Linux Configuration and Diagnostic Tools

System and Network Configuration linuxconf - A GUI interactive interface available on Redhat 6.0 or later which includes netconf configuration. netconf - A GUI interactive interface available on Redhat 6.0 and later. kbdconf - A Redhat Linux tool which configures the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file which specifies the location of the keyboard map file. This is a GUI based tool. mouseconfig - A Redhat Linux tool used to configure the /etc/sysconfig.mouse file. This is a GUI tool. timeconfig - A Redhat Linux tool used to configure the /etc/sysconfig/clock file. This is a GUI tool used to set timezone and whether or not the clock is set to GMT time. kernelcfg - A Redhat kernel configuration utility to be started from X. stty - Used to configure and print the console devices. setterm - Set terminal attributes. vmstat - Report statistics on virtual memory. X Configuration XF86Setup - A newer X configuration program with a GUI interface which modifies the "/etc/X11/XF86Config" configuration file. xf86config - An older X configuration program with a text based interface. It also modifies the "/etc/X11/XF86Config" configuration file. Xconfigurator - The Redhat tool used during system setup to configure X. SuperProbe - A program that probes the video card to determine its type for use with setting up X. xvidtune - This program will test video modes on the fly without modification to your X configuration. Read the usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/VideoModes.doc file before running this program.

Library and kernel Dependency Management

Library management:

• ldd - Used to determine shared libraries used by binary files. Type "ldd /bin/ls" to see the shared libraries used by the "ls" command.
• ldconfig - Used to update links and cache for system use of the most recent runtime shared libraries.

Kernel Management:

• lsmod - List currently installed kernel modules.
• depmod - Creates a dependency file, "modules.dep" in the directory "/lib/modules/x.x.x", later used by modprobe to automatically load the relevant modules.
• insmod - Installs a loadable kernel module into the running kernel.
• rmmod - Unloads modules, Ex: rmmod ftape
• modprobe - Used to load a module or set of modules. Loads all modules specified in the file "modules.dep".

General Diagnostic

System resources

• free - Show system memory availability and usage
• df - Show the amount of disk free space on each mounted filesystem.
• du - Show disk usage
• lspci - List PCI devices
• pnpdump - Lists ISA PNP device resource information.
• vmstat - Reports virtual memory statistics.

Other:

• env - List the current environment variables.
• printenv - Print a copy of the environment.
• set - Shows how the environment is set up. This command can be very useful when debugging the environment.
• runlevel - List the current and previous runlevel.
• uname - Print system information. In my case, it prints "Linux".
• dmesg - Show the last kernel messages printed during the last boot.