Automated Backups with rsync and systemd Timers
By the end of this you will have nightly snapshots that each look like a complete copy while costing almost nothing in disk space, running on a schedule, logged where…
Linux Command Line Basics
The terminal looks unwelcoming because it tells you nothing about what it can do. Everything else on this site assumes you are comfortable there; this page is how you get…
sudo — Running Commands as Another User
sudo runs one command as another user, normally root, after checking that you are allowed to. The point is not convenience — it is that nobody needs to know the…
rsync — Sync Files and Directories
rsync copies files, but only the parts that changed. On the second run of a large transfer it sends almost nothing, which makes it the right tool for anything you…
vim and nano — Editing Files in a Terminal
Sooner or later you will SSH into a server, type vim or find yourself dropped into it by git commit, and discover that nothing you try makes it stop. This…
Disks and Mounting — lsblk, mount and fstab
Linux does not have drive letters. Every filesystem is grafted onto a single tree at a mount point — a directory that becomes the doorway to that storage. Once that…
Package Management — apt, dnf and pacman
Every distribution installs software from repositories, and every distribution family uses a different command to do it. The concepts are nearly identical; only the spelling changes. This page puts the…
curl and wget — Fetch Things Over HTTP
Both fetch things over HTTP. The difference in practice: curl is for talking to things — APIs, headers, authentication, sending data. wget is for taking things — downloading files, resuming,…
ln — Hard Links and Symbolic Links
Linux has two kinds of link and they are not variations on the same idea — they work at different levels of the filesystem. Understanding the difference takes one paragraph…
Networking Basics — ip, ss, ping and dig
“The network is broken” is four or five different problems wearing the same coat. These commands tell them apart: is there an address, is anything listening, can packets reach the…