Useful SSH Unix / Linux Commands for handling large Drupal sites

Following are some useful Unix/Linux commands which are helpful if you are dealing with large Drupal (or any other CMS / Framework based) sites (files and db size). I find these really handy when moving sites from one server to another, taking backups of Files, Database etc.

Note: To get access to the Unix command line, you will need an SSH client (e.g. Putty). You can also use WinSCP if you are not comfortable with Command line. WinSCP has a feature to enter custom commands using its interface.

Please add other command-line commands that you use while setting up, developing and managing your Drupal sites.

Zip Contents of current directory
zip -r zipfile.zip *

Unzip Contents into current directory
unzip zipfile.zip

Unzip (and extract) the tar'd, gzipped archive (tarball) Contents into current directory
tar zxvf tarballfile.tar.gz

Remove a directory and its contents (Use with extra care)
rm -rf directoryname

Backup Database
mysqldump dbname -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD --host HOST > filename.sql

Restore Database
mysql -u root -p[root_password] [database_name] < dumpfilename.sql

Copy all files / directories from one server to other (Both servers should have SSH Support)
rsync -avz --progress username@servername:sourcefolder destinationfolder

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