Linux / Unix whereis Command Examples

The whereis command is a utility that displays the locations of a command, a file, or a system utility on a Unix or Linux system.

To use the whereis command, you can type whereis followed by the name of the command, file, or utility that you want to find.

For example, to find the locations of the ls command, you can use the following command:

whereis ls

This will display the locations of the ls command, as well as the locations of the man pages for the ls command.

For example:

ls: /bin/ls /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz

This will display the location of the ls command executable, as well as the location of the man page for the ls command.

You can also use the whereis command to find the locations of files or system utilities. For example, to find the locations of the passwd file, you can use the following command:

whereis passwd

This will display the locations of the passwd file on the system.

The whereis command has several options that allow you to customize the output. For example, you can use the -b option to search only for executables, or the -m option to search only for man pages.

For more information about the whereis command and its options, you can consult the documentation for your specific Unix or Linux system.