LINUX COMMAND ATLAS · COMMAND GUIDE

Linux man command

Open the manual page for a command. Press q to leave the viewer.

Linux man-pages

Syntax

Command form

man [OPTION]... [[SECTION] PAGE ...]

6 options

Option	What it does
`-k KEYWORD`	Search manual page names and descriptions (apropos).
`-f PAGE`	Show a short description of a manual page (whatis).
`-a PAGE`	Show all matching manual pages, one after another.
`-K TEXT`	Search the full text of manual pages.
`-w PAGE`	Print the location of the manual page file.
`-M PATH`	Use PATH as the manual page search path.

3 examples

Open the manual page for a command. Press q to leave the viewer.

man find

Open the manual page for ls.

man ls

Open section 5 documentation for the passwd file format.

man 5 passwd

Section numbers distinguish topics; for example, section 1 is commands and section 5 is file formats.