Built-in Unix Shell Commands


The shell is the Unix command interpreter used to pass commands to an operating system; so called because it is the part of the operating system that interfaces with the outside world.
shell> 
     


The following table lists some other common Unix shell built-in commands. For more shell commands, refer to the Unix shell command manual pages.

Command Description
man Finds and displays reference manual pages.
cd Changes the current working directory.
mkdir Makes directories
chmod Changes the permissions mode of a file.
more/page Browses or pages through a text file.
cp Copies files
mv Moves files.
grep Search a file for a pattern.
rm/rmdir Removes directory entries.