Linux CLI : System information commands #1

Inspired from hack the box academy linux tutorials

These are some commands which can help you get information about your system. Knowing them might come handy in times of troubleshooting.

I have broken down the commands into chunks of 5 at a time, so I can take time and provide you with proper examples.

1. hostname – Prints the name that you named your linux system while installing it.

The hostname (or simply name) of this system is ubuntuServer

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2. whoami – Prints the name of the user currently using the terminal.

Note: You might login into the system via different user and then switch to a different user. It will show the most recent user you switched to.

Currently a user called insane is using the terminal.

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3. id – This command simply commands expands on the whoami commands and provides more information like groups the user is into, their respective group ids and userid of the user.

User insane’s userid is 1000. His primary group is also called insane with group id being 1000 (same as userid). Apart from that he is in groups – user (group id: 100 ), developers (group id: 1001 ), docker (group id: 1002 ).

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4. uname – Prints basic information about the system.

It simply returns name of the kernel which is linux.
Uname command combined with some flags becomes very powerful and handy, but its a topic for some other time.

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5. who – Prints who is currently logged in (like whoami) with some little bit of extra information. It also shows from which virtual terminal user logged in, when did he logged in and ipv4 address of the system.

I logged into this system/ server via root user (later I changed to a user called insane to run all the commands including this one). I logged in via virtual terminal 0. It also shows date and time of login and ipv4 address of this system .

Virtual terminal can be thought of as independent sessions or workspaces for simplicity but it has some quirks. Its not your typical workspaces. In any linux system their are like 6-7 virtual terminals which can be switched via ctrl+alt+f2/f3/etc. I will explain this particular in detail in future probably using a video format in youtube.

That’s it for this post.
Hope you like it :] .
🦖