Here’s a beginner’s guide on understanding whereis command in Linux & BSD with several examples.
This article is part of the Linux command learning series.
Table of Contents
whereis command
The whereis command is a command line program that helps you to find out the path or location of any binary executable, source file or manual page.
Before we show you how to use whereis command, let’s look at the syntax.
Syntax
Here’s the syntax for whereis command:
whereis [OPTIONS] FILE_NAME
The argument of whereis command is the program name or file name you want to search. The argument is mandatory.
By default, it searches for the program in the path defined in environment variables such as HOME, USER, SHELL, etc.
Let’s take a look at some examples.
Examples of whereis command in Linux and BSD
A simple example of whereis command is below where I am trying to search firefox. In the output below, you can see the list of paths containing firefox files or executables displayed.
$ whereis firefox firefox: /usr/bin/firefox /usr/lib64/firefox /etc/firefox /usr/share/man/man1/firefox.1.gz
The command with option -l displays the list of paths where it searches. For example:
$ whereis -l bin: /usr/bin bin: /usr/sbin bin: /usr/lib bin: /usr/lib64 bin: /etc bin: /usr/games bin: /usr/local/bin bin: /usr/local/sbin bin: /usr/local/etc bin: /usr/local/lib bin: /usr/local/games
If the whereis command doesn’t find anything, it only shows the argument’s name. For example, if I search nano in Linux where is it not installed, it outputs the following:
$ whereis nano
nano:
You can always add multiple arguments if you want to search for more. For example below command searches for both bash and nano, and this is the output:
$ whereis bash nano bash: /usr/bin/bash /usr/share/man/man1/bash.1.gz /usr/share/info/bash.info.gz nano: /usr/bin/nano /usr/share/nano /usr/share/man/man1/nano.1.gz /usr/share/info/nano.info.gz
You can also search for specific file types, such as binaries, using -b option. The following command only tells you the binary paths of nano.
$ whereis -b nano nano: /usr/bin/nano /usr/share/nano
Similarly, the -s option searches for source files, and the -m option searches for manual pages.
$ whereis -m nano nano: /usr/share/man/man1/nano.1.gz /usr/share/info/nano.info.gz
You can also combine the above options for a more extensive search. For example, the following command searches for nano and firefox binary, manual pages and for bash, only manual pages.
$ whereis -bm nano firefox -m bash nano: /usr/bin/nano /usr/share/nano /usr/share/man/man1/nano.1.gz /usr/share/info/nano.info.gz firefox-m: bash: /usr/bin/bash /usr/share/man/man1/bash.1.gz /usr/share/info/bash.info.gz
Here’s a summary of the options:
| option | description |
|---|---|
| -b | Search only for binaries. |
| -m | Search only for manual sections. |
| -s | Search only for sources. |
| -u | Search for unusual entries. A file is said to be unusual if it does not have one entry of each requested type. Thus ‘whereis -m -u *’ asks for those files in the current directory which have no documentation. |
| -B | Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for binaries. |
| -M | Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for manual sections. |
| -S | Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for sources. |
| -f | Terminate the last directory list and signals the start of file names, and must be used when any of the -B, -M, or -S options are used. |
Closing Notes
I hope this article helps you to understand whereis command and its basics. You can also read the whereis man pages to learn more. Let me know if you have any questions.
This article is part of the Linux command learning series.
