Files and directories

The commands that create, copy, move, remove, and resize files and directories — and how each one handles a file's security descriptor.

Copy files and directories — including how a copy gets its security descriptor and the --preserve family that carries attributes from the source.

Move or rename files and directories — including how a move handles a file's security descriptor depending on whether it crosses a file system.

Remove files and directories — including how rm decides a file is write-protected and worth prompting about.

Remove directories, but only when they are already empty.

Create directories — and the shared creation flags that set a new object's security descriptor, used by mkdir, mkfifo, mknod, and touch.

Create named pipes (FIFOs).

Create special files — device nodes and named pipes.

Create empty files, or update the timestamps of existing ones.

Create hard links and symbolic links between files.

The single-purpose, low-level commands for creating one hard link and for removing one file.

Destroy a file's contents by overwriting them repeatedly, so they cannot be recovered — including how --force overrides a file's protection.

Copy data block by block between files, optionally converting and reshaping it on the way.

Report how much space each file system has and how much of it is free.

Report how much disk space files and directories use.

Shrink or extend a file to an exact size.

Create a temporary file or directory with a safely unique name.