append output of command to file
overwrite file with output of command
compute SHA-256 checksum of file
extract archive.tar.gz
x stands for extract
f stands for file; specify filename after f
v (optional) stands for visible and prints extracted files
z (optional) use gzip
tar stands for Tape ARchive
a tarball or .tar file is a collection of files wrapped up in a single file for easy storage
tarballs are often compressed, e.g. with gzip; these compressed tarballs have the .tar.gz extension
when extracting compressed tarballs the tar command will recognize the compression algorithm
tar -xf archive.tar.gz
tar -xvf archive.tar.gz
tar -xvzf archive.tar.gz
list all file with extension .example
create directories dir1...dirNUM
print human overview of disk usage
set ENV_VAR to "ENV_VAR" [no spaces!] for current shell
set ENV_VAR to "ENV_VAR" [no spaces!] for current shell and all processes launched from it
to set permanently for all future bash sessions add this to ~.bashrc
print values of environment ENV_VAR_1, ENV_VAR_2, ..., ENV_VAR_N
to print all env key value pairs omit arguments
printenv ENV_VAR_1, ENV_VAR_2, ..., ENV_VAR_N
create a new symlink (fails if symlink already exists)
ln -s /path/to/file /path/to/symlink
ln -sf /path/to/file /path/to/symlink