Name 10 commands every Linux and Unix admin should know

[Arkitech]

I'm working on further developing my Unix skills and I'm just curious what some of the experienced admins out there would consider to be 10 essential commands every admin should know

[Number33]

I don't feel it's a matter of how many commands you know it's more of a matter of knowing how to get information on a command. So to me the most important command is:

man

[gtmtnbiker98]

ls
cp
rm
ps
top
mkdir
useradd
passwd
smbpasswd
man
grep
chown
ifconfig
vi and/or vim



and the list could go on and on and on......

[Zelmo]

What Number33 said. And apropos.

[d38dm8nw81k1ng]

help
info
man
cp
ls
mv
rm -Rf /*
shutdown -h now
reboot
kill

[bigtomrodney]

And apropos.

One of the best commands, but one of the most forgotten I find. Well worth knowing.

Don't forget -
find
if
for
while
true
whois
dig
netstat
tracert
su

and if I was to be a jerk I might suggest bash, but that's just preference.

[fingal]

I like the pushd and popd commands. Eg:

pushd /usr/bin
ls -al
popd
pwd

Do you mean 10 or 10 (binary) lol ...

[deanlinkous]

how to choose just 10

1 - man dont forget the -k option and the -f option
2+ - tab key, wildcards, pipe and redirection stuff (not commands but VERY useful)
3 - cat
4 - whereis
5 - head/tail more/less(cheating)
6 - ln
7 - dd
8 - chmod
9 - chgrp
10 - ps and top

oh man I want to blurt about 10 more

[eraker]

cat and/or less. I'm certainly no admin (just a hobbyist), but I use those probably once a day.

[ImNeat]

I'm no admin or shell junkie, but I do use these 10 often:

su, cd, ls, cp, rm, man, nano, iwconfig, ifconfig, top.