Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Common options

2.1 Backup options
2.2 Block size
2.3 Target directory
2.4 Trailing slashes

3. File permissions

3.1 Structure of File Permissions
3.2 Symbolic Modes

3.2.1 Setting Permissions
3.2.2 Copying Existing Permissions
3.2.3 Changing Special Permissions
3.2.4 Conditional Executability
3.2.5 Making Multiple Changes
3.2.6 The Umask and Protection

3.3 Numeric Modes

4. Date input formats

4.1 General date syntax
4.2 Calendar date items
4.3 Time of day items
4.4 Time zone items
4.5 Day of week items
4.6 Relative items in date strings
4.7 Pure numbers in date strings
4.8 Authors of getdate

5. Directory listing

5.1 ls: List directory contents

5.1.1 Which files are listed
5.1.2 What information is listed
5.1.3 Sorting the output
5.1.4 More details about version sort
5.1.5 General output formatting
5.1.6 Formatting the file names

5.2 dir: Briefly list directory contents
5.3 vdir: Verbosely list directory contents
5.4 dircolors: Color setup for ls

6. Basic operations

6.1 cp: Copy files and directories
6.2 dd: Convert and copy a file
6.3 install: Copy files and set attributes
6.4 mv: Move (rename) files
6.5 rm: Remove files or directories
6.6 shred: Remove files more securely

7. Special file types

7.1 ln: Make links between files
7.2 mkdir: Make directories
7.3 mkfifo: Make FIFOs (named pipes)
7.4 mknod: Make block or character special files
7.5 rmdir: Remove empty directories

8. Changing file attributes

8.1 chown: Change file owner and group
8.2 chgrp: Change group ownership
8.3 chmod: Change access permissions
8.4 touch: Change file timestamps

9. Disk usage

9.1 df: Report filesystem disk space usage
9.2 du: Estimate file space usage
9.3 sync: Synchronize data on disk with memory

Index