | Friendly, easy to use file editor |
pico /home/burst/public_html/index.html | Edit the index page for the user's website. |
ps | ps is short for process status, which is similar to the top command. It's used to show currently running processes and their PID. A process ID is a unique number that identifies a process, with that, you can kill or terminate a running program on your server (see kill command). |
ps aux | Shows all system processes |
ps aux --forest | Shows all system processes like the above but organizes in a beneficial hierarchy |
ps U username | Shows processes for a certain user |
rm | Delete a file |
rm filename.txt | Deletes filename.txt will more than likely ask if you really want to delete it |
rm -f filename.txt | Deletes filename.txt, will not ask for confirmation before deleting. |
rm -rf tmp/ | Recursively deletes the directory tmp and all files in it, including subdirectories. |
Be extremely careful with using "rm" command. If used improperly, you can end up deleting important content that can never be recovered without a restore.
tail | Like a cat, but only reads the end of the file |
tail -f /var/log/messages | Watch the file continuously while it's being updated |
tail /var/log/messages | See the last 20 (by default) lines of /var/log/messages |
tail -200 /var/log/messages | Print the last 200 lines of the file to the screen |
top | Shows live system processes in a nice table, memory information, uptime, and other useful info. This is excellent for managing your system processes, resources and ensure everything is working fine, and your server isn't bogged down. top Shift + M to sort by memory usage Shift + P to sort by CPU usage |
touch | Create an empty file |
touch /home/burst/public_html/404.html | Create an empty file called 404.html in the directory /home/burst/public_html/ |
vi | Another editor, tons of features |
vi /home/burst/public_html/index.html | Edit the index page for the user's website. |
w | Shows who is currently logged in and where they are logged in from. |
wc -l filename.txt | It tells how many lines are in filename.txt |
wc | word count. |
EG:
PID | TTY | TIME | COMMAND |
10550 | pts/3 | 0:01 | /bin/csh |
10574 | pts/4 | 0:02 | /bin/csh |
10590 | pts/4 | 0:09 | APP |
Each line represents one process, with a process being loosely defined as a running instance of a program. The column-headed PID (process ID) shows the assigned process numbers of the processes. The heading COMMAND shows the location of the executed process.
Putting commands together
Often you will find that you need to use different commands on the same line.
Here are some examples.
- The | character is called a pipe, and it takes a date from one program and pipes it to another.
- > means create a new file, overwriting any content already there.
- >> means to append data to a file, creating a new one if it does not already exist.
- < send input from a file back into a command.
- grep User /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf | more - This will dump all lines that match User from the httpd.conf, then print the results to your screen one page at a time.
- last -a > /root/lastlogins.tmp - This will print all the current login history to a file called lastlogins.tmp in /root/
- netstat -an | grep:80 | wc -l - Show how many active connections there are to apache (httpd runs on port 80)
- mysqladmin processlist | wc -l - Show how many current open connections there are to MySQL
- mysqldump -u username -p dbname > file.sql - MySQL Dump
- mysql -u username -p database_name <file.sql - Importing MySQL database
- tail -10000 /var/log/exim_mainlog | grep domain.com | more - This will grab the last 10,000 lines from /var/log/exim_mainlog, find all occurrences of domain.com (the period represents 'anything,' comment it out with a so it will be interpreted literally), then send it to your screen page by page.
- tar -zxvf file.tar.gz - UnTAR file
- which [perl] - Finding path to [perl]
If you need further assistance, feel free to contact us via Chat or Phone:
- Chat Support - While on our website, you should see a CHAT bubble in the bottom right-hand corner of the page. Click anywhere on the bubble to begin a chat session.
- Phone Support -
- US: 888-401-4678
- International: +1 801-765-9400
You may also refer to our Knowledge Base articles to help answer common questions and guide you through various setup, configuration, and troubleshooting steps.