File System Commands

File Structure

• Show file system, list -l, all -a, human readable file sizes -h

df -lah  

Directory and File Size

• Show recursive files and directory sizes starting in the current directory, -h make file size human readable, -c show total size

du -hc * 

• Show files and directories size in the current directory, -s summarize, combines directories and files, -h make file size humane readable, -c show total size

du -shc ./*

• Show total current directory size, includes all recursive files and directories

du -sh ./  

• Show files and directories size in the current directory, -s summarize, combines directories and files, -h make file size humane readable, pipe through 'sort -h' to sort by size

du -sh * | sort -h  

List Directories

• Show files and directories in -l list format, -a all, -h human readable file size

ls -lah

• Show files, sort by date, human readable

ls -lath 

• Show number of files in a directory

ls | wc -l  

• List only subdirectories in current directory, ls -d1 */ will list vertically

ls -d */

Copy Files

• cp, copy command, using the {,-bak} at the end creates a copy with an appended extension, result: /home/usr/filename.jpg-bak. Second example matches all with the same extension and adds an appeneded extention.

cp /home/usr/filename.jpg{,-bak}
cp /home/usr/*.jpg{,-bak)  

Navigate Directories

• Show current directory

pwd

• Change directory

cd /foo/bar/directory

• Move up one directory and move up two directories.

cd ..
cd ../..

• Takes you back to the last directory you were in, very useful

cd -

Rename File Extensions

• Rename file extenstion from '.php.bak' to 'php'

rename .php.bak .php *  

Rsync Commands

• Copy remotedir/* to localdir/

rsync -ve ssh usrname@remoteipaddress:/path/to/remotedir/* /path/to/localdir/ 

• Copy, recursively, remotedir/* to localdir/

rsync -rve ssh usrname@remoteipaddress:/path/to/remotedir/* /path/to/localdir/

Other File System Commands

See Grep, Find, and AWK for other useful file system commands.