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Shell and Environment

man

Opens manual pages.

man displays installed reference documentation for commands, configuration files, library calls, and more.

Syntax
man [section] page

Arguments explained

  • page is the topic name.
  • section can disambiguate topics, such as 5 for file formats.
  • -k searches like apropos.

Common examples

Read ls manual
man ls

Opens the manual page for ls.

Read passwd file format
man 5 passwd

Shows the manual for /etc/passwd format, not the passwd command.

man Command
FieldDetails
Commandman
CategoryShell and Environment
Primary useOpens manual pages.
Syntaxman [section] page

Related articles

apropos

Searches manual page descriptions.

less

Opens text in a scrollable pager.

whereis

Locates binaries, source, and manual files.