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Class 09 Reading Assignment: Command Line Interface

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Matthew Chance Phillips edited this page Sep 14, 2023 · 2 revisions

CLIs will be a core aspect of our work in cybersecurity, so having an in depth knowledge of them and how to work them will be vital in future roles in the industry. It also provides a higher level of understanding of the path of information of a system. Also, this is the part of the work that we all think of when we envision pen testing/hakcing. So on top of being practical, its just cool.

  1. What is the Command Prompt?

    • Command prompt is an application that is able to execute commands that are written in text at the base level because of its direct connection to the OS.

  2. How do I access the Command Prompt?

    • It depends on your underlying operating system. Most OS's will have a path to the Command Prompt in a Start menu or a Apps screen. A shortcut is the cmd Run command. On Windows you do this by WIN+r then enter cmd in the text box. Windows also has what is called the Power User Menu, though this might bring you to the PowerShell instead.

  3. What are some of the most commonly used commands?

    • dir = show list of files and folders.
    • del = delete files from a specific location or type of file
    • Ver: displays operating system version on the screen
    • Date: displays the current date on the screen
    • Shutdown: shuts down your machine
    • Tasklist: displays a list of currently running processes
    • Taskkill: allows you to terminate a process or a running app

  4. What is Windows Power Shell?

    • According to Lifewire is "... an advanced command line interpreter available in recent Windows versions, supplements the command executing abilities available in Command Prompt. Windows PowerShell may eventually replace the Command Prompt in a future version of Windows."

  5. What is Windows Terminal?

    • Windows Terminal is an application that operates in a similar way to Command Prompt and PowerShell, but it offers a feel more adjacent to a GUI instead of a classic CLI. It features a fullscreen mode and tabbed interface similar to a web browser. Along with many other features.

Things I would like to know more about:

* I'm interested in learning more commands for these prompts, and what the pieces of the commands do.
* Is speed of access the only real benefit to using a command prompt? Or is there more to it than that?
* Is it corporate greed that causes the different OS's to use different commands in their command lines? Or is it a hardware/software issue?

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