Using man
To find a command using a keyword :
# man -k [keyword]
When you know the exact command to be used, you can use the man page for that command as :
# man [command]
There are several sections within a man page. Most commonly used sections are listed below :
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | User Commands |
| 4 | Special files |
| 5 | system configuration files |
| 8 | system administration commands |
So to find configuration file for ntp (which is /etc/ntp.conf), you can use :
# man -5 ntp
To display short description for a command or configuration from man database use whatis:
# whatis passwd passwd(1) - update user's authentication tokens sshpasswd(1ssl) - compute password hashes passwd(5) - password file
You can also use the -f option of man command to get the same results:
# man -f passwd
To update man database after adding any new packages:
# mandb
Info command
Info command is available as part of info package and provides more detailed information than man command.
# info [command]
Documentation in /usr/share/doc
The /usr/share/doc directory stores documentation(release notes, installation guide etc.) for all packages under respective directories by the name of package.
# ls /usr/share/doc/ntp/*