whatis man-page
Man Page
Also known as: manual page, man
Built-in reference documentation for commands, config files, and system calls, opened with the man command.
What Is a Man Page in Linux?
Man pages are the offline manual that ships with almost every Linux command. They are split into numbered sections: 1 for user commands, 5 for file formats, 8 for admin commands, and so on. man 5 crontab shows the file format, while man crontab shows the command.
Pages open in a pager (usually less), so / searches forward and q quits. When you do not know the command name, man -k keyword (the same as apropos) searches page descriptions.
Example
man 5 fstab
man -k partitionLearn more about Man Page
- Reading Man Pages Explained Man pages are the built-in reference documentation for nearly every Linux command, and their terse formatting confuses a lot of newcomers. This guide covers man page structure, sections, searching, and the other help tools available from the command line.
- less Command Explained less is a terminal pager for viewing large files one screen at a time. This guide covers navigation, searching inside less, and why it loads faster than more or cat for huge files.