Perform basic file management

tar - Archive files

Examples:

• tar -cvf archive.tar files/: Create a new tar archive
• tar -xvf archive.tar: Extract files from a tar archive
• tar -czvf archive.tar.gz files/: Create a compressed tar archive
• tar -xzvf archive.tar.gz: Extract files from a compressed tar archive

find - Search for files in a directory hierarchy

Examples:

• find /home -name "*.txt": Find all .txt files in /home
• find . -type d: Find all directories in current location
• find /var -size +10M: Find files larger than 10 MB in /var
• find /etc -mtime -7: Find files modified in the last 7 days in /etc

Wildcard patterns:

• Match any number of characters

• ?: Match any single character
• [abc]: Match any one character listed
• [!abc]: Match any one character not listed
• {.jpg,*.png}: Match multiple patterns

dd - Convert and copy files

Examples:

• dd if=/dev/zero of=file.img bs=1M count=100: Create a 100 MB file
• dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb: Clone one disk to another

gzip, gunzip - Compress or decompress files

Examples:

• gzip large_file.txt: Compress a file
• gunzip large_file.txt.gz: Decompress a gzip file

bzip2 - Compress files using the Burrows-Wheeler block sorting algorithm

Examples:

• bzip2 huge_file.txt: Compress a file
• bzip2 -d huge_file.txt.bz2: Decompress a bzip2 file

xz - Compress or decompress files using LZMA/LZMA2 compression

Examples:

• xz big_file.txt: Compress a file
• xz -d big_file.txt.xz: Decompress an xz file