Kali Linux is one of the most widely used Linux distributions, or you can say operating systems, by ethical hackers, IT professionals, for any related work, penetration testers, etc. So if you also have an interest in Kali Linux but don’t know where to start, then I can give you 50 useful basic commands that will surely help you in your beginning journey.
whoami: Displays the current effective username.
- Example:
kali
pwd: Prints the current working directory (where you are).
- Example:
/home/kali
ls: Lists the contents of the current directory or a specified directory.
- Uses:
ls -l(long listing format),ls -a(shows hidden files).
cd: Changes the current directory.
- Uses:
cd ..(move up one level),cd ~(go to home directory),cd /(go to root).
history: Shows a list of recently executed commands.
clear: Clears the terminal screen.
echo: Displays a line of text. Often used for displaying variable values or writing to files.
man: Displays the manual page for a command (the command’s help documentation).
- Example:
man ls
whatis: Provides a one-line description for a command.
- Example:
whatis ls
uname -a: Prints detailed system information (kernel name, version, architecture, etc.).
w: Shows who is logged in and what they are doing.
date: Prints or sets the system date and time.
cal: Displays a calendar for the current month.
df -h: Reports disk space usage of file systems in human-readable format.
touch: Creates an empty file or updates the timestamp of an existing file.
- Example:
touch newfile.txt
mkdir: Creates a new directory (folder).
- Example:
mkdir project_folder
rmdir: Deletes an empty directory.
rm: Removes files or directories.
Uses: rm file.txt, rm -r folder/ (recursively delete directory and its contents). Use with caution!
cp: Copies files or directories.
Example: cp file.txt /tmp/ (copies file.txt to the /tmp directory).