How To Create Directory In Linux Mkdir Tutorial?

Linux is all about directories. But how can we create directories in a simple or complex way? How can we create directories in multi-level at a single shot command? We will look at examples of  mkdir command in this post.

mkdir Command Syntax

mkdir [OPTION]... DIRECTORY...

• OPTION is used to enable/disable mkdir command features like recursive etc.
• DIRECTORY is the name or path of directory we want to create.

Create Directory with mkdir Command

We create a directory simple using mkdir and directory name. In this example, we will create a directory named test1.

$ mkdir test1

Set File Mode While Creating Directory

While creating a directory it can be set directory permission or mode with -m parameter.

$ mkdir -m=777 test2

Here we set user, group and others permissions and make this all can make read, write, execute which is secure this directory 😉

Create Multiple Level Directories

We may create multilevel directories where intermediate directories do not exist currently. This operation will also create intermediate directories. In this example, we will create a directory hierarchy like test3/test4/test5 where they will be created in a row.

$ mkdir -p test3/test4/test5

Print Verbose

While creating directories there will be no output about the operations. If we need to get more information or verbose output we can use -v option. This will provide a log for each operation for each directory creation.

$ mkdir -v -p test6/test7/test8

Set SELinux Context

SELinux provides an extra layer for security. Directory related default context can be set by using -Z .

$ mkdir -Z test9