UNIX Commands

COMP 444/5201
Revision 1.4
January 25, 2005

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 Contents
• Shell Intro
• Command Format
• Shell I/O
• Command I/O
• Command Overview

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 Shell Intro
• A system program that allows a user to execute:
– shell functions (internal commands)
– other programs (external commands)
– shell scripts
• Linux/UNIX has a bunch of them, the most common are
– tcsh, an expanded version of csh (Bill Joy, Berkley, Sun)
– bash, one of the most popular and rich in functionality shells, an
expansion of sh (AT&T Bell Labs)
– ksh, Korn Shell
– zhs
– ...

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 Command Format
• Format: command name and 0 or more
arguments:
% commandname [arg1] ... [argN]
• By % sign I mean prompt here and hereafter.
• Arguments can be
– options (switches to the command to indicate a
mode of operation) ; usually prefixed with a hyphen
(-) or two (--) in GNU style
– non-options, or operands, basically the data to work
with (actual data, or a file name)
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 Shell I/O
• Shell is a “power-user” interface, so the user interacts with
the shell by typing in the commands.
• The shell interprets the commands, that may produce some
results, they go back to the user and the control is given
back to the user when a command completes (in general).
• In the case of external commands, shell executes actual
programs that may call functions of the OS kernel.
• These system commands are often wrapped around a so-
called system calls, to ask the kernel to perform an
operation (usually privileged) on your behalf.

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 Command I/O
• Input to shell:
– Command name and arguments typed by the user
• Input to a command:
– Keyboard, file, or other commands
• Standard input: keyboard.
• Standard output: screen.
• These STDIN and STDOUT are often together referred to as a terminal.
• Both standard input and standard output can be redirected from/to a file or other
command.
• File redirection:
– < input
– > output
– >> output append

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 Commands

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 man
• Manual Pages
• The first command to remember
• Contains info about almost everything :-)
– other commands
– system calls
– c/library functions
– other utils, applications, configuration files
• To read about man itself type:
% man man
• NOTE: unfortunately there’s no
% man woman ...
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 which
• Displays a path name of a command.
• Searches a path environmental variable for the
command and displays the absolute path.
• To find which tcsh and bash are actually in
use, type:
% which tcsh
% which bash
• % man which for more details

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 chsh
• Change Login Shell
• Login shell is the shell that interprets commands after you
logged in by default.
• You can change it with chsh (provided that your system
admin allowed you to do so).
• To list all possible shells, depending on implementation:
% chsh -l
% cat /etc/shells
• % chsh with no arguments will prompt you for the shell.

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 whereis
• Display all locations of a command (or
some other binary, man page, or a source
file).
• Searchers all directories to find commands
that match whereis’ argument
• % whereis tcsh

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 General Commands

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 passwd
• Change your login password.
• A very good idea after you got a new one.
• It’s usually a paranoid program asking your password to
have at least 6 chars in the password, at least two
alphabetical and one numerical characters. Some other
restrictions (e.g. dictionary words or previous password
similarity) may apply.
• Depending on a privilege, one can change user’s and group
passwords as well as real name, login shell, etc.
• % man passwd
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 date
• Guess what :-)
• Displays dates in various formats
• % date
• % date -u
– in GMT
• % man date

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 cal
• Calendar • % cal current month
• % cal 2 2000 Feb 2000, leap year
– for month
• % cal 2 2100 not a leap year
– entire year • % cal 2 2400 leap year
• Years range: 1 - 9999 • % cal 9 1752 11 days skipped
• % cal 0 error
• No year 0
• % cal 2002 whole year
• Calendar was
corrected in 1752 -
removed 11 days

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 clear
• Clears the screen
• There’s an alias for it: Ctrl+L
• Example sequence:
– % cal
– % clear
– % cal
– Ctrl+L

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 sleep
• “Sleeping” is doing nothing for some time.
• Usually used for delays in shell scripts.
• % sleep 2 2 seconds pause

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 Command Grouping
• Semicolon: “;”
• Often grouping acts as if it were a single
command, so an output of different
commands can be redirected to a file:
• % (date; cal; date) > out.txt

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 alias
• Defined a new name for a command
• % alias
– with no arguments lists currently active aliases
• % alias newcommand oldcommand
– defines a newcommand
• % alias cl cal 2003
• % cl
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 unalias
• Removes alias
• Requires an argument.
• % unalias cl

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 history
• Display a history of • % !n
recently used commands – repeat command n in the
• % history history
– all commands in the history • % !-1
• % history 10 – repeat last command = !!
– last 10 • % !-2
• % history -r 10 – repeat second last command
– reverse order • % !ca
• % !! – repeat last command that
begins with ‘ca’
– repeat last command

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 apropos
• Search man pages for • % apropos date
a substring. • % man -k date
• % apropos word • % apropos password
• Equivalent:
• % man -k word

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 exit / logout
• Exit from your login session.
• % exit
• % logout

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 shutdown
• Causes system to shutdown or reboot
cleanly.
• May require superuser privileges
• % shutdown -h now - stop
• % shutdown -r now - reboot

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 Files

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 ls
• List directory contents • % ls -F
• Has whole bunch of options, – append “/” to dirs and “*” to
see man ls for details. executables

• % ls • % ls -l
– all files except those starting – long format
with a “.” • % ls -al
• % ls -a • % ls -lt
– all – sort by modification time
• % ls -A (latest - earliest)
– all without “.” and “..” • % ls -ltr
– reverse

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 cat
• Display and concatenate files.
• % cat
– Will read from STDIN and print to STDOT every line you enter.
• % cat file1 [file2] ...
– Will concatenate all files in one and print them to STDOUT
• % cat > filename
– Will take whatever you type from STDIN and will put it into the
file filename
• To exit cat or cat > filename type Ctrl+D to
indicate EOF (End of File).
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 more / less
• Pagers to display contents of large files
page by page or scroll line by line up and
down.
• Have a lot of viewing options and search
capability.
• Interactive. To exit: ‘q’

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 less
• less ("less is more") a bit more smart than the more command
• to display contents of a file:
– % less filename
• To display line numbers:
– % less -N filename
• To display a prompt:
– % less -P"Press 'q' to quit" filename
• Combine the two:
– % less -NP"Blah-blah-blah" filename
• For more information:
– % man less

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 touch
• By touching a file you either create it if it did
not exists (with 0 length).
• Or you update it’s last modification and access
times.
• There are options to override the default
behavior.
• % touch file
• % man touch
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 cp
• Copies files / directories.
• % cp [options] <source> <destination>
• % cp file1 file2
• % cp file1 [file2] … /directory
• Useful option: -i to prevent overwriting existing files
and prompt the user to confirm.

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 mv
• Moves or renames files/directories.
• % mv <source> <destination>
– The <source> gets removed
• % mv file1 dir/
• % mv file1 file2
– rename
• % mv file1 file2 dir/
• % mv dir1 dir2
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 rm
• Removes file(s) and/or directories.
• % rm file1 [file2] ...
• % rm -r dir1 [dir2] ...
• % rm -r file1 dir1 dir2 file4 ...

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 script
• Writes a log (a typescript) of whatever happened in
the terminal to a file.
• % script [file]
• % script
– all log is saved into a file named typescript
• % script file
– all log is saved into a file named file
• To exit logging, type:
– % exit
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 find
• Looks up a file in a directory tree.
• % find . -name name
• % find . \(-name ‘w*’ -or -name ‘W*’ \)

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 mkdir
• Creates a directory.
• % mkdir newdir
• Often people make an alias of md for it.

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 cd
• Changes your current directory to a new one.
• % cd /some/other/dir
– Absolute path
• % cd subdir
– Assuming subdir is in the current directory.
• % cd
– Returns you to your home directory.

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 pwd
• Displays personal working directory, i.e.
your current directory.
• % pwd

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 rmdir
• Removes a directory.
• % rmdir dirname
• Equivalent:
– % rm -r dirname

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 ln
• Symbolic link or a “shortcut” in M$
terminology.
• % ln –s <real-name> <fake-name>

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 chmod
• Changes file permissions
• Possible invocations
– % chmod 600 filename
– -rw------- 1 user group 2785 Feb 8 14:18 filename
(a bit not intuitive where 600 comes from)
– % chmod u+rw filename
(the same thing, more readable)
– For the assignment:
• % chmod u+x myshellscript
(mysshellscript is now executable)
• -rwx------ 1 user group 2785 Feb 8 14:18 myshellscript

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 grep
• Searches its input for a pattern.
• The pattern can be a simple substring or a complex regular
expression.
• If a line matches, it’s directed to STDOUT; otherwise, it’s
discarded.
• % echo “blah-foo” | grep blah
– Will print the matching line
• % echo “blah-foo” | grep zee
– Will not.
• See a separate grep tutorial.
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 Pipes
• What's a pipe?
– is a method of interprocess communication (IPC)
– in shells a '|' symbol used
– it means that the output of one program (on one side of
a pipe) serves as an input for the program on another
end.
– a set of "piped" commands is often called a pipeline
• Why it's useful?
– Because by combining simple OS utilities one can
easily solve more complex tasks

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 More on UNIX Commands
and Editors
• http://www.cs.concordia.ca/help/

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