UNIX / Linux whatis Command Examples

What is whatis?
whatis example
Related Commands

What is whatis?

whatis command displays a single line information about a command.


whatis Example

Display single line information about a command

Use whatis command to display single line information about all the keyword matches of passwd.

$ whatis ifconfig
ifconfig             (8)  - configure a network interface

When there are more than one man page available for a particular command, it will displays single line information from all those man pages as shown below.

$ whatis passwd
passwd               (1)  - update a user's authentication tokens(s)
passwd               (5)  - password file
passwd [sslpasswd]   (1ssl)  - compute password hashes

Related Commands

man
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