This repository contains a comprehensive cheatsheet for incident response and live forensics in Linux environments. It's designed to help system administrators, security professionals, and IT staff quickly reference commands and procedures during an incident.
Navigate through the sections to find relevant commands for different aspects of incident response. Each command is accompanied by a brief description of its purpose and usage.
Commands for investigating user activities, permissions, and unusual activities.
cat /etc/passwd
- List user accounts.passwd -S [User_Name]
- Check password status for a user.lastlog
- Show the most recent logins.last
- Show last logged in users.who
- Show who is logged on.w
- Show who is logged on and what they are doing.
Commands for reviewing system and application logs.
cat /var/log/messages
- Show system messages.cat /var/log/auth.log
- Show user authentication logs.cat /var/log/secure
- Show authentication log for Red Hat based systems.cat /var/log/boot.log
- Show system boot log.cat /var/log/dmesg
- Show kernel ring buffer log.cat /var/log/kern.log
- Show kernel log.
Commands to check system performance and resource usage.
top
- Display Linux tasks.htop
- Interactive process viewer.uptime
- Show system uptime.ps aux
- Show currently running processes.pstree
- Show running processes as a tree.free -m
- Show memory usage in MB.
Commands for investigating running processes.
ps -ef
- Display all the currently running processes on the system.pstree -p
- Display processes in a tree format with PIDs.top -n 1
- Display top processes.ps -eo pid,tt,user,fname,rsz
- Show processes in custom format.lsof -i
- List open files associated with network connections.
Commands to inspect services running on the system.
chkconfig --list
- List all services and their current states.service --status-all
- Show status of all services.systemctl list-units --type=service
- List running services (systemd).
Commands for file investigation.
ls -alh
- Show all files in human-readable format.find / -name [filename]
- Find a specific file.find / -mtime -[N]
- Find files modified in the last N days.find / -atime -[N]
- Find files accessed in the last N days.find / -size +[N]c
- Find files larger than N bytes.
Commands for reviewing network configurations and connections.
ifconfig -a
- Show all network interfaces.netstat -antup
- Show active network connections.iptables -L -n -v
- Show all iptables rules.route -n
- Show routing table.ss -tuln
- Show listening ports and established connections.
grep :0: /etc/passwd
- Find root accounts.find / -nouser -print
- Find files with no user.cat /etc/shadow
- View encrypted passwords and account expiration information.cat /etc/group
- View group information.cat /etc/sudoers
- View sudoers file.tail /var/log/auth.log
- View the last few entries in the authentication log.history | less
- View command history.cat /proc/meminfo
- Display memory information.cat /proc/mounts
- Display mounted filesystems.lsof -p [pid]
- List open files for a process (use a specific PID).service --status-all
- List all services and their status.cat /etc/crontab
- View the cron table for scheduled tasks.more /etc/resolv.conf
- View DNS settings.more /etc/hosts
- View host file entries.iptables -L -n
- List all iptables rules without resolving IP addresses.find /home/ -type f -size +512k -exec ls -lh {} \;
- Find files larger than 512KB in home directories.find /etc/ -readable -type f 2>/dev/null
- Find readable files in the etc directory.find / -mtime -2 -ls
- Find files modified in the last 2 days.netstat -nap
- Show network connections and associated programs.arp -a
- View the ARP table.echo $PATH
- Display the PATH environment variable.
To run the Incident Response Linux script, follow these steps:
- Download the script from the repository.
- Give the script executable permissions:
chmod +x IRLinux_Script.sh
- Execute the script with appropriate permissions (root permissions may be required for some commands):
sudo ./IRLinux_Script.sh
- Once the script completes its execution, the output will be saved in
/tmp/IRLinux.txt
. - You can view the output with a text editor or using a command like
cat
orless
:less /tmp/IRLinux.txt
Note: Ensure that the script is run in a safe environment as it accesses system files and configurations. Modify the script as needed for your specific use case.
Contributions to this cheatsheet are welcome. Please submit a pull request or open an issue for suggestions.