If you have high hopes of becoming a Linux administrator, there are plenty of tools you’ll need to know and know well. Some of those tools are limited to actions taken locally on the machine with which you are working: tools like iptables, make, top, diff, tail, and many more. These tools, isolated to the local machine, are invaluable to your task of managing those Linux servers and desktops. And even though GUI tools are available to help you with those tasks, understanding the command line is tantamount to understanding Linux.