You probably already know that to search for a particular text or pattern in a file, you have to use grep like this: grep search_pattern filename I have included a PDF cheatsheet which you can download, print and keep on your desk. It's good if you are already familiar with the grep command but you keep forgetting which option does what. I'll just the common options and their explanation here. Linux Handbook already has a detailed article on grep, so I won't go in depth here. This article lists the most common grep commands with quick examples. However, you'll end up using a handful of grep commands most of the time. You probably will never need or use all of them. The grep command has a huge number of options and use cases. It's especially helpful when you are troubleshooting or debugging. Grep is a powerful UNIX command that lets you search inside the file contents on a variety of parameters.