Bioinformtics Cheat Sheet

When you just need a hint

Author

Prof. Peter Kille

Published

September 14, 2026

Compute resources

NotePersonal Cloud

server: [server].bios.cf.ac.uk

Username/password: [University Single sign-on (SO)]

sshPort: personal [provided at start of course]

HPC servers

server masters: gomphus-login.bios.cf.ac.uk

server research: skomer.bios.cf.ac.uk

Username/password: [University Single sign-on (SO)]

sshPort: 22

Introduction to linux

NoteBasics

‘tab’ - Tab complete

command parameters arguments - Anatomy of a Command

drwxrwxrwx - file per permissions: type - [read write execute]x3, user, group, world

chmod - Change file permissions

chmod +x - add execute for programs

Moving Around

ls - list directory (folder) content

ls -l - long list, show file permissions and sizes

cd - change directory

pwd - present working directory

. - current dir

.. - back one level

~ - home folder

Making Directories, Moving and Copying data

mkdir - make a directory

cp - copy a file

cp -r - copy a folder (-r stands for recursive)

mv - move / rename file or folder

rm - delete a file no recycle bin in linux

Software and data

NoteLoading software

module avail - list software available

module load [software] - loads specific piece of software

module unload [software] - removed specific software

module purge - removes all software

Visualising/previewing files

less - preview a file (q to exit)

more - Display the contents of a file in a terminal

cat - print to screen

zcat - print compressed fie to screen

head -n 10 - show first 10 lines of file

tail -n 10 - show last 10 lines of file

*cat, more, head and tail only work on uncompressed files

Editing Files

nano - text editor with on screen prompts

vior vim - text editor to impress the programmers (no on screen prompts)

Command Line Tools and Scripting

NoteSearch file

grep - search a file

zgrep - search a compressed file

grep -c and zgrep -c - count the number of times a match is found

wc - count words in file

wc -l - count lines in file

sed 's/\[replace this\]/\[with this\]/g' - search and replace

> - write to file

>> - Amend (add) to file

Scripting in bash

#!bin/bash - bash shebang tells linux this is a bash script

chmod +x - make your scipt executable

./[your own script] - run your script

variable="some stuff" - define a variable

${varible} = recalls the variable

${varible}_suffix - add suffix to variable

variable=$([function]) - define variable as product of function

echo - Display to screen

printf - print to file \t - tab, \n line break

Loops

for i in {1..[number]}; do; done - numerical loop from 1..[number]

for i in sampleA sampleB sampleC sampleD; do; done - simple text loop

for file in *; do ; done - file list loop

while read -r line; do; done < [infile] - read in a file one line at a time

Slurm

Note

ln -s [Full/Path] [shortcut] - Create symlink/shortcuts

sbatch \[slurm script\] - submit slurm script

squeue - list all jobs running

squeue -u ${USER} - list only user jobs

scancel [number] - cancel job

srun -c 4 --mem=8G -p [node] --pty bash - create interactive job

gomphus.node_availability.sh or skomer.node_availability.sh - shows node usage and availability

gomphus.job_history.sh or skomer.job_history.sh - show job history

sbatch -d singleton [slurm script - create slurm dependency

#SBATCH --job-name [some constant name] - ensure all jobs have same name for dependent scripts