Using the man command

The previous article covered two help methods: whatis and —help. Now let’s look at the man command.

#man command

For example, to read the mkdir manual, enter:

#man mkdir

SYNOPSIS
mkdir [OPTION] DIRECTORY…

DESCRIPTION
Create the DIRECTORY(ies), if they do not already exist.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

-Z, —context=CONTEXT (SELinux) set security context to CONTEXT

-m, —mode=MODE
set permission mode (as in chmod), not rwxrwxrwx - umask

-p, —parents
no error if existing, make parent directories as needed

-v, —verbose
print a message for each created directory

—help display this help and exit

—version
output version information and exit

AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie.

REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to .

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software. You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
The full documentation for mkdir is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and mkdir programs are properly installed at your
site, the command

info mkdir

should give you access to the complete manual.

mkdir 5.97 May 2006 MKDIR(1)

If you do not know which Linux commands or configuration files relate to a keyword, enter:

#man -k keyword or
#apropos keyword

Example:

#man -k manual or # apropos manual

FSG [lsb_release] (1) - manual page for FSG lsb_release v2.0
M4 [m4] (1) - manual page for M4 1.4.5
man (1) - format and display the on-line manual pages
man2html (1) - format a manual page in html
man-pages (rpm) - Man (manual) pages from the Linux Documentation Project.
manual_user_enter_context [get_ordered_context_list] (3) - determine SELinux context(s) for user sessions
panelctl (1) - manual page for panelctl (libavc1394) 0.1
perlxs (1) - XS language reference manual
setkey (8) - manually manipulate the IPsec SA/SP database
speexdec (1) - manual page for speexdec version 1.0.3
speexenc (1) - manual page for speexenc version 1.0.3
whereis (1) - locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command

Notice the numbers in parentheses. They indicate the manual section.
The manual has the following eight sections:

1 User commands
2 System calls
3 Library calls
4 Special files
5 File formats
6 Games
7 Miscellaneous
8 Administrative commands