There is so much information out there that it is impossible to remember everything you have read or came across. That’s why bookmarking is so important; hundreds of them in the form of cheat sheets, quick reference cards, one-pagers, pensieves, or anything you want to call them. There are some really smart people out there who have put together some fantastic resources to help you quickly find what you need.

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When you only need to know how to do something quickly – not the reasoning behind it or the theory – and you don’t have time to read a 2,000-word whitepaper on how to put together a one-line command, you need a cheat sheet.

That’s why we’ve created this compendium of some of the best of these resources for you to use, save, or bookmark. Many are in PDF format, some are text, and a few are online only, but they are chock-full of great information.

PowerShell

PowerShell is the de facto administrative interface for Microsoft operating systems and applications. Even when you are running in a GUI, there’s PowerShell performing all the work in the background, so knowing PowerShell is vital. Cheat sheets abound online. Here’s a set of the best of the best.

Windows PowerShell 4.0 and Other Quick Reference Guides

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42554

Windows PowerShell 3.0 and Server Manager Quick Reference Guides

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30002

Aptillon Windows PowerShell Cheat Sheet

http://blog.falchionconsulting.com/blog/PowerShellCheatSheet.pdf

Windows PowerShell Quick Reference

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7097

Windows PowerShell 2 For Dummies

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/windows-powershell-2-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html

PowerShell Quick Reference v3.03 by Dimitri Koens

http://www.dimensionit.tv/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PowerShell-quick-reference-Dimension

-IT-v3.03.pdf

Windows PowerShell 3.0 Language Quick Reference

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/1/2/2122F0B9-0EE6-4E6D-BFD6-F9DCD27C07F9/WS12_QuickRef_Download_Files/PowerShell_LangRef_v3.pdf

PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment 3.0

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/1/2/2122F0B9-0EE6-4E6D-BFD6-F9DCD27C07F9/WS12_QuickRef_Download_Files/PowerShell_ISE_v3.pdf

Windows PowerShell 3.0 Examples

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/1/2/2122F0B9-0EE6-4E6D-BFD6-F9DCD27C07F9/WS12_QuickRef_Download_Files/PowerShell_Examples_v3.pdf

Powershell: Regex Cheat Sheet

http://www.addedbytes.com/download/regular-expressions-cheat-sheet-v2/pdf/

PowerShell for Exchange 2010–Cheat Sheet

http://blogs.technet.com/b/matabra/archive/2011/10/21/powershell-for-exchange-2010

-cheat-sheet.aspx

Exchange Shell Quick Reference (2007)

http://exchangepedia.com/reference/ExQuick.html

In addition, there are 11 great monthly newsletters from PowerShell.com that, while not exactly in “cheat sheet” format, are well worth the download. See the complete collection at http://powershell.com/cs/media/28/default.aspx

Active Directory

At the heart of every enterprise is Active Directory. Being able to manage it from the command line makes scripting and automation much more direct and efficient.

Active Directory PowerShell Quick Reference

http://www.jonathanmedd.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/ADPowerShell_QuickReference.pdf

Brakertech Active Directory Cheat Sheet

http://brakertech.com/one-liners/active-directory-cheat-sheet/

Microsoft Active Directory Ports cheat sheet

http://www.adminnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Microsoft-Active-Directory-Ports.pdf

Windows Logging Cheat Sheet

http://sniperforensicstoolkit.squarespace.com/storage/logging/Windows%20Logging%20Cheat%

20Sheet%20v1.1.pdf

Active Directory Auditing

http://www.netwrix.com/download/documents/Native_AD_Auditing_Cheat_Sheet.pdf

Other Microsoft cheat sheets

Here’s a mixed bag of other cheat sheets and references for various Microsoft products, including user and server applications.

SharePoint 2013 Cheat Sheet

http://content.customguide.com/pdf/qr2/sharepoint-2013-quick-reference.pdf

SharePoint 2010 Cheat Sheet

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/sharepoint-2010-cheat-sheet.pdf

Office 365 Cheat Sheet for users

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/office-365-cheat-sheet.pdf

Access 2013

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/access-2013-cheat-sheet.pdf

Excel 2013

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/excel-2013-cheat-sheet.pdf

Lync 2013

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/lync-2013-cheat-sheet.pdf

Outlook 2013

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/outlook-2013-cheat-sheet.pdf

PowerPoint 2013

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/powerpoint-2013-cheat-sheet.pdf

Project 2013

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/project-2013-cheat-sheet.pdf

Word 2013

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/word-2013-cheat-sheet.pdf

Access 2010

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/access-2010-cheat-sheet.pdf

Excel 2010

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/excel-2010-cheat-sheet.pdf

Outlook 2010

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/outlook-2010-cheat-sheet.pdf

PowerPoint 2010

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/powerpoint-2010-cheat-sheet.pdf

Project 2010

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/project-2010-cheat-sheet.pdf

Word 2010

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/word-2010-cheat-sheet.pdf

Windows 8

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/windows-8-cheat-sheet.pdf

Windows 7

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/windows-7-cheat-sheet.pdf

Windows Server 2012 Windows PowerShell Web Access

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/1/2/2122F0B9-0EE6-4E6D-BFD6-F9DCD27C07F9/WS12_QuickRef_Download_Files/Quick_Reference_SM_WS12.pdf

Windows command line reference

http://ss64.com/nt/

SQL Server Cheat Sheet

http://www.addedbytes.com/download/sql-server-cheat-sheet-v1/pdf/

SQL Data Types and Conversion, Functions, and Creation

http://www.addedbytes.com/download/sql-server-cheat-sheet-v1/pdf/

Apple cheat sheets

Cheat sheets do not only exist for Microsoft products, but there are a handful for Apple.

Mac OSX

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/mac-os-lion-cheat-sheet.pdf

Excel 2011

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/excel-2011-cheat-sheet.pdf

Outlook 2011

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/outlook-2011-cheat-sheet.pdf

PowerPoint 2011

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/powerpoint-2011-cheat-sheet.pdf

Word 2011

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/word-2011-cheat-sheet.pdf

iPad Cheat Sheet

http://www.customguide.com/cheat_sheets/ipad-ios7-cheat-sheet.pdf

Linux and Unix

Linux and Unix also have a collection of cheat sheets online.

VI/VIM Graphical Cheat Sheet

http://locobox.googlepages.com/vi-vim-cheat-sheet-qwerty.pdf

OpenSSH Quick Reference

http://www.cheat-sheets.org/saved-copy/OpenSSH_quickref.pdf

Rosetta Stone for UNIX

http://bhami.com/unix-rosetta.pdf

AWK Cheat Sheet

http://www.catonmat.net/download/awk.cheat.sheet.pdf

Ed Unix Text Editor Cheat Sheet

http://www.catonmat.net/download/ed.text.editor.cheat.sheet.pdf

Unix Toolbox

http://cb.vu/unixtoolbox.xhtml

CHMOD Chart

http://www.draac.com/chmodchart.html

Networking

Here’s a short list for networking engineers and sys admins. PacketLife has more than a dozen all on one page.

Protocol encapsulation chart from Wildpackets

http://users.lmi.net/canepa/subdir/encasulation_chart.pdf

PacketLife.net’s huge collection of protocol and networking cheat sheets

http://packetlife.net/library/cheat-sheets/

NMAP Cheat Sheet

http://www.cheat-sheets.org/saved-copy/Nmap5.cheatsheet.eng.v1.pdf

SANS Institute TCP/IP Reference

http://www.sans.org/security-resources/tcpip.pdf

Web

And since most of us have to do some web work from time to time, here are some cheat sheets for those of us who are not devs, but still have to bang out some limited code or like to customize our blogs.

HTML Cheat Sheet

http://www.psacake.com/web/dy.asp

HTML / XHTML Quick Reference

http://www.cheat-sheets.org/saved-copy/html1_quickref.pdf

HTML Codes Cheat Sheet

http://www.killersites.com/HTML_CODES/index.php

HTML Color Codes

http://www.killersites.com/HTML_COLOR_CODES/ColorWheel.htm

WordPress Theme Cheat Sheet

http://www.cheat-sheets.org/saved-copy/wptcs.png

WordPress Helper Sheet

http://www.cheat-sheets.org/saved-copy/wp-help-sheet.txt

HTTP/1.1 Status Codes

http://www.cheat-sheets.org/saved-copy/http-response-codes-1.pdf

HTML Cheat Sheet

http://www.addedbytes.com/download/html-cheat-sheet-v1/pdf/

HTML Character Entities Cheat Sheet

http://www.cheatography.com/davechild/cheat-sheets/html-character-entities/

RGB Hex Colour Chart

http://www.addedbytes.com/download/rgb-hex-cheat-sheet-v1/pdf/

JavaScript Cheat Sheet

http://www.addedbytes.com/download/javascript-cheat-sheet-v1/pdf/

VMware

If you use VMware for virtualization, there are some pretty handy references as well.

PowerCLI Quick Reference

http://virtu-al.net/Downloads/PowerCLIQuickReference.pdf

vSphere 5.0 vReference Card

http://www.vreference.com/public/vReference-vSphere-5.0-card-1.0.3-Full-Page.pdf

vSphere 4.1 vReference Card

http://www.vreference.com/public/vReference-vSphere4card2.3.2.pdf

esxtop & vscsiStats creditcard sized reference

http://www.vreference.com/public/vReference-esxtop1.2.pdf

ESX3 vmreference card

http://www.vreference.com/public/vmreferenceVI3card1.3for3.5U3.pdf

Just a few more things

You will need a login but Dzone has a huge collection of cheat sheets for sys admins. Certainly worth exploring if you want to sign up.

Expert cheat sheets and tutorial guides for developers

http://refcardz.dzone.com/

With all the great cheat sheets posted online, this list is certainly not exhaustive. Do you have any favorites? Leave a comment with a link below and let us know what your go-to resources are.

For more cheet sheets for sys admins check out: http://www.gegeek.com/

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