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I am not very familiar with Linux. I have got root access of a server. When I run the command "ls" then it displays nothing. No error no information nothing. When I run "ls -l" it displays "total 0"

How do I list all files and directories?

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This is a site for professional systems administrators. I'd hope that if you're administering Linux in a professional environment, you know how ls works. – MDMarra Mar 22 '12 at 11:26

closed as off topic by MDMarra, cjc, Jeff Ferland, Lucas Kauffman, Kyle Smith Mar 22 '12 at 13:37

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3 Answers

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The command ls lists the files and directories. If you have hidden files and folders, you can list them using:

$ ls -a

Adding the option -l gives a detailed list. You can see man ls for more options.

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This actually did the trick. But strange thing is when I logged out of server and logged in again as root then this command didn't work. Then I tried "dir" and it worked which was previously not working. Weird! – Ali Mar 22 '12 at 11:34
Are you sure you are listing the contents of same folder after re-login? If so, check the system logs /var/log/messages and /var/log/syslog. – Khaled Mar 22 '12 at 11:46
up vote 1 down vote

It is actually possible that the directory you're in has been deleted from another shell/application/...

This would result in ls -la displaying total 0

Using cd, change again to the directory you want to list and retry.

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When you login as root, you are most likely in /root (root's home) which is often empty. Try "ls /" or "ls -lah /" to see the contents of the root of the filesystem tree.

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