Linux

In Part 1, you isolated processes with Linux namespaces. In Part 2, you added filesystem isolation with pivot_root and OverlayFS. Now it is time to finish the container runtime. In this final part, you will: Add cgroups to limit memory and CPU Set up virtual ethernet pairs for container networking Build a CLI with Cobra Run the final container and compare it with Docker Cgroups: Resource Limits Namespaces control what a process can see. Cgroups control what a process can use. Without cgroups, a container could use all the memory on the host and crash everything. ...

In Part 1, you built a process with isolated namespaces. It has its own hostname, its own process tree, and its own network stack. But it still shares the host’s filesystem. That is dangerous. The containerized process can read /etc/shadow, write to /usr/bin, or delete anything on the host. We need to give the container its own filesystem. In this part, you will: Understand chroot and pivot_root Download and set up a minimal root filesystem Implement pivot_root in Go Add OverlayFS for layered filesystems (just like Docker images) Mount /proc inside the isolated filesystem Preparing a Root Filesystem A container needs a root filesystem — a directory that contains everything a Linux system needs: /bin, /lib, /etc, /proc, and so on. ...

Containers are not virtual machines. They are just Linux processes with extra isolation. In this series, you will build a mini Docker from scratch in Go. No frameworks. No libraries. Just Go and Linux system calls. By the end of this three-part series, you will have a working container runtime that can: Isolate processes with Linux namespaces Create a separate filesystem with OverlayFS Limit resources with cgroups Set up networking with virtual ethernet pairs Run commands through a CLI In this first part, you will learn what containers really are and how to isolate processes using Linux namespaces. ...

Bookmark this page. Use Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F on Mac) to find what you need. This cheat sheet covers essential terminal commands for macOS and Linux. Last updated: March 2026 Navigation Command Description pwd Print current directory ls List files ls -la List all files with details (including hidden) ls -lh List with human-readable sizes cd /path Change directory cd ~ Go to home directory cd .. Go up one directory cd - Go to previous directory tree Show directory tree (install: brew install tree) tree -L 2 Tree with max depth 2 Files and Directories Command Description touch file.txt Create empty file mkdir mydir Create directory mkdir -p a/b/c Create nested directories cp file.txt copy.txt Copy file cp -r dir/ newdir/ Copy directory recursively mv file.txt newname.txt Rename/move file rm file.txt Delete file rm -r dir/ Delete directory recursively rm -rf dir/ Force delete (no confirmation) ln -s target link Create symbolic link cat file.txt Print file contents head -20 file.txt First 20 lines tail -20 file.txt Last 20 lines tail -f file.log Follow file in real-time (logs) less file.txt Paginated viewer (q to quit) wc -l file.txt Count lines wc -w file.txt Count words diff file1 file2 Compare two files stat file.txt File details (size, dates, permissions) Searching Command Description grep "text" file.txt Search for text in file grep -r "text" dir/ Search recursively in directory grep -i "text" file.txt Case-insensitive search grep -n "text" file.txt Show line numbers grep -c "text" file.txt Count matches grep -v "text" file.txt Show lines NOT matching find . -name "*.txt" Find files by name find . -type d -name "src" Find directories by name find . -size +10M Find files larger than 10MB find . -mtime -7 Files modified in last 7 days which python Find where a command lives locate file.txt Fast file search (uses index) Pipes and Redirection # Pipe — send output of one command to another ls -la | grep ".txt" cat file.txt | sort | uniq ps aux | grep node # Redirect output to file echo "hello" > file.txt # overwrite echo "world" >> file.txt # append # Redirect errors command 2> errors.log # stderr to file command > output.log 2>&1 # stdout + stderr to file command &> all.log # same (bash shorthand) # /dev/null — discard output command > /dev/null 2>&1 # silence everything cmd1 | cmd2 pipe: stdout of cmd1 → stdin of cmd2 cmd > file redirect stdout to file (overwrite) cmd >> file redirect stdout to file (append) cmd 2> file redirect stderr to file cmd < file use file as stdin Permissions -rwxr-xr-- 1 alex staff 4096 Mar 15 file.txt │├─┤├─┤├─┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └── Others: read only │ │ └───── Group: read + execute │ └───────── Owner: read + write + execute └─────────── File type (- = file, d = directory, l = link) Command Description chmod 755 file rwxr-xr-x (owner all, group/others read+exec) chmod 644 file rw-r–r– (owner read+write, others read) chmod +x script.sh Add execute permission chmod -w file.txt Remove write permission chown user:group file Change owner and group chown -R user dir/ Change owner recursively Number Permission 7 rwx (read + write + execute) 6 rw- (read + write) 5 r-x (read + execute) 4 r– (read only) 0 — (no permission) Processes Command Description ps aux List all processes ps aux | grep node Find a specific process top Live process monitor htop Better process monitor (install separately) kill <pid> Send SIGTERM (graceful stop) kill -9 <pid> Send SIGKILL (force stop) killall node Kill all processes by name lsof -i :3000 Find what is using port 3000 jobs List background jobs bg Resume job in background fg Bring job to foreground command & Run command in background nohup command & Run and keep running after logout Disk and System Command Description df -h Disk usage (human-readable) du -sh dir/ Directory size du -sh * | sort -rh Largest items in current dir free -h Memory usage (Linux) uname -a System info hostname Machine name uptime System uptime and load date Current date/time cal Calendar Networking Command Description curl https://example.com Fetch a URL curl -o file.html https://example.com Download to file curl -X POST -d '{"key":"value"}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" url POST JSON wget https://example.com/file.zip Download a file ping example.com Test connectivity ifconfig / ip addr Show network interfaces netstat -tlnp / ss -tlnp Show listening ports ssh user@host Connect via SSH scp file.txt user@host:/path Copy file to remote scp user@host:/path/file.txt . Copy file from remote Archives Command Description tar -czf archive.tar.gz dir/ Create gzip archive tar -xzf archive.tar.gz Extract gzip archive tar -xzf archive.tar.gz -C /dest Extract to directory zip -r archive.zip dir/ Create zip archive unzip archive.zip Extract zip Text Processing # Sort lines sort file.txt sort -r file.txt # reverse sort -n file.txt # numeric sort sort -u file.txt # unique only # Unique lines (file must be sorted first) sort file.txt | uniq sort file.txt | uniq -c # count occurrences # Cut columns cut -d',' -f1,3 data.csv # columns 1 and 3 (comma delimiter) # Replace text sed 's/old/new/g' file.txt # replace all occurrences sed -i 's/old/new/g' file.txt # in-place edit (Linux) sed -i '' 's/old/new/g' file.txt # in-place edit (macOS — needs empty '') # Print specific lines awk '{print $1, $3}' file.txt # columns 1 and 3 (space delimiter) awk -F',' '{print $1}' data.csv # with custom delimiter # Count and summarize cat access.log | awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -10 # → top 10 IP addresses in an access log Keyboard Shortcuts (Terminal) Shortcut Action Ctrl+C Cancel current command Ctrl+D Exit shell / close terminal Ctrl+Z Suspend current process Ctrl+L Clear screen Ctrl+R Search command history Ctrl+A Move cursor to start of line Ctrl+E Move cursor to end of line Ctrl+W Delete word before cursor Ctrl+U Delete entire line before cursor Tab Auto-complete file/command name !! Repeat last command !$ Last argument of previous command Environment Variables echo $HOME # print variable export MY_VAR="value" # set for current session echo 'export MY_VAR="value"' >> ~/.zshrc # permanent (Zsh) echo 'export MY_VAR="value"' >> ~/.bashrc # permanent (Bash) env # list all env variables printenv PATH # print specific variable Common Mistakes rm -rf / or rm -rf * — There is no recycle bin in the terminal. Deleted files are gone. Always double-check your path before running rm -rf. Use ls first to preview what will be deleted. ...