terminal

Frequently used shell commands for file navigation, permissions, networking and more.

AllLinuxmacOSWindows

System Information

Getting information about the system.

Display system details

Output host configuration and kernel version.

macOSLinux

uname -a

Windows

systeminfo

Monitor running processes

Open interactive resource usage dashboard.

macOSLinux

top

Windows

taskmgr

List active processes

List running processes with their IDs and resource usage.

macOSLinux

ps aux

Windows

tasklist

Search processes by name

Find process IDs and names matching a search term.

macOSLinux

pgrep -ifl <search-term>

Example

pgrep -ifl chrome

Case-insensitive; output format varies between macOS and Linux.

Windows

Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.ProcessName -like "*<search-term>*" }

Example

Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.ProcessName -like "*chrome*" }

Terminate processes by name

Send a termination signal to matching processes.

macOSLinux

pkill <process-name>

Example

pkill chrome

Matches process names, not app display names. Add -i for case-insensitive matching.

Windows

Stop-Process -Name <process-name>

Example

Stop-Process -Name chrome

Terminate processes by command line

Terminate processes whose command lines match a pattern.

macOSLinux

pkill -f <search-term>

Example

pkill -if chrome

Add -i for case-insensitive matching. May match multiple processes.

Windows

Get-CimInstance Win32_Process | Where-Object { $_.CommandLine -like "*<search-term>*" } | ForEach-Object { Stop-Process -Id $_.ProcessId }

Example

Get-CimInstance Win32_Process | Where-Object { $_.CommandLine -like "*chrome*" } | ForEach-Object { Stop-Process -Id $_.ProcessId }

May match multiple processes; access to command lines can be restricted.

Force terminate processes

Force-stop processes that do not terminate normally.

macOSLinux

pkill -9 <process-name>

Example

pkill -9 chrome

SIGKILL; cannot be caught or handled. Add -i for case-insensitive matching.

Windows

Stop-Process -Name <process-name> -Force

Example

Stop-Process -Name chrome -Force

Terminate process by PID

Terminate a specific process using its ID.

macOSLinux

kill <PID>

Example

kill 1234

Add -9 after kill to force termination.

Windows

Stop-Process -Id <PID>

Example

Stop-Process -Id 1234

Add -Force to force termination.

Check disk space usage

Display storage volume capacity and availability.

macOSLinux

df -h

Windows

Get-PSDrive

Measure folder size

Calculate total disk space consumed by a directory.

macOSLinux

du -sh Documents

Windows

Get-ChildItem Documents -Recurse | Measure-Object Length -Sum

Check service status

Query the current operational state of a service.

Linux

systemctl status nginx

macOS

launchctl print system/nginx

Windows

Get-Service nginx

Restart system service

Stop and start a system service daemon.

Linux

systemctl restart nginx

macOS

launchctl kickstart -k system/nginx

Windows

Restart-Service nginx

File Permissions and Ownership

Managing file access rights and ownership.

# chmod numeric permissions overview:
# Each digit represents permissions for: [Owner][Group][Others]
# Add values for read(4), write(2), execute(1)
#
# Examples:
# 7 = 4+2+1 = read, write, execute
# 6 = 4+2   = read, write
# 5 = 4+1   = read, execute
# 4 = 4     = read
# 3 = 2+1   = write, execute
# 2 = 2     = write
# 1 = 1     = execute
# 0 = none
#
# Common chmod values:
# 755 = rwx for owner, rx for group, rx for others
# 644 = rw for owner, r for group, r for others
# 700 = rwx for owner, none for group/others

Modify file permissions

Update numerical or symbolic access mode bits.

macOSLinux

chmod 644 myfile.txt

Windows

icacls myfile.txt /setintegritylevel medium

Make file executable

Grant execution rights to a script file.

macOSLinux

chmod +x script.sh

Windows

Unblock-File -Path script.ps1

Change owner and group

Reassign file ownership to a user and group.

macOSLinux

chown user:staff myfile.txt

Windows

icacls myfile.txt /setowner "Domain\User"

View detailed file status

Inspect low-level file metadata and status properties.

macOSLinux

stat myfile.txt

Windows

Get-ItemProperty myfile.txt

Archiving and Compression

Creating and extracting tarballs and zip files.

# tar common flags overview:
# c = create new archive
# x = extract archive
# v = verbose (show files being processed)
# f = specify filename of archive
# z = compress with gzip (.tar.gz)
# j = compress with bzip2 (.tar.bz2)
# J = compress with xz (.tar.xz)
#
# Examples:
# tar -cvf archive.tar files/   -> create tar
# tar -xvf archive.tar          -> extract tar
# tar -czvf archive.tar.gz dir/ -> create gzipped tar
# tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz      -> extract gzipped tar

Create tar archive

Package files into an uncompressed archive container.

macOSLinuxWindows

tar -cvf archive.tar myfolder

Extract tar archive

Unpack files from a tar container.

macOSLinuxWindows

tar -xvf archive.tar

Create compressed tarball

Package and gzip compress a directory structure.

macOSLinuxWindows

tar -czvf archive.tar.gz myfolder

Extract compressed tarball

Unpack and decompress a gzipped archive file.

macOSLinuxWindows

tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz

Create zip archive

Compress files into a standard zip format.

macOSLinux

zip archive.zip myfile.txt myfolder/*

Windows

Compress-Archive -Path myfile.txt, myfolder -DestinationPath archive.zip

Extract zip archive

Decompress files from a zip archive container.

macOSLinux

unzip archive.zip

Windows

Expand-Archive -Path archive.zip -DestinationPath .