UNIX PROGRAMMING LAB B.

Tech (CSE)-B3 Date: 27-06-2012

History and Timeline

UNIX Past
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..." - Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972 "... When BTL withdrew from the project, they needed to rewrite an operating system (OS) in order to play space war on another smaller machine (a DEC PDP-7 [Programmed Data Processor] with 4K memory for user programs). The result was a system which a punning colleague called UNICS (UNiplexed Information and Computing Service)--an 'emasculated Multics'; no one recalls whose idea the change to UNIX was"
Since it began to escape from AT&T's Bell Laboratories in the early 1970's, the success of the UNIX operating system has led to many different versions: recipients of the (at that time free) UNIX system code all began developing their own different versions in their own, different, ways for use and sale. Universities, research institutes, government bodies and computer companies all began using the powerful UNIX system to develop many of the technologies which today are part of a UNIX system. Computer aided design, manufacturing control systems, laboratory simulations, even the Internet itself, all began life with and because of UNIX systems. Today, without UNIX systems, the Internet would come to a screeching halt. Most telephone calls could not be made, electronic commerce would grind to a halt and there would have never been "Jurassic Park"! By the late 1970's, a ripple effect had come into play. By now the under- and post-graduate students whose lab work had pioneered these new applications of technology were attaining management and decision-making positions inside the computer system suppliers and among its customers. And they wanted to continue using UNIX systems. Soon all the large vendors, and many smaller ones, were marketing their own, diverging, versions of the UNIX system optimized for their own computer architectures and boasting many different strengths and features. Customers found that, although UNIX systems were available everywhere, they seldom were able to interwork or co-exist without significant investment of time and effort to make them work effectively. The trade mark UNIX was ubiquitous, but it was applied to a multitude of different, incompatible products. In the early 1980's, the market for UNIX systems had grown enough to be noticed by industry analysts and researchers. Now the question was no longer "What is a UNIX system?" but "Is a UNIX system suitable for business and commerce?" Throughout the early and mid-1980's, the debate about the strengths and weaknesses of UNIX systems raged, often fuelled by the utterances of the vendors themselves who sought to protect their profitable proprietary system sales by talking UNIX systems down. And, in an effort to further differentiate their competing UNIX system products, they kept developing and adding features of their own.

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In 1984, another factor brought added attention to UNIX systems. A group of vendors concerned about the continuing encroachment into their markets and control of system interfaces by the larger companies, developed the concept of "open systems." Open systems were those that would meet agreed specifications or standards. This resulted in the formation of X/Open Company Ltd whose remit was, and today in the guise of The Open Group remains, to define a comprehensive open systems environment. Open systems, they declared, would save on costs, attract a wider portfolio of applications and competition on equal terms. X/Open chose the UNIX system as the platform for the basis of open systems. Although UNIX was still owned by AT&T, the company did little commercially with it until the mid1980's. Then the spotlight of X/Open showed clearly that a single, standard version of the UNIX system would be in the wider interests of the industry and its customers. The question now was, "which version?". In a move intended to unify the market in 1987, AT&T announced a pact with Sun Microsystems, the leading proponent of the Berkeley derived strain of UNIX. However, the rest of the industry viewed the development with considerable concern. Believing that their own markets were under threat they clubbed together to develop their own "new" open systems operating system. Their new organization was called the Open Software Foundation (OSF). In response to this, the AT&T/Sun faction formed UNIX International. The ensuing "UNIX wars" divided the system vendors between these two camps clustered around the two dominant UNIX system technologies: AT&T's System V and the OSF system called OSF/1. In the meantime, X/Open Company held the center ground. It continued the process of standardizing the APIs necessary for an open operating system specification. In addition, it looked at areas of the system beyond the operating system level where a standard approach would add value for supplier and customer alike, developing or adopting specifications for languages, database connectivity, networking and mainframe interworking. The results of this work were published in successive X/Open Portability Guides. XPG 4 was released in October 1992. During this time, X/Open had put in place a brand program based on vendor guarantees and supported by testing. Since the publication of XPG4, X/Open has continued to broaden the scope of open systems specifications in line with market requirements. As the benefits of the X/Open brand became known and understood, many large organizations began using X/Open as the basis for system design and procurement. By 1993, over $7 billion had been spent on X/Open branded systems. By the start of 1997 that figure has risen to over $23 billion. To date, procurements referencing the Single UNIX Specification amount to over $5.2 billion. In early 1993, AT&T sold it UNIX System Laboratories to Novell which was looking for a heavyweight operating system to link to its NetWare product range. At the same time, the company recognized that vesting control of the definition (specification) and trademark with a vendor-neutral organization would further facilitate the value of UNIX as a foundation of open systems. So the constituent parts of the UNIX System (source code/technology and specification/trademark), previously owned by a single entity are now quite separate In 1995 X/Open introduced the UNIX 95 brand for computer systems guaranteed to meet the Single UNIX Specification. The Single UNIX Specification brand program has now achieved critical mass: vendors whose products have met the demanding criteria now account for the majority of UNIX systems by value. For over twenty years, since the inception of X/Open, UNIX had been closely linked with open systems. X/Open, now The Open Group, continues to develop and evolve the Single UNIX Specification and associated brand program on behalf of the IT community. The freeing of the specification of the interfaces from the technology is allowing many systems to support the UNIX philosophy of small, often simple tools , that can be combined in many ways to perform often complex tasks. The stability of the core interfaces preserves existing investment, and is allowing development of a rich set of

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software tools. The Open Source movement is building on this stable foundation and is creating a resurgence of enthusiasm for the UNIX philosophy. In many ways Open Source can be seen as the true delivery of Open Systems that will ensure it continues to go from strength to strength.

1969

The Beginning

The history of UNIX starts back in 1969, when Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and others started working on the "little-used PDP-7 in a corner" at Bell Labs and what was to become UNIX. It had a assembler for a PDP-11/20, file system, fork(), roff and ed. It was used for text processing of patent documents. It was rewritten in C. This made it portable and changed the history of OS's. UNIX leaves home. Also widely known as Version 6, this is the first to be widely available out side of Bell Labs. The first BSD version (1.x) was derived from V6. It was a "improvement over all preceding and following Unices" [Bourne]. It had C, UUCP and the Bourne shell. It was ported to the VAX and the kernel was more than 40 Kilobytes (K). Microsoft introduces Xenix. 32V and 4BSD introduced. AT&T's UNIX System Group (USG) release System III, the first public release outside Bell Laboratories. SunOS 1.0 ships. HP-UX introduced. Ultrix-11 Introduced. Computer Research Group (CRG), UNIX System Group (USG) and a third group merge to become UNIX System Development Lab. AT&T announces UNIX System V, the first supported release. Installed base 45,000. University of California at Berkeley releases 4.2BSD, includes TCP/IP, new signals and much more. X/Open formed. System V Release 2 introduced. At this time there are 100,000 UNIX installations around the world. 4.3BSD released, including internet name server. SVID introduced. NFS shipped. AIX announced. Installed base 250,000. System V Release 3 including STREAMS, TLI, RFS. At this time there are 750,000 UNIX installations around the world. IRIX introduced. POSIX.1 published. Open Software Foundation (OSF) and UNIX International (UI) formed. Ultrix 4.2 ships. AT&T UNIX Software Operation formed in preparation for spinoff of USL. Motif 1.0 ships.

1971 1973 1975

First Edition Fourth Edition Sixth Edition

1979

Seventh Edition

1980 1982

Xenix System III

1983

System V

1984 1984 1986 1987 1988 1989 1989 1990 1991

4.2BSD SVR2 4.3BSD SVR3

SVR4 XPG3

UNIX System V Release 4 ships, unifying System V, BSD and Xenix. Installed base 1.2 million. X/Open launches XPG3 Brand. OSF/1 debuts. Plan 9 from Bell Labs ships. UNIX System Laboratories (USL) becomes a company - majority-owned by AT&T. Linus Torvalds commences Linux development. Solaris 1.0 debuts.

1992

SVR4.2

USL releases UNIX System V Release 4.2 (Destiny). October - XPG4 Brand launched by X/Open. December 22nd Novell announces intent to acquire USL. Solaris 2.0 ships. 4.4BSD the final release from Berkeley. June 16 Novell acquires USL Novell transfers rights to the "UNIX" trademark and the Single UNIX

1993 Late

4.4BSD SVR4.2MP

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1993

Specification to X/Open. COSE initiative delivers "Spec 1170" to X/Open for fasttrack. In December Novell ships SVR4.2MP , the final USL OEM release of System V Single UNIX Specification BSD 4.4-Lite eliminated all code claimed to infringe on USL/Novell. As the new owner of the UNIX trademark, X/Open introduces the Single UNIX Specification (formerly Spec 1170), separating the UNIX trademark from any actual code stream. X/Open introduces the UNIX 95 branding programme for implementations of the Single UNIX Specification. Novell sells UnixWare business line to SCO. Digital UNIX introduced. UnixWare 2.0 ships. OpenServer 5.0 debuts. The Open Group forms as a merger of OSF and X/Open. Single UNIX Specification, Version 2 UNIX 98 The Open Group introduces Version 2 of the Single UNIX Specification, including support for realtime, threads and 64-bit and larger processors. The specification is made freely available on the web. IRIX 6.4, AIX 4.3 and HP-UX 11 ship. The Open Group introduces the UNIX 98 family of brands, including Base, Workstation and Server. First UNIX 98 registered products shipped by Sun, IBM and NCR. The Open Source movement starts to take off with announcements from Netscape and IBM. UnixWare 7 and IRIX 6.5 ship. The UNIX system reaches its 30th anniversary. Linux 2.2 kernel released. The Open Group and the IEEE commence joint development of a revision to POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification. First LinuxWorld conferences. Dot com fever on the stock markets. Tru64 UNIX ships. Version 3 of the Single UNIX Specification unites IEEE POSIX, The Open Group and the industry efforts. Linux 2.4 kernel released. IT stocks face a hard time at the markets. The value of procurements for the UNIX brand exceeds $25 billion. AIX 5L ships. The core volumes of Version 3 of the Single UNIX Specification are approved as an international standard. The "Westwood" test suite ship for the UNIX 03 brand. Solaris 9.0 E ships. Linux 2.6 kernel released. Apple Mac OS X certified to UNIX 03. ISO/IEC 9945:2008 UNIX at 40 UNIX on the Desktop Latest revision of the UNIX API set formally standardized at ISO/IEC, IEEE and The Open Group. Adds further APIs IDC on UNIX market -- says UNIX $69 billion in 2008, predicts UNIX $74 billion in 2013 Apple reports 50 million desktops and growing -- these are Certified UNIX systems.

1994

1995

UNIX 95

1996 1997

1998

1999

UNIX at 30

2001

Single UNIX Specification, Version 3 ISO/IEC 9945:2003

2003

2007 2008 2009 2010

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Basic UNIX commands

UNIX is case-sensitive.

Files

ls --- lists your files ls -l --- lists your files in 'long format', which contains lots of useful information, e.g. the exact size of the file, who owns the file and who has the right to look at it, and when it was last modified. ls -a --- lists all files, including the ones whose filenames begin in a dot, which you do not always want to see. There are many more options, for example to list files by size, by date, recursively etc. more filename --- shows the first part of a file, just as much as will fit on one screen. Just hit the space bar to see more or q to quit. You can use /pattern to search for a pattern. emacs filename --- is an editor that lets you create and edit a file. See the emacs page. mv filename1 filename2 --- moves a file (i.e. gives it a different name, or moves it into a different directory (see below) cp filename1 filename2 --- copies a file rm filename --- removes a file. It is wise to use the option rm -i, which will ask you for confirmation before actually deleting anything. You can make this your default by making an alias in your .cshrc file. diff filename1 filename2 --- compares files, and shows where they differ wc filename --- tells you how many lines, words, and characters there are in a file chmod options filename --- lets you change the read, write, and execute permissions on your files. The default is that only you can look at them and change them, but you may sometimes want to change these permissions. For example, chmod o+r filename will make the file readable for everyone, and chmod o-r filename will make it unreadable for others again. Note that for someone to be able to actually look at the file the directories it is in need to be at least executable. See help protection for more details. File Compression o gzip filename --- compresses files, so that they take up much less space. Usually text files compress to about half their original size, but it depends very much on the size of the file and the nature of the contents. There are other tools for this purpose, too (e.g. compress), but gzip usually gives the highest compression rate. Gzip produces files with the ending '.gz' appended to the original filename. o gunzip filename --- uncompresses files compressed by gzip. o gzcat filename --- lets you look at a gzipped file without actually having to gunzip it (same as gunzip -c). You can even print it directly, using gzcat filename | lpr printing
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o o

lpr filename --- print. Use the -P option to specify the printer name if you want to use a printer other than your default printer. For example, if you want to print double-sided, use 'lpr -Pvalkyr-d', or if you're at CSLI, you may want to use 'lpr Pcord115-d'. See 'help printers' for more information about printers and their locations. lpq --- check out the printer queue, e.g. to get the number needed for removal, or to see how many other files will be printed before yours will come out lprm jobnumber --- remove something from the printer queue. You can find the job number by using lpq. Theoretically you also have to specify a printer name, but this isn't necessary as long as you use your default printer in the department. genscript --- converts plain text files into postscript for printing, and gives you some options for formatting. Consider making an alias like alias ecop 'genscript -2 -r \!* | lpr -h -Pvalkyr' to print two pages on one piece of paper. dvips filename --- print .dvi files (i.e. files produced by LaTeX). You can use dviselect to print only selected pages. See the LaTeX page for more information about how to save paper when printing drafts.

Directories
Directories, like folders on a Macintosh, are used to group files together in a hierarchical structure.

mkdir dirname --- make a new directory cd dirname --- change directory. You basically 'go' to another directory, and you will see the files in that directory when you do 'ls'. You always start out in your 'home directory', and you can get back there by typing 'cd' without arguments. 'cd ..' will get you one level up from your current position. You don't have to walk along step by step - you can make big leaps or avoid walking around by specifying pathnames. pwd --- tells you where you currently are.

Finding things

ff --- find files anywhere on the system. This can be extremely useful if you've forgotten in which directory you put a file, but do remember the name. In fact, if you use ff -p you don't even need the full name, just the beginning. This can also be useful for finding other things on the system, e.g. documentation. grep string filename(s) --- looks for the string in the files. This can be useful a lot of purposes, e.g. finding the right file among many, figuring out which is the right version of something, and even doing serious corpus work. grep comes in several varieties (grep, egrep, and fgrep) and has a lot of very flexible options. Check out the man pages if this sounds good to you.

About other people

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w --- tells you who's logged in, and what they're doing. Especially useful: the 'idle' part. This allows you to see whether they're actually sitting there typing away at their keyboards right at the moment. who --- tells you who's logged on, and where they're coming from. Useful if you're looking for someone who's actually physically in the same building as you, or in some other particular location. finger username --- gives you lots of information about that user, e.g. when they last read their mail and whether they're logged in. Often people put other practical information, such as phone numbers and addresses, in a file called .plan. This information is also displayed by 'finger'. last -1 username --- tells you when the user last logged on and off and from where. Without any options, last will give you a list of everyone's logins. talk username --- lets you have a (typed) conversation with another user write username --- lets you exchange one-line messages with another user elm --- lets you send e-mail messages to people around the world (and, of course, read them). It's not the only mailer you can use, but the one we recommend. See the elm page, and find out about the departmental mailing lists (which you can also find in /user/linguistics/helpfile).

About your (electronic) self

whoami --- returns your username. Sounds useless, but isn't. You may need to find out who it is who forgot to log out somewhere, and make sure *you* have logged out. finger & .plan files of course you can finger yourself, too. That can be useful e.g. as a quick check whether you got new mail. Try to create a useful .plan file soon. Look at other people's .plan files for ideas. The file needs to be readable for everyone in order to be visible through 'finger'. Do 'chmod a+r .plan' if necessary. You should realize that this information is accessible from anywhere in the world, not just to other people on turing. passwd --- lets you change your password, which you should do regularly (at least once a year). See the LRB guide and/or look at help password. ps -u yourusername --- lists your processes. Contains lots of information about them, including the process ID, which you need if you have to kill a process. Normally, when you have been kicked out of a dialin session or have otherwise managed to get yourself disconnected abruptly, this list will contain the processes you need to kill. Those may include the shell (tcsh or whatever you're using), and anything you were running, for example emacs or elm. Be careful not to kill your current shell - the one with the number closer to the one of the ps command you're currently running. But if it happens, don't panic. Just try again :) If you're using an X-display you may have to kill some X processes before you can start them again. These will show only when you use ps -efl, because they're root processes. kill PID --- kills (ends) the processes with the ID you gave. This works only for your own processes, of course. Get the ID by using ps. If the process doesn't 'die' properly, use the option -9. But attempt without that option first, because it doesn't give the process a chance to finish possibly important business before dying. You may need to kill processes for example if your modem connection was interrupted and you didn't get logged out properly, which sometimes happens.
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quota -v --- show what your disk quota is (i.e. how much space you have to store files), how much you're actually using, and in case you've exceeded your quota (which you'll be given an automatic warning about by the system) how much time you have left to sort them out (by deleting or gzipping some, or moving them to your own computer). du filename --- shows the disk usage of the files and directories in filename (without argument the current directory is used). du -s gives only a total. last yourusername --- lists your last logins. Can be a useful memory aid for when you were where, how long you've been working for, and keeping track of your phonebill if you're making a non-local phonecall for dialling in.

Connecting to the outside world

nn --- allows you to read news. It will first let you read the news local to turing, and then the remote news. If you want to read only the local or remote news, you can use nnl or nnr, respectively. To learn more about nn type nn, then \tty{:man}, then \tty{=.*}, then \tty{Z}, then hit the space bar to step through the manual. Or look at the man page. Or check out the hypertext nn FAQ - probably the easiest and most fun way to go. rlogin hostname --- lets you connect to a remote host telnet hostname --- also lets you connect to a remote host. Use rlogin whenever possible. ftp hostname --- lets you download files from a remote host which is set up as an ftpserver. This is a common method for exchanging academic papers and drafts. If you need to make a paper of yours available in this way, you can (temporarily) put a copy in /user/ftp/pub/TMP. For more permanent solutions, ask Emma. The most important commands within ftp are get for getting files from the remote machine, and put for putting them there (mget and mput let you specify more than one file at once). Sounds straightforward, but be sure not to confuse the two, especially when your physical location doesn't correspond to the direction of the ftp connection you're making. ftp just overwrites files with the same filename. If you're transferring anything other than ASCII text, use binary mode. lynx --- lets you browse the web from an ordinary terminal. Of course you can see only the text, not the pictures. You can type any URL as an argument to the G command. When you're doing this from any Stanford host you can leave out the .stanford.edu part of the URL when connecting to Stanford URLs. Type H at any time to learn more about lynx, and Q to exit.

Miscellaneous tools

webster word --- looks up the word in an electronic version of Webster's dictionary and returns the definition(s) date --- shows the current date and time. cal --- shows a calendar of the current month. Use e.g., 'cal 10 1995' to get that for October 95, or 'cal 1995' to get the whole year.

You can find out more about these commands by looking up their manpages: man commandname --- shows you the manual page for the command

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More UNIX Commands

jobs --- lists your currently active jobs (those that you put in the background) and their job numbers. Useful to determine which one you want to foreground if you have lots of them. bg --- background a job after suspending it. fg %jobnumber --- foreground a job !! --- repeat the previous command (but CTRL-p, is safer, because you have hit return in addition) !pattern --- repeat the last command that starts with pattern echo $VARIABLE --- shows the value of an environment variable setenv --- lets you set environment variables. For example, if you typed a wrong value for the TERM variable when logging in, you don't have to log out and start over, but you can just do setenv TERM vt100 (or whatever). To see what all your environment variables are set to, type env. The one that you're most likely to have to set is the DISPLAY variable, when using an X-display. unset VAR --- lets you un-set environment variables. Useful, for example, if you've usually set autologout but want to stay logged on for a while without typing for some reason, or if you set the DISPLAY variable automatically but want to avoid opening windows for some reason. source filename --- you need to source your dotfiles after making changes for them to take effect (or log off and in again) load --- will show you the load average graphically ispell filename --- will check the spelling in your file. If you're running it on a LaTeX file use the -T option to tell it to ignore the LaTeX commands. You can create and use your own dictionary to avoid having it tell you that your own name, those of fellow linguists, and linguistics terminology are a typos in every paper you write. weblint --- checks the syntax of html files latex2html --- translates LaTeX files into HTML wn word option --- lets you access the WordNet database and display, for example, synonyms, hypernyms, or hyponyms, depending on the option you select

Command editing in the tcsh These things are the same as in emacs: Backspace --- delete previous character CTRL-d --- delete next character CTRL-k --- delete rest of line CTRL-a --- go to start of line CTRL-e --- go to end of line CTRL-b --- go backwards without deleting CTRL-f --- go forward without deleting Other useful things TAB --- complete filename or command up to the point of uniqueness

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CTRL-u --- cancel whole line CTRL-p --- show the last command typed, then the one before that, etc. (you can also use the cursor up key for this) CTRL-n --- go forwards in the history of commands (you can also use the cursor down key for this) CTRL-c --- cancel the processes after it has started CTRL-z --- suspend a running process (e.g. in order to do something else in between) you can then put the process in the background with bg CTRL-l --- redraws the screen | (piping) --- Lets you execute any number of commands in a sequence. The second command will be executed once the first is done, and so forth, using the previous command's output as input. You can achieve the same effect by putting the output in a file and giving the filename as an argument to the second command, but that would be much more complicated, and you'd have to remember to remove all the junkfiles afterwards. Some examples that show the usefulness of this: ls | more --- will show you one screenful at a time, which is useful with any command that will produce a lot of output, e.g. also ps -aux man ls | grep time --- checks whether the man page for ls has something to say about listing files by time - very useful when you have a suspicion some command may be capable of doing what you want, but you aren't sure. ls -lR | grep dvi --- will show you all your dvi files - useful to solve disk space problems, since they're large and usually can be deleted.

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