Linux Fundamentals

Paul Cobbaut

Linux Fundamentals
Paul Cobbaut
lt-2.0
Published Mon 27 Feb 2012 01:00:50 CET

Abstract
This book is meant to be used in an instructor-led training. For self-study, the intent is to read this book next to a
working Linux computer so you can immediately do every subject, practicing each command.
This book is aimed at novice Linux system administrators (and might be interesting and useful for home users that
want to know a bit more about their Linux system). However, this book is not meant as an introduction to Linux
desktop applications like text editors, browsers, mail clients, multimedia or office applications.
More information and free .pdf available at http://linux-training.be .
Feel free to contact the authors:
Paul Cobbaut: [email protected], http://www.linkedin.com/in/cobbaut
Contributors to the Linux Training project are:
Serge van Ginderachter: [email protected], build scripts; infrastructure setup; minor stuff
Hendrik De Vloed: [email protected], buildheader.pl script
Ywein Van den Brande: [email protected], license and legal sections
We'd also like to thank our reviewers:
Wouter Verhelst: [email protected], http://grep.be
Geert Goossens: [email protected], http://www.linkedin.com/in/geertgoossens
Elie De Brauwer: [email protected], http://www.de-brauwer.be
Christophe Vandeplas: [email protected], http://christophe.vandeplas.com
Bert Desmet: [email protected], http://bdesmet.be
Rich Yonts: [email protected],

Copyright 2007-2012 Netsec BVBA, Paul Cobbaut

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section
entitled 'GNU Free Documentation License'.

Table of Contents
I. introduction to Linux ........................................................................................ 1
1. Unix history ................................................................................................ 2
2. licensing ...................................................................................................... 6
3. distributions ............................................................................................... 10
4. online help ................................................................................................ 16
II. first steps on the command line .................................................................... 19
5. man pages ................................................................................................. 20
6. working with directories ........................................................................... 24
7. working with files ..................................................................................... 34
8. working with file contents ........................................................................ 43
9. the Linux file tree ..................................................................................... 50
III. shell expansion .............................................................................................. 70
10. commands and arguments ....................................................................... 71
11. control operators ..................................................................................... 81
12. variables .................................................................................................. 87
13. shell history ............................................................................................. 97
14. file globbing .......................................................................................... 103
IV. pipes and commands .................................................................................. 110
15. redirection and pipes ............................................................................. 111
16. filters ..................................................................................................... 119
17. basic Unix tools .................................................................................... 131
V. vi ..................................................................................................................... 140
18. Introduction to vi .................................................................................. 141
VI. scripting ....................................................................................................... 151
19. scripting introduction ............................................................................ 152
20. scripting loops ....................................................................................... 158
21. scripting parameters .............................................................................. 165
22. more scripting ....................................................................................... 172
VII. local user management ............................................................................. 179
23. users ...................................................................................................... 180
24. groups .................................................................................................... 201
VIII. file security ............................................................................................... 207
25. standard file permissions ...................................................................... 208
26. advanced file permissions ..................................................................... 218
27. access control lists ................................................................................ 224
28. file links ................................................................................................ 228
IX. Appendices ................................................................................................... 235
A. certifications ........................................................................................... 236
B. keyboard settings .................................................................................... 238
C. hardware ................................................................................................. 240
Index .................................................................................................................... 244

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List of Tables
1.1. Early Unix Timeline ........................................................................................ 3
1.2. Eighties Unix Timeline .................................................................................... 3
1.3. Current BSD Timeline ..................................................................................... 4
18.1. getting to command mode ......................................................................... 142
18.2. switch to insert mode ................................................................................. 142
18.3. replace and delete ...................................................................................... 143
18.4. undo and repeat .......................................................................................... 143
18.5. cut, copy and paste a line .......................................................................... 143
18.6. cut, copy and paste lines ............................................................................ 143
18.7. start and end of line ................................................................................... 144
18.8. join two lines ............................................................................................. 144
18.9. words .......................................................................................................... 145
18.10. save and exit vi ........................................................................................ 145
18.11. searching .................................................................................................. 146
18.12. replace ...................................................................................................... 146
18.13. read files and input .................................................................................. 146
18.14. text buffers ............................................................................................... 147
18.15. multiple files ............................................................................................ 147
18.16. abbreviations ............................................................................................ 147
23.1. Debian User Environment .......................................................................... 200
23.2. Red Hat User Environment ........................................................................ 200
25.1. Unix special files ....................................................................................... 210
25.2. standard Unix file permissions .................................................................. 210
25.3. Unix file permissions position ................................................................... 211
25.4. Octal permissions ....................................................................................... 213

iv

Part I. introduction to Linux

Chapter 1. Unix history

Table of Contents
1.1.
1.2.
1.3.
1.4.
1.5.

AT&T Bell Labs ..............................................................................................

The Unix Wars ................................................................................................
University of California, Berkeley ...................................................................
GNU's not Unix ...............................................................................................
Linux ................................................................................................................

This chapter briefly tells the history of Unix and where Linux fits in.

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3
4
4
4

Unix history

1.1. AT&T Bell Labs

In 1969 Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson wrote UNICS (Uniplexed Information
and Computing System) at Bell Labs. Together with Douglas McIlroy they are
seen as the creators of Unix. The name Unics is a play on the Multics Operating
System for mainframe computers. Unics (later renamed to Unix) was written for
mini-computers like the DEC PDP-series. In 1973 they decided to write Unix in
C (instead of assembler), to make it portable to other computers. Unix was made
available to universities, companies and the US government, including the full source
code. This meant that every C programmer could make changes. By 1978 about 600
computers were running Unix.
Table 1.1. Early Unix Timeline
1969-1977

1978-1980

1981

1982

BSD

4.1BSD

4.1BSD
SunOS 1.0

UNIX Time Sharing System

Unix
System III

Unix

1.2. The Unix Wars

The unity and openness that existed in the Unix world until 1977 was long gone by
the end of the eighties. Different vendors of distinct versions of Unix tried to set the
standard. Sun and AT&T joined the X/Open group to unify Unix. Other vendors
joined the Open Software Foundation or OSF. These struggles were not good for
Unix, allowing for new operating system families like OS/2, Novell Netware and
Microsoft Windows NT to take big chunks of server market share in the early nineties.
The table below shows the evolution of a united Unix into several Unixes in the
eighties.
Table 1.2. Eighties Unix Timeline
1983

1984

1985

4.1BSD
SunOS1.0

1986

1987

1988

1989

1990

1991

4.3BSD

BSD Net/2

4.3BSD
SunOS3.2

System V

NeXTSTEP
SystemVr4

System V

AIX

III + V

HP-UX

1992

Solaris
UnixWare

Unix history

1.3. University of California, Berkeley

Students of Berkeley were happy to join in the development of Bell Labs Unix, but
were not so happy with the restrictive licensing. Unix was open source software,
but it still required purchase of a license. So during the eighties, they rewrote all
the Unix tools until they had a complete Unix-like operating system. By 1991, the
BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) branch of Unix was completely separate from
the Bell Labs Unix. NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD are three current Unixlike operating systems derived from the 1991 BSD Net/2 codebase. Sun Solaris,
Microsoft Windows NT, and Apple Mac OS X all used source code from BSD. The
table below shows operating systems still in use today that are in a way derived from
the 1978-1981 BSD code base.
Table 1.3. Current BSD Timeline
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

2000-2008

FreeBSD
BSD Net/2

NetBSD
NetBSD

OpenBSD

NeXTSTEP

Mac OS X
Solaris

1.4. GNU's not Unix

Largely because of discontent with the restrictive licensing on existing Unix
implementations, Richard Stallman initiated the GNU Project in 1983. The GNU
project aims to create free software. Development of the GNU operating system
started, aiming to create a complete Unix-like branch, separate from the two other
(BSD and Bell Labs). Today the GNU compiler gcc and most other GNU utilities (like
bash) are among the most popular on many Unix-like systems. The official kernel of
this project is GNU/Hurd, but you can hardly call that kernel a finished product.

1.5. Linux
Where GNU/Hurd failed, the Linux kernel succeeded! In 1991 a Finnish student
named Linus Torvalds started writing his own operating system for his Intel 80386
computer. In January 1992, Linus decided to release Linux under the GNU GPL.
Thanks to this, thousands of developers are now working on the Linux kernel. Linus
Torvalds is in charge of the kernel developers.
Contrary to popular belief, they are not all volunteers. Today big companies like
Red Hat, Novell, IBM, Intel, SGI, Oracle, Montavista, Google, HP, NetApp, Cisco,
Fujitsu, Broadcom, and others are actively paying developers to work on the Linux
kernel. According to the Linux Foundation "over 3700 individual developers from
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Unix history
over 200 different companies have contributed to the kernel between 2005 and April
2008". 1057 developers from 186 different companies contributed code to make
kernel version 2.6.23 into 2.6.24.

Chapter 2. licensing
Table of Contents
2.1.
2.2.
2.3.
2.4.
2.5.
2.6.
2.7.
2.8.

about software licenses ....................................................................................

public domain software and freeware ..............................................................
Free Software or Open Source Software .........................................................
GNU General Public License ..........................................................................
using GPLv3 software .....................................................................................
BSD license .....................................................................................................
other licenses ...................................................................................................
combination of software licenses .....................................................................

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9
9

This chapter briefly explains the different licenses used for distributing operating
systems software.
Many thanks go to Ywein Van den Brande for writing most of this chapter.
Ywein is an attorney at law, co-author of The International FOSS Law Book and
author of Praktijkboek Informticarecht (in Dutch).

http://ifosslawbook.org
http://www.crealaw.eu

licensing

2.1. about software licenses

There are two predominant software paradigms: Free and Open Source Software
(FOSS) and proprietary software. The criteria for differentiation between these two
approaches is based on control over the software. With proprietary software, control
tends to lie more with the vendor, while with Free and Open Source Software it
tends to be more weighted towards the end user. But even though the paradigms
differ, they use the same copyright laws to reach and enforce their goals. From a
legal perspective, Free and Open Source Software can be considered as software to
which users generally receive more rights via their license agreement than they would
have with a proprietary software license, yet the underlying license mechanisms
are the same.
Legal theory states that the author of FOSS, contrary to the author of public domain
software, has in no way whatsoever given up his rights on his work. FOSS supports on
the rights of the author (the copyright) to impose FOSS license conditions. The FOSS
license conditions need to be respected by the user in the same way as proprietary
license conditions. Always check your license carefully before you use third party
software.
Examples of proprietary software are AIX from IBM, HP-UX from HP and Oracle
Database 11g. You are not authorized to install or use this software without paying a
licensing fee. You are not authorized to distribute copies and you are not authorized
to modify the closed source code.

2.2. public domain software and freeware

Software that is original in the sense that it is an intellectual creation of the
author benefits copyright protection. Non-original software does not come into
consideration for copyright protection and can, in principle, be used freely.
Public domain software is considered as software to which the author has given up all
rights and on which nobody is able to enforce any rights. This software can be used,
reproduced or executed freely, without permission or the payment of a fee. Public
domain software can in certain cases even be presented by third parties as own work,
and by modifying the original work, third parties can take certain versions of the
public domain software out of the public domain again.
Freeware is not public domain software or FOSS. It is proprietary software that you
can use without paying a license cost. However, the often strict license terms need
to be respected.
Examples of freeware are Adobe Reader, Skype and Command and Conquer:
Tiberian Sun (this game was sold as proprietary in 1999 and is since 2011 available
as freeware).

licensing

2.3. Free Software or Open Source Software

Both the Free Software (translates to vrije software in Dutch and to Logiciel
Libre in French) and the Open Source Software movement largely pursue similar
goals and endorse similar software licenses. But historically, there has been some
perception of differentiation due to different emphases. Where the Free Software
movement focuses on the rights (the four freedoms) which Free Software provides to
its users, the Open Source Software movement points to its Open Source Definition
and the advantages of peer-to-peer software development.
Recently, the term free and open source software or FOSS has arisen as a neutral
alternative. A lesser-used variant is free/libre/open source software (FLOSS), which
uses libre to clarify the meaning of free as in freedom rather than as in at no charge.
Examples of free software are gcc, MySQL and gimp.
Detailed information about the four freedoms can be found here:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

The open source definition can be found at:

http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

The above definition is based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines available
here:
http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines

2.4. GNU General Public License

More and more software is being released under the GNU GPL (in 2006 Java was
released under the GPL). This license (v2 and v3) is the main license endorsed by
the Free Software Foundation. Its main characteristic is the copyleft principle. This
means that everyone in the chain of consecutive users, in return for the right of use
that is assigned, needs to distribute the improvements he makes to the software and his
derivative works under the same conditions to other users, if he chooses to distribute
such improvements or derivative works. In other words, software which incorporates
GNU GPL software, needs to be distributed in turn as GNU GPL software (or
compatible, see below). It is not possible to incorporate copyright protected parts of
GNU GPL software in a proprietary licensed work. The GPL has been upheld in court.

2.5. using GPLv3 software

You can use GPLv3 software almost without any conditions. If you solely run the
software you even dont have to accept the terms of the GPLv3. However, any other
use - such as modifying or distributing the software - implies acceptance.
8

licensing
In case you use the software internally (including over a network), you may modify
the software without being obliged to distribute your modification. You may hire
third parties to work on the software exclusively for you and under your direction and
control. But if you modify the software and use it otherwise than merely internally,
this will be considered as distribution. You must distribute your modifications under
GPLv3 (the copyleft principle). Several more obligations apply if you distribute
GPLv3 software. Check the GPLv3 license carefully.
You create output with GPLv3 software: The GPLv3 does not automatically apply
to the output.

2.6. BSD license

There are several versions of the original Berkeley Distribution License. The most
common one is the 3-clause license ("New BSD License" or "Modified BSD
License").
This is a permissive free software license. The license places minimal restrictions on
how the software can be redistributed. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses such as
the GPLv. 3 discussed above, which have a copyleft mechanism.
This difference is of less importance when you merely use the software, but kicks in
when you start redistributing verbatim copies of the software or your own modified
versions.

2.7. other licenses

FOSS or not, there are many kind of licenses on software. You should read and
understand them before using any software.

2.8. combination of software licenses

When you use several sources or wishes to redistribute your software under a different
license, you need to verify whether all licenses are compatible. Some FOSS licenses
(such as BSD) are compatible with proprietary licenses, but most are not. If you detect
a license incompatibility, you must contact the author to negotiate different license
conditions or refrain from using the incompatible software.

Chapter 3. distributions
Table of Contents
3.1.
3.2.
3.3.
3.4.
3.5.

What is a distribution ? ..................................................................................

Linux Distributions ........................................................................................
BSD Distributions ..........................................................................................
Major Vendors of Unix .................................................................................
Solaris .............................................................................................................

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14
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This chapter gives an overview of current Linux distributions and some Unix releases.

10

distributions

3.1. What is a distribution ?

Unix comes in many flavors usually called distributions. A distribution (or in short
distro) is a collection of software packages distributed on CD, online, or pre-installed
on computers. All the software in a distribution is tested and integrated nicely
into a common look and feel. Software is maintained (patched) by the distributor
and is managed by an integrated package manager. Many distros have a central
repository of approved software. Installing software from outside the distro can
sometimes be cumbersome and may void your warranty on the system.

3.2. Linux Distributions

There are hundreds of Linux distributions, just take a look at the distrowatch.com
website. For many years, Red Hat, Suse, and Mandrake were considered the big three
for end users. Red Hat is still the biggest commercial Linux vendor and since 2008
the most popular Linux distribution for home users is Ubuntu from Canonical.

Linux distribution detection

Depending on the distribution used, there are distinct files that contain the distribution
version.
The /etc/redhat-release file contains the Red Hat version on most of the Red Hat and
Red Hat derived systems. Debian and Ubuntu systems contain /etc/debian-version.
Note that Ubuntu was originally derived from Debian.
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 4)
serge@venusia:~$ cat /etc/debian_version
lenny/sid

The /etc/lsb-release file can be found on distributions that follow the Linux Standard
Base. Other variations to these files are /etc/slackware-version, /etc/SuSE-release,
/etc/gentoo-release and /etc/mandrake-release.
serge@venusia:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=8.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=hardy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 8.04.1"

Red Hat
Redhat has been a company since 1993. They distribute Red Hat Enterprise
Linux (RHEL) to companies and manage the Fedora project. RHEL is probably
the most popular Linux-based distro on servers. Fedora is a very popular and user
friendly Linux-based distro, aimed towards home users. The company makes a profit
of around one hundred million dollars a year selling support contracts. Red Hat
contributes a lot to the Linux kernel and other free software projects.
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distributions

Red Hat Linux

Red Hat Linux was distributed from 1994 until 2003. It was one of the oldest common
Linux distributions. Red Hat Linux was the first distro to use the rpm package format.
Many other distros are originally derived from Red Hat Linux. The company Red
Hat, Inc. decided to split Red Hat Linux into Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise
Linux.

Fedora
Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat which is aimed toward home users. There is no
official support from Red Hat. Every six to eight months, there is a new version
of Fedora. Fedora usually has more recent versions of kernel and applications than
RHEL. Fedora 9 was released May 2008.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4

Since 2005 Red Hat has distributed four different RHEL4 variants. RHEL AS is
for mission-critical computer systems. RHEL ES is for small to mid-range servers.
RHEL WS is for technical power user desktops and critical design. Red Hat Desktop
is for multiple deployments of single user desktops. Red Hat does not give an
explanation for the meaning of AS, ES and WS, but it might be Advanced Server,
Entry-level Server, and Workstation.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5

Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5 has been available since March 2007. One of the
notable new features is the inclusion of Xen. Xen is a free virtual machine application
that allows NetBSD and Linux to serve as host for guest operating systems. Besides
virtualization, RHEL 5 also has better SELinux support, clustering, network storage
and smart card integration.

CentOS and Unbreakable Linux

Both CentOS and Oracle's Unbreakable Linux are directly derived from RHEL,
but all references to Red Hat trademarks are removed. Companies are allowed to do
this (GPL), and are hoping to make a profit selling support (without having the cost
of developing and maintaining their own distribution). Red Hat is not really worried
about this since they develop a lot on Linux and thus can offer much better support.
The Oracle offering is still very recent, so let's wait and see how many organizations
will buy a complete solution from Oracle.

Ubuntu
Ubuntu is a rather new distribution, based on Debian, and funded by South African
developer and billionaire astronaut Mark Shuttleworth. Ubuntu is giving away free
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distributions
(as in beer and speech) CDs with Ubuntu, Linux for Human Beings. Many people
consider Ubuntu to be the most user friendly Linux distribution. The company behind
Ubuntu is Canonical which intends to make a profit of selling support soon. Ubuntu
is probably the most popular Unix-like distribution on personal desktops.
Image copied from xkcd.com.

Novell Suse
A couple of years ago, Novell bought the German company Suse. They are seen as
the main competitor to Red Hat with their SLES (Suse Linux Enterprise Server) and
SLED (Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop) versions of Suse Linux. Similar to Fedora,
Novell hosts the OpenSUSE project as a testbed for upcoming SLED and SLES
releases.
Novell has signed a very controversial deal with Microsoft. Some high-profile open
source developers have left the company because of this agreement and many
people from the open source community are actively advocating to abandon Novell
completely.

Debian
Debian is one of the most secure Linux distros. It is known to be stable and reliable,
and runs on many architectures (including old ones like the Motorola 68k). Debian is
maintained by many passionate volunteers that have a strong focus towards freedom.
There is no company directly controlling and releasing Debian. You will not find
patented technologies or non-free software in the standard Debian repositories. A lot
of distributions (Ubuntu, Knoppix, ...) are derived from the Debian codebase. Debian
has aptitude, which is considered the best package management system.

Mandriva
Mandriva is the unification of the Brazilian distro Conectiva with the French distro
Mandrake. They are considered a user friendly distro with support from the French
government.
13

distributions

3.3. BSD Distributions

FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a complete operating system. The kernel and all of the utilities are held in
the same source code tree. FreeBSD runs on many architectures and is considered to
be reliable and robust. Millions of websites are running on FreeBSD, including some
large ones like yahoo.com, apache.org, sony.co.jp, netcraft, php.net, and freebsd.org.
Apple's MacOSX contains the FreeBSD virtual file system, network stack, and more.

NetBSD
NetBSD development started around the same time (1993) as FreeBSD. NetBSD
aims for maximum portability and thus runs on many architectures. NetBSD is often
used in embedded devices.

OpenBSD
Co-founder Theo De Raadt from NetBSD founded the OpenBSD project in
1994. OpenBSD aims for maximum security. Over the past ten years, only two
vulnerabilities have been found in the default install of OpenBSD. All source code
is thoroughly checked. OpenBSD runs on sixteen different architectures and is
commonly used for firewalls and IDS. The OpenBSD people also bring us OpenSSH.

3.4. Major Vendors of Unix

We should at least mention IBM's AIX, Sun's Solaris, and Hewlett-Packard's HPUX, which are all based on the original Unix from Bell Labs (Unix System V).
Sun's SunOS, HP's Tru64 (originally from DEC), and Apple's MacOSX are more
derived from the BSD branch. But most Unixes today may contain source code and
implementations from both original Unix-branches.

3.5. Solaris
Solaris 8 and Solaris 9
All Sun Solaris releases before Solaris 10 are proprietary binary only, just like IBM
AIX and HP-UX.

Solaris 10
Solaris 10 is the officially supported Sun distribution. It is a free (as in beer)
download. Sun releases binary patches and updates. Sun would like a community
14

distributions
built around the Solaris kernel, similar to the Linux community. Sun released the
Solaris kernel under the CDDL, a license similar to the GPL, hoping this will happen.

Nevada and Solaris Express

Nevada is the codename for the next release of Solaris (Solaris 11). It is currently
under development by Sun and is based on the OpenSolaris code. Solaris Express
Community Edition is an official, free binary release including open source
OpenSolaris and some closed source technologies, updated twice a month without
any support from Sun. Solaris Express Developer Edition is the same, but with some
support, thorough testing before release, and is released twice a year.

OpenSolaris, Belenix and Nexenta

OpenSolaris is an open source development project (yes, it is only source code).
Future versions of the Solaris operating system are based on this source code. The
Belenix LiveCD is based on OpenSolaris. Another famous OpenSolaris based distro
is Nexenta. Nexenta (www.gnusolaris.org) looks like Ubuntu and feels like Debian.
The goal of this GNU/Solaris project is to have the best Linux desktop (Ubuntu)
including the aptitude package manager running on a Sun Solaris kernel.

15

Chapter 4. online help

Table of Contents
4.1.
4.2.
4.3.
4.4.
4.5.
4.6.

Google ............................................................................................................
Wikipedia .......................................................................................................
The Linux Documentation Project .................................................................
Red Hat ..........................................................................................................
Ubuntu ............................................................................................................
linux-training.be .............................................................................................

This chapters gives some tips on where to find help with Linux on the internet.

16

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online help

4.1. Google
Google is a powerful tool to find help about Unix, or anything else. Here are some
tricks.
Look for phrases instead of single words.

Search only pages from the .be TLD (or substitute .be for any other Top Level
Domain). You can also use "country:be" to search only pages from Belgium (based
on ip rather than TLD).

Search for pages inside one domain

Search for pages not containing some words.

4.2. Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a web-based, free-content encyclopedia. Its growth over the past two
years has been astonishing. You have a good chance of finding a clear explanation
by typing your search term behind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ like this example
shows.

4.3. The Linux Documentation Project

You can find much documentation, faqs, howtos and man pages about Linux and
many of the programs running on Linux on www.tldp.org .
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online help

4.4. Red Hat

Red Hat has a lot of info online at http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/ in both
pdf and html format. These manuals are good, but unfortunately are not always up
to date.

4.5. Ubuntu
Help for every Ubuntu release is available at https://help.ubuntu.com. Ubuntu also
has video of how to perform tasks on Ubuntu at http://screencasts.ubuntu.com.

4.6. linux-training.be
This book is available for free in .pdf and .html. Download it at http://linuxtraining.be and learn more about Linux fundamentals, system administration,
networking, storage, security and more.

18

Part II. first steps on

the command line

Chapter 5. man pages

Table of Contents
5.1. man $command ..............................................................................................
5.2. man $configfile ..............................................................................................
5.3. man $daemon .................................................................................................
5.4. man -k (apropos) ............................................................................................
5.5. whatis .............................................................................................................
5.6. whereis ...........................................................................................................
5.7. man sections ...................................................................................................
5.8. man $section $file ..........................................................................................
5.9. man man ........................................................................................................
5.10. mandb ...........................................................................................................

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21
21
22
22
22
22
23

This chapter will explain the use of man pages (also called manual pages) on your
Unix or Linux computer.
You will learn the man command together with related commands like whereis,
whatis and mandb.
Most Unix files and commands have pretty good man pages to explain their use. Man
pages also come in handy when you are using multiple flavours of Unix or several
Linux distributions since options and parameters sometimes vary.

20

man pages

5.1. man $command

Type man followed by a command (for which you want help) and start reading. Press
q to quit the manpage. Some man pages contain examples (near the end).
paul@laika:~$ man whois
Reformatting whois(1), please wait...

5.2. man $configfile

Most configuration files have their own manual.
paul@laika:~$ man syslog.conf
Reformatting syslog.conf(5), please wait...

5.3. man $daemon

This is also true for most daemons (background programs) on your system..
paul@laika:~$ man syslogd
Reformatting syslogd(8), please wait...

5.4. man -k (apropos)

man -k (or apropos) shows a list of man pages containing a string.
paul@laika:~$ man -k syslog
lm-syslog-setup (8) - configure laptop mode to switch syslog.conf ...
logger (1)
- a shell command interface to the syslog(3) ...
syslog-facility (8) - Setup and remove LOCALx facility for sysklogd
syslog.conf (5)
- syslogd(8) configuration file
syslogd (8)
- Linux system logging utilities.
syslogd-listfiles (8) - list system logfiles

5.5. whatis
To see just the description of a manual page, use whatis followed by a string.
paul@u810:~$ whatis route
route (8)
- show / manipulate the IP routing table

21

man pages

5.6. whereis
The location of a manpage can be revealed with whereis.
paul@laika:~$ whereis -m whois
whois: /usr/share/man/man1/whois.1.gz

This file is directly readable by man.

paul@laika:~$ man /usr/share/man/man1/whois.1.gz

5.7. man sections

By now you will have noticed the numbers between the round brackets. man man
will explain to you that these are section numbers. Executable programs and shell
commands reside in section one.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Executable programs or shell commands

System calls (functions provided by the kernel)
Library calls (functions within program libraries)
Special files (usually found in /dev)
File formats and conventions eg /etc/passwd
Games
Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions), e.g. man(7)
System administration commands (usually only for root)
Kernel routines [Non standard]

5.8. man $section $file

Therefor, when referring to the man page of the passwd command, you will see it
written as passwd(1); when referring to the passwd file, you will see it written as
passwd(5). The screenshot explains how to open the man page in the correct section.
[paul@RHEL52 ~]$ man passwd
[paul@RHEL52 ~]$ man 5 passwd

# opens the lowest section (1)

# opens a page from section 5

5.9. man man

If you want to know more about man, then Read The Fantastic Manual (RTFM).
Unfortunately, manual pages do not have the answer to everything...
paul@laika:~$ man woman
No manual entry for woman

22

man pages

5.10. mandb
Should you be convinced that a man page exists, but you can't access it, then try
running mandb.
root@laika:~# mandb
0 man subdirectories contained newer manual pages.
0 manual pages were added.
0 stray cats were added.
0 old database entries were purged.

23

Chapter 6. working with directories

Table of Contents
6.1.
6.2.
6.3.
6.4.
6.5.
6.6.
6.7.
6.8.
6.9.

pwd .................................................................................................................
cd ....................................................................................................................
absolute and relative paths .............................................................................
path completion ..............................................................................................
ls .....................................................................................................................
mkdir ..............................................................................................................
rmdir ...............................................................................................................
practice: working with directories .................................................................
solution: working with directories .................................................................

25
25
26
27
27
29
29
31
32

To explore the Linux file tree, you will need some basic tools.
This chapter is small overview of the most common commands to work with
directories : pwd, cd, ls, mkdir, rmdir. These commands are available on any Linux
(or Unix) system.
This chapter also discusses absolute and relative paths and path completion in the
bash shell.

24

working with directories

6.1. pwd
The you are here sign can be displayed with the pwd command (Print Working
Directory). Go ahead, try it: Open a command line interface (like gnome-terminal,
konsole, xterm, or a tty) and type pwd. The tool displays your current directory.
paul@laika:~$ pwd
/home/paul

6.2. cd
You can change your current directory with the cd command (Change Directory).
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/etc
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/bin
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/home/paul

cd /etc
pwd
cd /bin
pwd
cd /home/paul/
pwd

cd ~
You can pull off a trick with cd. Just typing cd without a target directory, will put
you in your home directory. Typing cd ~ has the same effect.
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/etc
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/home/paul
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/home/paul

cd /etc
pwd
cd
pwd
cd ~
pwd

cd ..
To go to the parent directory (the one just above your current directory in the
directory tree), type cd .. .
paul@laika$ pwd
/usr/share/games
paul@laika$ cd ..
paul@laika$ pwd

25

working with directories

/usr/share
paul@laika$ cd ..
paul@laika$ cd ..
paul@laika$ pwd
/

To stay in the current directory, type cd . ;-) We will see useful use of the . character
representing the current directory later.

cd Another useful shortcut with cd is to just type cd - to go to the previous directory.

paul@laika$
/home/paul
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/etc
paul@laika$
/home/paul
paul@laika$
/etc

pwd
cd /etc
pwd
cd cd -

6.3. absolute and relative paths

You should be aware of absolute and relative paths in the file tree. When you type
a path starting with a slash (/), then the root of the file tree is assumed. If you don't
start your path with a slash, then the current directory is the assumed starting point.
The screenshot below first shows the current directory /home/paul. From within this
directory, you have to type cd /home instead of cd home to go to the /home directory.
paul@laika$ pwd
/home/paul
paul@laika$ cd home
bash: cd: home: No such file or directory
paul@laika$ cd /home
paul@laika$ pwd
/home

When inside /home, you have to type cd paul instead of cd /paul to enter the
subdirectory paul of the current directory /home.
paul@laika$ pwd
/home
paul@laika$ cd /paul
bash: cd: /paul: No such file or directory
paul@laika$ cd paul
paul@laika$ pwd
/home/paul

26

working with directories

In case your current directory is the root directory /, then both cd /home and cd
home will get you in the /home directory.
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/home
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/
paul@laika$
paul@laika$
/home

cd /
pwd
cd home
pwd
cd /
pwd
cd /home
pwd

This was the last screenshot with pwd statements. From now on, the current directory
will often be displayed in the prompt. Later in this book we will explain how the shell
variable $PS1 can be configured to show this.

6.4. path completion

The tab key can help you in typing a path without errors. Typing cd /et followed by
the tab key will expand the command line to cd /etc/. When typing cd /Et followed by
the tab key, nothing will happen because you typed the wrong path (upper case E).
You will need fewer key strokes when using the tab key, and you will be sure your
typed path is correct!

6.5. ls
You can list the contents of a directory with ls.
paul@pasha:~$ ls
allfiles.txt dmesg.txt
paul@pasha:~$

httpd.conf

stuff

summer.txt

ls -a
A frequently used option with ls is -a to show all files. Showing all files means
including the hidden files. When a file name on a Unix file system starts with a dot,
it is considered a hidden file and it doesn't show up in regular file listings.
paul@pasha:~$ ls
allfiles.txt dmesg.txt
paul@pasha:~$ ls -a

httpd.conf

27

stuff

summer.txt

working with directories

.
allfiles.txt
.. .bash_history
paul@pasha:~$

.bash_profile
.bashrc

dmesg.txt
httpd.conf

.lesshst
.ssh

stuff
summer.txt

ls -l
Many times you will be using options with ls to display the contents of the directory
in different formats or to display different parts of the directory. Typing just ls gives
you a list of files in the directory. Typing ls -l (that is a letter L, not the number 1)
gives you a long listing (more information on the contents).
paul@pasha:~$ ls -l
total 23992
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 24506857 2006-03-30 22:53 allfiles.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
14744 2006-09-27 11:45 dmesg.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
8189 2006-03-31 14:01 httpd.conf
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul
4096 2007-01-08 12:22 stuff
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
0 2006-03-30 22:45 summer.txt

ls -lh
Another frequently used ls option is -h. It shows the numbers (file sizes) in a more
human readable format. Also shown below is some variation in the way you can give
the options to ls. We will explain the details of the output later in this book.
paul@pasha:~$ ls -l -h
total 24M
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
paul@pasha:~$ ls -lh
total 24M
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
paul@pasha:~$ ls -hl
total 24M
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
paul@pasha:~$ ls -h -l
total 24M
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul

24M
15K
8.0K
4.0K
0

2006-03-30
2006-09-27
2006-03-31
2007-01-08
2006-03-30

22:53
11:45
14:01
12:22
22:45

allfiles.txt
dmesg.txt
httpd.conf
stuff
summer.txt

24M
15K
8.0K
4.0K
0

2006-03-30
2006-09-27
2006-03-31
2007-01-08
2006-03-30

22:53
11:45
14:01
12:22
22:45

allfiles.txt
dmesg.txt
httpd.conf
stuff
summer.txt

24M
15K
8.0K
4.0K
0

2006-03-30
2006-09-27
2006-03-31
2007-01-08
2006-03-30

22:53
11:45
14:01
12:22
22:45

allfiles.txt
dmesg.txt
httpd.conf
stuff
summer.txt

24M
15K
8.0K
4.0K
0

2006-03-30
2006-09-27
2006-03-31
2007-01-08
2006-03-30

22:53
11:45
14:01
12:22
22:45

allfiles.txt
dmesg.txt
httpd.conf
stuff
summer.txt

28

working with directories

6.6. mkdir
Walking around the Unix file tree is fun, but it is even more fun to create your own
directories with mkdir. You have to give at least one parameter to mkdir, the name
of the new directory to be created. Think before you type a leading / .
paul@laika:~$ mkdir MyDir
paul@laika:~$ cd MyDir
paul@laika:~/MyDir$ ls -al
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul 4096 2007-01-10 21:13 .
drwxr-xr-x 39 paul paul 4096 2007-01-10 21:13 ..
paul@laika:~/MyDir$ mkdir stuff
paul@laika:~/MyDir$ mkdir otherstuff
paul@laika:~/MyDir$ ls -l
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul 4096 2007-01-10 21:14 otherstuff
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul 4096 2007-01-10 21:14 stuff
paul@laika:~/MyDir$

mkdir -p
When given the option -p, then mkdir will create parent directories as needed.
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$
MySubdir2
paul@laika:~$
ThreeDeep
paul@laika:~$

mkdir -p MyDir2/MySubdir2/ThreeDeep
ls MyDir2
ls MyDir2/MySubdir2
ls MyDir2/MySubdir2/ThreeDeep/

6.7. rmdir
When a directory is empty, you can use rmdir to remove the directory.
paul@laika:~/MyDir$ rmdir otherstuff
paul@laika:~/MyDir$ ls
stuff
paul@laika:~/MyDir$ cd ..
paul@laika:~$ rmdir MyDir
rmdir: MyDir/: Directory not empty
paul@laika:~$ rmdir MyDir/stuff
paul@laika:~$ rmdir MyDir

rmdir -p
And similar to the mkdir -p option, you can also use rmdir to recursively remove
directories.
29

working with directories

paul@laika:~$ mkdir -p dir/subdir/subdir2

paul@laika:~$ rmdir -p dir/subdir/subdir2
paul@laika:~$

30

working with directories

6.8. practice: working with directories

1. Display your current directory.
2. Change to the /etc directory.
3. Now change to your home directory using only three key presses.
4. Change to the /boot/grub directory using only eleven key presses.
5. Go to the parent directory of the current directory.
6. Go to the root directory.
7. List the contents of the root directory.
8. List a long listing of the root directory.
9. Stay where you are, and list the contents of /etc.
10. Stay where you are, and list the contents of /bin and /sbin.
11. Stay where you are, and list the contents of ~.
12. List all the files (including hidden files) in your home directory.
13. List the files in /boot in a human readable format.
14. Create a directory testdir in your home directory.
15. Change to the /etc directory, stay here and create a directory newdir in your home
directory.
16. Create in one command the directories ~/dir1/dir2/dir3 (dir3 is a subdirectory
from dir2, and dir2 is a subdirectory from dir1 ).
17. Remove the directory testdir.
18. If time permits (or if you are waiting for other students to finish this practice),
use and understand pushd and popd. Use the man page of bash to find information
about these commands.

31

working with directories

6.9. solution: working with directories

1. Display your current directory.
pwd

2. Change to the /etc directory.

cd /etc

3. Now change to your home directory using only three key presses.
cd (and the enter key)

4. Change to the /boot/grub directory using only eleven key presses.

cd /boot/grub (use the tab key)

5. Go to the parent directory of the current directory.

cd .. (with space between cd and ..)

6. Go to the root directory.

cd /

7. List the contents of the root directory.

ls

8. List a long listing of the root directory.

ls -l

9. Stay where you are, and list the contents of /etc.

ls /etc

10. Stay where you are, and list the contents of /bin and /sbin.
ls /bin /sbin

11. Stay where you are, and list the contents of ~.

ls ~

12. List all the files (including hidden files) in your home directory.
ls -al ~

13. List the files in /boot in a human readable format.

ls -lh /boot

14. Create a directory testdir in your home directory.

mkdir ~/testdir

15. Change to the /etc directory, stay here and create a directory newdir in your home
directory.
32

working with directories

cd /etc ; mkdir ~/newdir

16. Create in one command the directories ~/dir1/dir2/dir3 (dir3 is a subdirectory

from dir2, and dir2 is a subdirectory from dir1 ).
mkdir -p ~/dir1/dir2/dir3

17. Remove the directory testdir.

rmdir testdir

18. If time permits (or if you are waiting for other students to finish this practice),
use and understand pushd and popd. Use the man page of bash to find information
about these commands.
man bash

The Bash shell has two built-in commands called pushd and popd. Both commands
work with a common stack of previous directories. Pushd adds a directory to the stack
and changes to a new current directory, popd removes a directory from the stack and
sets the current directory.
paul@laika:/etc$ cd /bin
paul@laika:/bin$ pushd /lib
/lib /bin
paul@laika:/lib$ pushd /proc
/proc /lib /bin
paul@laika:/proc$
paul@laika:/proc$ popd
/lib /bin
paul@laika:/lib$
paul@laika:/lib$
paul@laika:/lib$ popd
/bin
paul@laika:/bin$

33

Chapter 7. working with files

Table of Contents
7.1. all files are case sensitive ..............................................................................
7.2. everything is a file .........................................................................................
7.3. file ..................................................................................................................
7.4. touch ...............................................................................................................
7.5. rm ...................................................................................................................
7.6. cp ....................................................................................................................
7.7. mv ..................................................................................................................
7.8. rename ............................................................................................................
7.9. practice: working with files ...........................................................................
7.10. solution: working with files .........................................................................

35
35
35
36
36
37
39
39
40
41

In this chapter we learn how to recognise, create, remove, copy and move files using
commands like file, touch, rm, cp, mv and rename.

34

working with files

7.1. all files are case sensitive

Linux is case sensitive, this means that FILE1 is different from file1, and /etc/hosts
is different from /etc/Hosts (the latter one does not exist on a typical Linux computer).
This screenshot shows the difference between two files, one with upper case W, the
other with lower case w.
paul@laika:~/Linux$ ls
winter.txt Winter.txt
paul@laika:~/Linux$ cat winter.txt
It is cold.
paul@laika:~/Linux$ cat Winter.txt
It is very cold!

7.2. everything is a file

A directory is a special kind of file, but it is still a file. Even a terminal window (/
dev/pts/4) or a hard disk (/dev/sdb) is represented somewhere in the file system as
a file. It will become clear throughout this course that everything on Linux is a file.

7.3. file
The file utility determines the file type. Linux does not use extensions to determine
the file type. Your editor does not care whether a file ends in .TXT or .DOC. As a
system administrator, you should use the file command to determine the file type.
Here are some examples on a typical Linux system.
paul@laika:~$ file pic33.png
pic33.png: PNG image data, 3840 x 1200, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced
paul@laika:~$ file /etc/passwd
/etc/passwd: ASCII text
paul@laika:~$ file HelloWorld.c
HelloWorld.c: ASCII C program text

Here's another example of the file utility. It shows different type of binaries on
different architectures.
# Solaris 9 on Intel
bash-2.05$ file /bin/date
/bin/date:
ELF 32-bit LSB executable 80386 Version 1, dynamically \
linked, stripped
# Ubuntu Linux on AMD64
paul@laika:~$ file /bin/date
/bin/date: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, AMD x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), for\
GNU/Linux 2.6.0, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux \
2.6.0, stripped

35

working with files

# Debian Sarge on SPARC
paul@pasha:~$ file /bin/date
/bin/date: ELF 32-bit MSB executable, SPARC, version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/\
Linux 2.4.1, dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.4.1\
, stripped
# AIX on RS/6000
serena@AIX7 /home/serena$ file /bin/date
/bin/date: executable (RISC System/6000) or object module

The file command uses a magic file that contains patterns to recognise file types.
The magic file is located in /usr/share/file/magic. Type man 5 magic for more
information.

7.4. touch
One easy way to create a file is with touch. (We will see many other ways for creating
files later in this book.)
paul@laika:~/test$ touch
paul@laika:~/test$ touch
paul@laika:~/test$ touch
paul@laika:~/test$ ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 0

file1
file2
file555

2007-01-10 21:40 file1

2007-01-10 21:40 file2
2007-01-10 21:40 file555

touch -t
Of course, touch can do more than just create files. Can you determine what by
looking at the next screenshot? If not, check the manual for touch.
paul@laika:~/test$ touch
paul@laika:~/test$ touch
paul@laika:~/test$ ls -l
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 0

-t 200505050000 SinkoDeMayo
-t 130207111630 BigBattle

1302-07-11 16:30 BigBattle

2005-05-05 00:00 SinkoDeMayo

7.5. rm
When you no longer need a file, use rm to remove it. Unlike some graphical user
interfaces, the command line in general does not have a waste bin or trash can to
recover files. When you use rm to remove a file, the file is gone. Therefore, be careful
when removing files!
paul@laika:~/test$ ls

36

working with files

BigBattle SinkoDeMayo
paul@laika:~/test$ rm BigBattle
paul@laika:~/test$ ls
SinkoDeMayo

rm -i
To prevent yourself from accidentally removing a file, you can type rm -i.
paul@laika:~/Linux$ touch brel.txt
paul@laika:~/Linux$ rm -i brel.txt
rm: remove regular empty file `brel.txt'? y
paul@laika:~/Linux$

rm -rf
By default, rm will not remove non-empty directories. However rm accepts several
options that will allow you to remove any directory. The rm -rf statement is famous
because it will erase anything (providing that you have the permissions to do so).
When you are logged on as root, be very careful with rm -rf (the f means force and
the r means recursive) since being root implies that permissions don't apply to you,
so you can literally erase your entire file system by accident.
paul@laika:~$ ls test
SinkoDeMayo
paul@laika:~$ rm test
rm: cannot remove `test': Is a directory
paul@laika:~$ rm -rf test
paul@laika:~$ ls test
ls: test: No such file or directory

7.6. cp
To copy a file, use cp with a source and a target argument. If the target is a directory,
then the source files are copied to that target directory.
paul@laika:~/test$ touch FileA
paul@laika:~/test$ ls
FileA
paul@laika:~/test$ cp FileA FileB
paul@laika:~/test$ ls
FileA FileB
paul@laika:~/test$ mkdir MyDir
paul@laika:~/test$ ls
FileA FileB MyDir
paul@laika:~/test$ cp FileA MyDir/
paul@laika:~/test$ ls MyDir/
FileA

37

working with files

cp -r
To copy complete directories, use cp -r (the -r option forces recursive copying of
all files in all subdirectories).
paul@laika:~/test$ ls
FileA FileB MyDir
paul@laika:~/test$ ls MyDir/
FileA
paul@laika:~/test$ cp -r MyDir MyDirB
paul@laika:~/test$ ls
FileA FileB MyDir MyDirB
paul@laika:~/test$ ls MyDirB
FileA

cp multiple files to directory

You can also use cp to copy multiple files into a directory. In this case, the last
argument (a.k.a. the target) must be a directory.
cp file1 file2 dir1/file3 dir1/file55 dir2

cp -i
To prevent cp from overwriting existing files, use the -i (for interactive) option.
paul@laika:~/test$ cp fire water
paul@laika:~/test$ cp -i fire water
cp: overwrite `water'? no
paul@laika:~/test$

cp -p
To preserve permissions and time stamps from source files, use cp -p.
paul@laika:~/perms$ cp file* cp
paul@laika:~/perms$ cp -p file* cpp
paul@laika:~/perms$ ll *
-rwx------ 1 paul paul
0 2008-08-25 13:26 file33
-rwxr-x--- 1 paul paul
0 2008-08-25 13:26 file42
cp:
total 0
-rwx------ 1 paul paul 0 2008-08-25 13:34 file33
-rwxr-x--- 1 paul paul 0 2008-08-25 13:34 file42
cpp:
total 0
-rwx------ 1 paul paul 0 2008-08-25 13:26 file33
-rwxr-x--- 1 paul paul 0 2008-08-25 13:26 file42

38

working with files

7.7. mv
Use mv to rename a file or to move the file to another directory.
paul@laika:~/test$
paul@laika:~/test$
file100
paul@laika:~/test$
paul@laika:~/test$
ABC.txt
paul@laika:~/test$

touch file100
ls
mv file100 ABC.txt
ls

When you need to rename only one file then mv is the preferred command to use.

7.8. rename
The rename command can also be used but it has a more complex syntax to enable
renaming of many files at once. Below are two examples, the first switches all
occurrences of txt to png for all file names ending in .txt. The second example
switches all occurrences of upper case ABC in lower case abc for all file names ending
in .png . The following syntax will work on debian and ubuntu (prior to Ubuntu 7.10).
paul@laika:~/test$
123.txt ABC.txt
paul@laika:~/test$
paul@laika:~/test$
123.png ABC.png
paul@laika:~/test$
paul@laika:~/test$
123.png abc.png
paul@laika:~/test$

ls
rename 's/txt/png/' *.txt
ls
rename 's/ABC/abc/' *.png
ls

On Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and many other Linux distributions like Ubuntu 8.04),
the syntax of rename is a bit different. The first example below renames all *.conf
files replacing any occurrence of conf with bak. The second example renames all (*)
files replacing one with ONE.
[paul@RHEL4a test]$
one.conf two.conf
[paul@RHEL4a test]$
[paul@RHEL4a test]$
one.bak two.bak
[paul@RHEL4a test]$
[paul@RHEL4a test]$
ONE.bak two.bak
[paul@RHEL4a test]$

ls
rename conf bak *.conf
ls
rename one ONE *
ls

39

working with files

7.9. practice: working with files

1. List the files in the /bin directory
2. Display the type of file of /bin/cat, /etc/passwd and /usr/bin/passwd.
3a. Download wolf.jpg and book.pdf from http://www.linux-training.be (wget http://
linux-training.be/files/studentfiles/wolf.jpg and wget http://linux-training.be/files/
books/LinuxFun.pdf)
3b. Display the type of file of wolf.jpg and book.pdf
3c. Rename wolf.jpg to wolf.pdf (use mv).
3d. Display the type of file of wolf.pdf and book.pdf.
4. Create a directory ~/touched and enter it.
5. Create the files today.txt and yesterday.txt in touched.
6. Change the date on yesterday.txt to match yesterday's date.
7. Copy yesterday.txt to copy.yesterday.txt
8. Rename copy.yesterday.txt to kim
9. Create a directory called ~/testbackup and copy all files from ~/touched in it.
10. Use one command to remove the directory ~/testbackup and all files in it.
11. Create a directory ~/etcbackup and copy all *.conf files from /etc in it. Did you
include all subdirectories of /etc ?
12. Use rename to rename all *.conf files to *.backup . (if you have more than one
distro available, try it on all!)

40

working with files

7.10. solution: working with files

1. List the files in the /bin directory
ls /bin

2. Display the type of file of /bin/cat, /etc/passwd and /usr/bin/passwd.

file /bin/cat /etc/passwd /usr/bin/passwd

3a. Download wolf.jpg and book.pdf from http://www.linux-training.be (wget http://

linux-training.be/files/studentfiles/wolf.jpg and wget http://linux-training.be/files/
books/LinuxFun.pdf)
wget http://linux-training.be/files/studentfiles/wolf.jpg
wget http://linux-training.be/files/studentfiles/wolf.png
wget http://linux-training.be/files/books/LinuxFun.pdf

3b. Display the type of file of wolf.jpg and book.pdf

file wolf.jpg book.pdf

3c. Rename wolf.jpg to wolf.pdf (use mv).

mv wolf.jpg wolf.pdf

3d. Display the type of file of wolf.pdf and book.pdf.

file wolf.pdf book.pdf

4. Create a directory ~/touched and enter it.

mkdir ~/touched ; cd ~/touched

5. Create the files today.txt and yesterday.txt in touched.

touch today.txt yesterday.txt

6. Change the date on yesterday.txt to match yesterday's date.

touch -t 200810251405 yesterday.txt (substitute 20081025 with yesterday)

7. Copy yesterday.txt to copy.yesterday.txt

cp yesterday.txt copy.yesterday.txt

8. Rename copy.yesterday.txt to kim

mv copy.yesterday.txt kim

9. Create a directory called ~/testbackup and copy all files from ~/touched in it.
mkdir ~/testbackup ; cp -r ~/touched ~/testbackup/

10. Use one command to remove the directory ~/testbackup and all files in it.
rm -rf ~/testbackup

11. Create a directory ~/etcbackup and copy all *.conf files from /etc in it. Did you
include all subdirectories of /etc ?
41

working with files

cp -r /etc/*.conf ~/etcbackup
Only *.conf files that are directly in /etc/ are copied.

12. Use rename to rename all *.conf files to *.backup . (if you have more than one
distro available, try it on all!)
On RHEL: touch 1.conf 2.conf ; rename conf backup *.conf
On Debian: touch 1.conf 2.conf ; rename 's/conf/backup/' *.conf

42

Chapter 8. working with file contents

Table of Contents
8.1.
8.2.
8.3.
8.4.
8.5.
8.6.
8.7.
8.8.

head ................................................................................................................
tail ..................................................................................................................
cat ...................................................................................................................
tac ...................................................................................................................
more and less .................................................................................................
strings .............................................................................................................
practice: file contents .....................................................................................
solution: file contents .....................................................................................

44
44
45
46
46
46
48
49

In this chapter we will look at the contents of text files with head, tail, cat, tac, more,
less and strings.
We will also get a glimpse of the possibilities of tools like cat on the command line.

43

working with file contents

8.1. head
You can use head to display the first ten lines of a file.
paul@laika:~$ head /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/sh
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/bin/sh
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/bin/sh
sync:x:4:65534:sync:/bin:/bin/sync
games:x:5:60:games:/usr/games:/bin/sh
man:x:6:12:man:/var/cache/man:/bin/sh
lp:x:7:7:lp:/var/spool/lpd:/bin/sh
mail:x:8:8:mail:/var/mail:/bin/sh
news:x:9:9:news:/var/spool/news:/bin/sh
paul@laika:~$

The head command can also display the first n lines of a file.
paul@laika:~$ head -4 /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
daemon:x:1:1:daemon:/usr/sbin:/bin/sh
bin:x:2:2:bin:/bin:/bin/sh
sys:x:3:3:sys:/dev:/bin/sh

Head can also display the first n bytes.

paul@laika:~$ head -c4 /etc/passwd
rootpaul@laika:~$

8.2. tail
Similar to head, the tail command will display the last ten lines of a file.
paul@laika:~$ tail /etc/services
vboxd
20012/udp
binkp
24554/tcp
asp
27374/tcp
asp
27374/udp
csync2
30865/tcp
dircproxy
57000/tcp
tfido
60177/tcp
fido
60179/tcp

# binkp fidonet protocol

# Address Search Protocol
#
#
#
#

cluster synchronization tool

Detachable IRC Proxy
fidonet EMSI over telnet
fidonet EMSI over TCP

# Local services
paul@laika:~$

You can give tail the number of lines you want to see.
$ tail -3 count.txt
six
seven

44

working with file contents

eight

The tail command has other useful options, some of which we will use some of them
during this course.

8.3. cat
The cat command is one of the most universal tools. All it does is copy standard
input to standard output. In combination with the shell this can be very powerful and
diverse. Some examples will give a glimpse into the possibilities. The first example
is simple, you can use cat to display a file on the screen. If the file is longer than the
screen, it will scroll to the end.
paul@laika:~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 194.7.1.4
paul@laika:~$

concatenate
cat is short for concatenate. One of the basic uses of cat is to concatenate files into
a bigger (or complete) file.
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$
one
two
three
paul@laika:~$

echo one > part1

echo two > part2
echo three > part3
cat part1 part2 part3

create files
You can use cat to create files with one or more lines of text. Type the command as
shown in the screenshot below. Then type one or more lines, finishing each line with
the enter key. After the last line, type and hold the Control (Ctrl) key and press d.
The Ctrl d key combination will send an EOF (End of File) to the running process
ending the cat command.
paul@laika:~/test$ cat > winter.txt
It is very cold today!
paul@laika:~/test$ cat winter.txt
It is very cold today!
paul@laika:~/test$

You can choose this end marker for cat with << as is shown in this screenshot.

45

working with file contents

paul@laika:~/test$ cat > hot.txt <<stop
> It is hot today!
> Yes it is summer.
> stop
paul@laika:~/test$ cat hot.txt
It is hot today!
Yes it is summer.
paul@laika:~/test$

copy files
In the third example you will see that cat can be used to copy files. We will explain
in detail what happens here in the bash shell chapter.
paul@laika:~/test$ cat winter.txt
It is very cold today!
paul@laika:~/test$ cat winter.txt > cold.txt
paul@laika:~/test$ cat cold.txt
It is very cold today!
paul@laika:~/test$

8.4. tac
Just one example will show you the purpose of tac (as the opposite of cat).
paul@laika:~/test$ cat count
one
two
three
four
paul@laika:~/test$ tac count
four
three
two
one
paul@laika:~/test$

8.5. more and less

The more command is useful for displaying files that take up more than one screen.
More will allow you to see the contents of the file page by page. Use the space bar to
see the next page, or q to quit. Some people prefer the less command to more.

8.6. strings
With the strings command you can display readable ascii strings found in (binary)
files. This example locates the ls binary then displays readable strings in the binary
file (output is truncated).
46

working with file contents

paul@laika:~$ which ls
/bin/ls
paul@laika:~$ strings /bin/ls
/lib/ld-linux.so.2
librt.so.1
__gmon_start__
_Jv_RegisterClasses
clock_gettime
libacl.so.1
...

47

working with file contents

8.7. practice: file contents

1. Display the first 12 lines of /etc/services.
2. Display the last line of /etc/passwd.
3. Use cat to create a file named count.txt that looks like this:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five

4. Use cp to make a backup of this file to cnt.txt.

5. Use cat to make a backup of this file to catcnt.txt.
6. Display catcnt.txt, but with all lines in reverse order (the last line first).
7. Use more to display /var/log/messages.
8. Display the readable character strings from the /usr/bin/passwd command.
9. Use ls to find the biggest file in /etc.

48

working with file contents

8.8. solution: file contents

1. Display the first 12 lines of /etc/services.
head -12 /etc/services

2. Display the last line of /etc/passwd.

tail -1 /etc/passwd

3. Use cat to create a file named count.txt that looks like this:
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
cat > count.txt

4. Use cp to make a backup of this file to cnt.txt.

cp count.txt cnt.txt

5. Use cat to make a backup of this file to catcnt.txt.

cat count.txt > catcnt.txt

6. Display catcnt.txt, but with all lines in reverse order (the last line first).
tac catcnt.txt

7. Use more to display /var/log/messages.

more /var/log/messages

8. Display the readable character strings from the /usr/bin/passwd command.

strings /usr/bin/passwd

9. Use ls to find the biggest file in /etc.

ls -lrS /etc

49

Chapter 9. the Linux file tree

Table of Contents
9.1. filesystem hierarchy standard ........................................................................ 51
9.2. man hier ......................................................................................................... 51
9.3. the root directory / ......................................................................................... 51
9.4. binary directories ........................................................................................... 52
9.5. configuration directories ................................................................................ 54
9.6. data directories ............................................................................................... 56
9.7. in memory directories .................................................................................... 58
9.8. /usr Unix System Resources .......................................................................... 62
9.9. /var variable data ............................................................................................ 64
9.10. practice: file system tree .............................................................................. 66
9.11. solution: file system tree .............................................................................. 68
This chapters takes a look at the most common directories in the Linux file tree. It
also shows that on Unix everything is a file.

50

the Linux file tree

9.1. filesystem hierarchy standard

Many Linux distributions partially follow the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. The
FHS may help make more Unix/Linux file system trees conform better in the future.
The FHS is available online at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ where we read: "The
filesystem hierarchy standard has been designed to be used by Unix distribution
developers, package developers, and system implementers. However, it is primarily
intended to be a reference and is not a tutorial on how to manage a Unix filesystem
or directory hierarchy."

9.2. man hier

There are some differences in the filesystems between Linux distributions. For
help about your machine, enter man hier to find information about the file system
hierarchy. This manual will explain the directory structure on your computer.

9.3. the root directory /

All Linux systems have a directory structure that starts at the root directory. The
root directory is represented by a forward slash, like this: /. Everything that exists
on your Linux system can be found below this root directory. Let's take a brief look
at the contents of the root directory.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ ls /
bin
dev home media mnt
boot etc lib
misc
opt

proc
root

51

sbin
selinux

srv
sys

tftpboot
tmp

usr
var

the Linux file tree

9.4. binary directories

Binaries are files that contain compiled source code (or machine code). Binaries can
be executed on the computer. Sometimes binaries are called executables.

/bin
The /bin directory contains binaries for use by all users. According to the FHS the /
bin directory should contain /bin/cat and /bin/date (among others).
In the screenshot below you see common Unix/Linux commands like cat, cp, cpio,
date, dd, echo, grep, and so on. Many of these will be covered in this book.
paul@laika:~$ ls /bin
archdetect
egrep
autopartition
false
bash
fgconsole
bunzip2
fgrep
bzcat
fuser
bzcmp
fusermount
bzdiff
get_mountoptions
bzegrep
grep
bzexe
gunzip
bzfgrep
gzexe
bzgrep
gzip
bzip2
hostname
bzip2recover
hw-detect
bzless
ip
bzmore
kbd_mode
cat
kill
...

mt
mt-gnu
mv
nano
nc
nc.traditional
netcat
netstat
ntfs-3g
ntfs-3g.probe
parted_devices
parted_server
partman
partman-commit
perform_recipe
pidof

setupcon
sh
sh.distrib
sleep
stralign
stty
su
sync
sysfs
tailf
tar
tempfile
touch
true
ulockmgr
umount

other /bin directories

You can find a /bin subdirectory in many other directories. A user named Serena
could put her own programs in /home/serena/bin.
Some applications, often when installed directly from source will put themselves in
/opt. A samba server installation can use /opt/samba/bin to store its binaries.

/sbin
/sbin contains binaries to configure the operating system. Many of the system
binaries require root privilege to perform certain tasks.
Below a screenshot containing system binaries to change the ip address, partition a
disk and create an ext4 file system.
paul@ubu1010:~$ ls -l /sbin/ifconfig /sbin/fdisk /sbin/mkfs.ext4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 97172 2011-02-02 09:56 /sbin/fdisk

52

the Linux file tree

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 65708 2010-07-02 09:27 /sbin/ifconfig
-rwxr-xr-x 5 root root 55140 2010-08-18 18:01 /sbin/mkfs.ext4

/lib
Binaries found in /bin and /sbin often use shared libraries located in /lib. Below is
a screenshot of the partial contents of /lib.
paul@laika:~$ ls /lib/libc*
/lib/libc-2.5.so
/lib/libcfont.so.0.0.0
/lib/libcap.so.1
/lib/libcidn-2.5.so
/lib/libcap.so.1.10 /lib/libcidn.so.1
/lib/libcfont.so.0
/lib/libcom_err.so.2

/lib/libcom_err.so.2.1
/lib/libconsole.so.0
/lib/libconsole.so.0.0.0
/lib/libcrypt-2.5.so

/lib/modules
Typically, the Linux kernel loads kernel modules from /lib/modules/$kernelversion/. This directory is discussed in detail in the Linux kernel chapter.

/lib32 and /lib64

We currently are in a transition between 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Therefore, you
may encounter directories named /lib32 and /lib64 which clarify the register size used
during compilation time of the libraries. A 64-bit computer may have some 32-bit
binaries and libraries for compatibility with legacy applications. This screenshot uses
the file utility to demonstrate the difference.
paul@laika:~$ file /lib32/libc-2.5.so
/lib32/libc-2.5.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, \
version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.6.0, stripped
paul@laika:~$ file /lib64/libcap.so.1.10
/lib64/libcap.so.1.10: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, AMD x86-64, \
version 1 (SYSV), stripped

The ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) is used in almost every Unix-like
operating system since System V.

/opt
The purpose of /opt is to store optional software. In many cases this is software from
outside the distribution repository. You may find an empty /opt directory on many
systems.
A large package can install all its files in /bin, /lib, /etc subdirectories within /opt/
$packagename/. If for example the package is called wp, then it installs in /opt/wp,
putting binaries in /opt/wp/bin and manpages in /opt/wp/man.
53

the Linux file tree

9.5. configuration directories

/boot
The /boot directory contains all files needed to boot the computer. These files don't
change very often. On Linux systems you typically find the /boot/grub directory
here. /boot/grub contains /boot/grub/menu.lst (the grub configuration file is often
linked to /boot/grub/grub.conf) which defines the boot menu that is displayed before
the kernel starts.

/etc
All of the machine-specific configuration files should be located in /etc. Historically
/etc stood for etcetera, today people often use the Editable Text Configuration
backronym.
Many times the name of a configuration files is the same as the application, daemon,
or protocol with .conf added as the extension.
paul@laika:~$ ls /etc/*.conf
/etc/adduser.conf
/etc/ld.so.conf
/etc/brltty.conf
/etc/lftp.conf
/etc/ccertificates.conf /etc/libao.conf
/etc/cvs-cron.conf
/etc/logrotate.conf
/etc/ddclient.conf
/etc/ltrace.conf
/etc/debconf.conf
/etc/mke2fs.conf
/etc/deluser.conf
/etc/netscsid.conf
/etc/fdmount.conf
/etc/nsswitch.conf
/etc/hdparm.conf
/etc/pam.conf
/etc/host.conf
/etc/pnm2ppa.conf
/etc/inetd.conf
/etc/povray.conf
/etc/kernel-img.conf
/etc/resolv.conf
paul@laika:~$

/etc/scrollkeeper.conf
/etc/sysctl.conf
/etc/syslog.conf
/etc/ucf.conf
/etc/uniconf.conf
/etc/updatedb.conf
/etc/usplash.conf
/etc/uswsusp.conf
/etc/vnc.conf
/etc/wodim.conf
/etc/wvdial.conf

There is much more to be found in /etc.

/etc/init.d/
A lot of Unix/Linux distributions have an /etc/init.d directory that contains scripts to
start and stop daemons. This directory could disappear as Linux migrates to systems
that replace the old init way of starting all daemons.

/etc/X11/
The graphical display (aka X Window System or just X) is driven by software from
the X.org foundation. The configuration file for your graphical display is /etc/X11/
xorg.conf.
54

the Linux file tree

/etc/skel/
The skeleton directory /etc/skel is copied to the home directory of a newly created
user. It usually contains hidden files like a .bashrc script.

/etc/sysconfig/
This directory, which is not mentioned in the FHS, contains a lot of Red Hat
Enterprise Linux configuration files. We will discuss some of them in greater
detail. The screenshot below is the /etc/sysconfig directory from RHELv4u4 with
everything installed.
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ ls /etc/sysconfig/
apmd
firstboot
irda
apm-scripts grub
irqbalance
authconfig
hidd
keyboard
autofs
httpd
kudzu
bluetooth
hwconf
lm_sensors
clock
i18n
mouse
console
init
mouse.B
crond
installinfo
named
desktop
ipmi
netdump
diskdump
iptables
netdump_id_dsa
dund
iptables-cfg netdump_id_dsa.p
paul@RHELv4u4:~$

network
networking
ntpd
openib.conf
pand
pcmcia
pgsql
prelink
rawdevices
rhn
samba

saslauthd
selinux
spamassassin
squid
syslog
sys-config-sec
sys-config-users
sys-logviewer
tux
vncservers
xinetd

The file /etc/sysconfig/firstboot tells the Red Hat Setup Agent not to run at boot time.
If you want to run the Red Hat Setup Agent at the next reboot, then simply remove
this file, and run chkconfig --level 5 firstboot on. The Red Hat Setup Agent allows
you to install the latest updates, create a user account, join the Red Hat Network and
more. It will then create the /etc/sysconfig/firstboot file again.
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ cat /etc/sysconfig/firstboot
RUN_FIRSTBOOT=NO

The /etc/sysconfig/harddisks file contains some parameters to tune the hard disks.
The file explains itself.
You can see hardware detected by kudzu in /etc/sysconfig/hwconf. Kudzu is
software from Red Hat for automatic discovery and configuration of hardware.
The keyboard type and keymap table are set in the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file.
For more console keyboard information, check the manual pages of keymaps(5),
dumpkeys(1), loadkeys(1) and the directory /lib/kbd/keymaps/.
root@RHELv4u4:/etc/sysconfig# cat keyboard
KEYBOARDTYPE="pc"
KEYTABLE="us"

We will discuss networking files in this directory in the networking chapter.

55

the Linux file tree

9.6. data directories

/home
Users can store personal or project data under /home. It is common (but not
mandatory by the fhs) practice to name the users home directory after the user name
in the format /home/$USERNAME. For example:
paul@ubu606:~$ ls /home
geert annik sandra paul

tom

Besides giving every user (or every project or group) a location to store personal files,
the home directory of a user also serves as a location to store the user profile. A typical
Unix user profile contains many hidden files (files whose file name starts with a dot).
The hidden files of the Unix user profiles contain settings specific for that user.
paul@ubu606:~$ ls -d /home/paul/.*
/home/paul/.
/home/paul/.bash_profile
/home/paul/..
/home/paul/.bashrc
/home/paul/.bash_history /home/paul/.lesshst

/home/paul/.ssh
/home/paul/.viminfo

/root
On many systems /root is the default location for personal data and profile of the
root user. If it does not exist by default, then some administrators create it.

/srv
You may use /srv for data that is served by your system. The FHS suggests locating
cvs, rsync, ftp and www data in this location. The FHS also approves administrative
naming in /srv, like /srv/project55/ftp and /srv/sales/www.
On Sun Solaris (or Oracle Solaris) /export is used for this purpose.

/media
The /media directory serves as a mount point for removable media devices such as
CD-ROM's, digital cameras, and various usb-attached devices. Since /media is rather
new in the Unix world, you could very well encounter systems running without this
directory. Solaris 9 does not have it, Solaris 10 does. Most Linux distributions today
mount all removable media in /media.
paul@debian5:~$ ls /media/
cdrom cdrom0 usbdisk

56

the Linux file tree

/mnt
The /mnt directory should be empty and should only be used for temporary mount
points (according to the FHS).
Unix and Linux administrators used to create many directories here, like /mnt/
something/. You likely will encounter many systems with more than one directory
created and/or mounted inside /mnt to be used for various local and remote
filesystems.

/tmp
Applications and users should use /tmp to store temporary data when needed. Data
stored in /tmp may use either disk space or RAM. Both of which are managed by
the operating system. Never use /tmp to store data that is important or which you
wish to archive.

57

the Linux file tree

9.7. in memory directories

/dev
Device files in /dev appear to be ordinary files, but are not actually located on the hard
disk. The /dev directory is populated with files as the kernel is recognising hardware.

common physical devices

Common hardware such as hard disk devices are represented by device files in /dev.
Below a screenshot of SATA device files on a laptop and then IDE attached drives
on a desktop. (The detailed meaning of these devices will be discussed later.)
#
# SATA or SCSI
#
paul@laika:~$ ls /dev/sd*
/dev/sda /dev/sda1 /dev/sda2

/dev/sda3

/dev/sdb

/dev/sdb1

/dev/sdb2

#
# IDE or ATAPI
#
paul@barry:~$ ls /dev/hd*
/dev/hda /dev/hda1 /dev/hda2

/dev/hdb

/dev/hdb1

/dev/hdb2

/dev/hdc

Besides representing physical hardware, some device files are special. These special
devices can be very useful.

/dev/tty and /dev/pts

For example, /dev/tty1 represents a terminal or console attached to the system. (Don't
break your head on the exact terminology of 'terminal' or 'console', what we mean
here is a command line interface.) When typing commands in a terminal that is part
of a graphical interface like Gnome or KDE, then your terminal will be represented
as /dev/pts/1 (1 can be another number).

/dev/null
On Linux you will find other special devices such as /dev/null which can be
considered a black hole; it has unlimited storage, but nothing can be retrieved from
it. Technically speaking, anything written to /dev/null will be discarded. /dev/null
can be useful to discard unwanted output from commands. /dev/null is not a good
location to store your backups ;-).

58

the Linux file tree

/proc conversation with the kernel

/proc is another special directory, appearing to be ordinary files, but not taking up
disk space. It is actually a view of the kernel, or better, what the kernel manages, and
is a means to interact with it directly. /proc is a proc filesystem.
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ mount -t proc
none on /proc type proc (rw)

When listing the /proc directory you will see many numbers (on any Unix) and some
interesting files (on Linux)
mul@laika:~$ ls /proc
1
2339
4724 5418
10175 2523
4729 5421
10211 2783
4741 5658
10239 2975
4873 5661
141
29775 4874 5665
15045 29792 4878 5927
1519
2997
4879 6
1548
3
4881 6032
1551
30228 4882 6033
1554
3069
5
6145
1557
31422 5073 6298
1606
3149
5147 6414
180
31507 5203 6418
181
3189
5206 6419
182
3193
5228 6420
18898 3246
5272 6421
19799 3248
5291 6422
19803 3253
5294 6423
19804 3372
5356 6424
1987
4
5370 6425
1989
42
5379 6426
2
45
5380 6430
20845 4542
5412 6450
221
46
5414 6551
2338
4704
5416 6568

6587
6596
6599
6638
6652
6719
6736
6737
6755
6762
6774
6816
6991
6993
6996
7157
7163
7164
7171
7175
7188
7189
7191
7192
7199

7201
7204
7206
7214
7216
7218
7223
7224
7227
7260
7267
7275
7282
7298
7319
7330
7345
7513
7525
7529
9964
acpi
asound
buddyinfo
bus

cmdline
cpuinfo
crypto
devices
diskstats
dma
driver
execdomains
fb
filesystems
fs
ide
interrupts
iomem
ioports
irq
kallsyms
kcore
key-users
kmsg
loadavg
locks
meminfo
misc
modules

mounts
mtrr
net
pagetypeinfo
partitions
sched_debug
scsi
self
slabinfo
stat
swaps
sys
sysrq-trigger
sysvipc
timer_list
timer_stats
tty
uptime
version
version_signature
vmcore
vmnet
vmstat
zoneinfo

Let's investigate the file properties inside /proc. Looking at the date and time will
display the current date and time showing the files are constantly updated (a view
on the kernel).
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ date
Mon Jan 29 18:06:32 EST 2007
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ ls -al /proc/cpuinfo
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 29 18:06 /proc/cpuinfo
paul@RHELv4u4:~$
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ ...time passes...
paul@RHELv4u4:~$
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ date
Mon Jan 29 18:10:00 EST 2007
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ ls -al /proc/cpuinfo
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 29 18:10 /proc/cpuinfo

59

the Linux file tree

Most files in /proc are 0 bytes, yet they contain data--sometimes a lot of data. You
can see this by executing cat on files like /proc/cpuinfo, which contains information
about the CPU.
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ file /proc/cpuinfo
/proc/cpuinfo: empty
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor
: 0
vendor_id
: AuthenticAMD
cpu family
: 15
model
: 43
model name
: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
stepping
: 1
cpu MHz
: 2398.628
cache size
: 512 KB
fdiv_bug
: no
hlt_bug
: no
f00f_bug
: no
coma_bug
: no
fpu
: yes
fpu_exception
: yes
cpuid level
: 1
wp
: yes
flags
: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge...
bogomips
: 4803.54

Just for fun, here is /proc/cpuinfo on a Sun Sunblade 1000...

paul@pasha:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu : TI UltraSparc III (Cheetah)
fpu : UltraSparc III integrated FPU
promlib : Version 3 Revision 2
prom : 4.2.2
type : sun4u
ncpus probed : 2
ncpus active : 2
Cpu0Bogo : 498.68
Cpu0ClkTck : 000000002cb41780
Cpu1Bogo : 498.68
Cpu1ClkTck : 000000002cb41780
MMU Type : Cheetah
State:
CPU0: online
CPU1: online

Most of the files in /proc are read only, some require root privileges, some files are
writable, and many files in /proc/sys are writable. Let's discuss some of the files in /
proc.

/proc/interrupts
On the x86 architecture, /proc/interrupts displays the interrupts.
paul@RHELv4u4:~$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0

60

the Linux file tree

0:
1:
8:
9:
12:
14:
15:
169:
177:
NMI:
LOC:
ERR:
MIS:

13876877
15
1
0
67
128
124320
111993
2428
0
13878037
0
0

IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-level
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-level
IO-APIC-level

timer
i8042
rtc
acpi
i8042
ide0
ide1
ioc0
eth0

On a machine with two CPU's, the file looks like this.

paul@laika:~$ cat /proc/interrupts
CPU0
CPU1
0:
860013
0 IO-APIC-edge
1:
4533
0 IO-APIC-edge
7:
0
0 IO-APIC-edge
8:
6588227
0 IO-APIC-edge
10:
2314
0 IO-APIC-fasteoi
12:
133
0 IO-APIC-edge
14:
0
0 IO-APIC-edge
15:
72269
0 IO-APIC-edge
18:
1
0 IO-APIC-fasteoi
19:
115036
0 IO-APIC-fasteoi
20:
126871
0 IO-APIC-fasteoi
21:
30204
0 IO-APIC-fasteoi
22:
1334
0 IO-APIC-fasteoi
24:
234739
0 IO-APIC-fasteoi
NMI:
72
42
LOC:
860000
859994
ERR:
0

timer
i8042
parport0
rtc
acpi
i8042
libata
libata
yenta
eth0
libata, ohci1394
ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2
saa7133[0], saa7133[0]
nvidia

/proc/kcore
The physical memory is represented in /proc/kcore. Do not try to cat this file, instead
use a debugger. The size of /proc/kcore is the same as your physical memory, plus
four bytes.
paul@laika:~$ ls -lh /proc/kcore
-r-------- 1 root root 2.0G 2007-01-30 08:57 /proc/kcore
paul@laika:~$

/sys Linux 2.6 hot plugging

The /sys directory was created for the Linux 2.6 kernel. Since 2.6, Linux uses sysfs
to support usb and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) hot plug devices. See the manual pages
of udev(8) (the successor of devfs) and hotplug(8) for more info (or visit http://linuxhotplug.sourceforge.net/ ).
Basically the /sys directory contains kernel information about hardware.

61

the Linux file tree

9.8. /usr Unix System Resources

Although /usr is pronounced like user, remember that it stands for Unix System
Resources. The /usr hierarchy should contain shareable, read only data. Some
people choose to mount /usr as read only. This can be done from its own partition
or from a read only NFS share.

/usr/bin
The /usr/bin directory contains a lot of commands.
paul@deb508:~$ ls /usr/bin | wc -l
1395

(On Solaris the /bin directory is a symbolic link to /usr/bin.)

/usr/include
The /usr/include directory contains general use include files for C.
paul@ubu1010:~$ ls /usr/include/
aalib.h
expat_config.h
af_vfs.h
expat_external.h
aio.h
expat.h
AL
fcntl.h
aliases.h
features.h
...

math.h
mcheck.h
memory.h
menu.h
mntent.h

search.h
semaphore.h
setjmp.h
sgtty.h
shadow.h

/usr/lib
The /usr/lib directory contains libraries that are not directly executed by users or
scripts.
paul@deb508:~$ ls /usr/lib | head -7
4Suite
ao
apt
arj
aspell
avahi
bonobo

/usr/local
The /usr/local directory can be used by an administrator to install software locally.
paul@deb508:~$ ls /usr/local/
bin etc games include lib man
paul@deb508:~$ du -sh /usr/local/
128K /usr/local/

62

sbin

share

src

the Linux file tree

/usr/share
The /usr/share directory contains architecture independent data. As you can see, this
is a fairly large directory.
paul@deb508:~$ ls /usr/share/ | wc -l
263
paul@deb508:~$ du -sh /usr/share/
1.3G /usr/share/

This directory typically contains /usr/share/man for manual pages.

paul@deb508:~$ ls /usr/share/man
cs fr
hu it.UTF-8 man2 man6 pl.ISO8859-2 sv
de fr.ISO8859-1 id ja
man3 man7 pl.UTF-8
tr
es fr.UTF-8
it ko
man4 man8 pt_BR
zh_CN
fi gl
it.ISO8859-1 man1
man5 pl
ru
zh_TW

And it contains /usr/share/games for all static game data (so no high-scores or play
logs).
paul@ubu1010:~$ ls /usr/share/games/
openttd wesnoth

/usr/src
The /usr/src directory is the recommended location for kernel source files.
paul@deb508:~$ ls -l /usr/src/
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 2011-02-01 14:43 linux-headers-2.6.26-2-686
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 2011-02-01 14:43 linux-headers-2.6.26-2-common
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2009-10-28 16:01 linux-kbuild-2.6.26

63

the Linux file tree

9.9. /var variable data

Files that are unpredictable in size, such as log, cache and spool files, should be
located in /var.

/var/log
The /var/log directory serves as a central point to contain all log files.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ ls /var/log
acpid
cron.2
maillog.2
amanda
cron.3
maillog.3
anaconda.log
cron.4
maillog.4
anaconda.syslog cups
mailman
anaconda.xlog
dmesg
messages
audit
exim
messages.1
boot.log
gdm
messages.2
boot.log.1
httpd
messages.3
boot.log.2
iiim
messages.4
boot.log.3
iptraf
mysqld.log
boot.log.4
lastlog
news
canna
mail
pgsql
cron
maillog
ppp
cron.1
maillog.1 prelink.log

quagga
radius
rpmpkgs
rpmpkgs.1
rpmpkgs.2
rpmpkgs.3
rpmpkgs.4
sa
samba
scrollkeeper.log
secure
secure.1
secure.2
secure.3

secure.4
spooler
spooler.1
spooler.2
spooler.3
spooler.4
squid
uucp
vbox
vmware-tools-guestd
wtmp
wtmp.1
Xorg.0.log
Xorg.0.log.old

/var/log/messages
A typical first file to check when troubleshooting is the /var/log/messages file. By
default this file will contain information on what just happened to the system.
[root@RHEL4b ~]# tail /var/log/messages
Jul 30 05:13:56 anacron: anacron startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:13:56 atd: atd startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:13:57 messagebus: messagebus startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:13:57 cups-config-daemon: cups-config-daemon startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:13:58 haldaemon: haldaemon startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:14:00 fstab-sync[3560]: removed all generated mount points
Jul 30 05:14:01 fstab-sync[3628]: added mount point /media/cdrom for...
Jul 30 05:14:01 fstab-sync[3646]: added mount point /media/floppy for...
Jul 30 05:16:46 sshd(pam_unix)[3662]: session opened for user paul by...
Jul 30 06:06:37 su(pam_unix)[3904]: session opened for user root by paul

/var/cache
The /var/cache directory can contain cache data for several applications.
paul@ubu1010:~$ ls /var/cache/
apt
dictionaries-common
binfmts flashplugin-installer
cups
fontconfig
debconf fonts

gdm
hald
jockey
ldconfig

64

man
pm-utils
pppconfig
samba

software-center

the Linux file tree

/var/spool
The /var/spool directory typically contains spool directories for mail and cron, but
also serves as a parent directory for other spool files (for example print spool files).
The Red Hat Update Agent for example uses files in /var/spool/up2date. This
location is also used when files are downloaded from the Red Hat Network.

/var/lib
The /var/lib directory contains application state information.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux for example keeps files pertaining to rpm in /var/lib/rpm/.

/var/...
/var also contains Process ID files in /var/run and temporary files that survive a
reboot in /var/tmp and information about file locks in /var/lock. There will be more
examples of /var usage further in this book.

65

the Linux file tree

9.10. practice: file system tree

1. Does the file /bin/cat exist ? What about /bin/dd and /bin/echo. What is the type
of these files ?
2. What is the size of the Linux kernel file(s) (vmlinu*) in /boot ?
3. Create a directory ~/test. Then issue the following commands:
cd ~/test
dd if=/dev/zero of=zeroes.txt count=1 bs=100
od zeroes.txt

dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /
dev/zero to ~/test/zeroes.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/zero ?
4. Now issue the following command:
dd if=/dev/random of=random.txt count=1 bs=100 ; od random.txt

dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /
dev/random to ~/test/random.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/random
?
5. Issue the following two commands, and look at the first character of each output
line.
ls -l /dev/sd* /dev/hd*
ls -l /dev/tty* /dev/input/mou*

The first ls will show block(b) devices, the second ls shows character(c) devices. Can
you tell the difference between block and character devices ?
6. Use cat to display /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf. What is your idea about the
purpose of these files ?
7. Are there any files in /etc/skel/ ? Check also for hidden files.
8. Display /proc/cpuinfo. On what architecture is your Linux running ?
9. Display /proc/interrupts. What is the size of this file ? Where is this file stored ?
10. Can you enter the /root directory ? Are there (hidden) files ?
11. Are ifconfig, fdisk, parted, shutdown and grub-install present in /sbin ? Why are
these binaries in /sbin and not in /bin ?
12. Is /var/log a file or a directory ? What about /var/spool ?
13. Open two command prompts (Ctrl-Shift-T in gnome-terminal) or terminals (CtrlAlt-F1, Ctrl-Alt-F2, ...) and issue the who am i in both. Then try to echo a word from
one terminal to the other.
66

the Linux file tree

14. Read the man page of random and explain the difference between /dev/random
and /dev/urandom.

67

the Linux file tree

9.11. solution: file system tree

1. Does the file /bin/cat exist ? What about /bin/dd and /bin/echo. What is the type
of these files ?
ls /bin/cat ; file /bin/cat
ls /bin/dd ; file /bin/dd
ls /bin/echo ; file /bin/echo

2. What is the size of the Linux kernel file(s) (vmlinu*) in /boot ?

ls -lh /boot/vm*

3. Create a directory ~/test. Then issue the following commands:

cd ~/test
dd if=/dev/zero of=zeroes.txt count=1 bs=100
od zeroes.txt

dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /
dev/zero to ~/test/zeroes.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/zero ?
/dev/zero is a Linux special device. It can be considered a source of zeroes. You
cannot send something to /dev/zero, but you can read zeroes from it.
4. Now issue the following command:
dd if=/dev/random of=random.txt count=1 bs=100 ; od random.txt

dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /
dev/random to ~/test/random.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/random
?
/dev/random acts as a random number generator on your Linux machine.
5. Issue the following two commands, and look at the first character of each output
line.
ls -l /dev/sd* /dev/hd*
ls -l /dev/tty* /dev/input/mou*

The first ls will show block(b) devices, the second ls shows character(c) devices. Can
you tell the difference between block and character devices ?
Block devices are always written to (or read from) in blocks. For hard disks, blocks
of 512 bytes are common. Character devices act as a stream of characters (or bytes).
Mouse and keyboard are typical character devices.
6. Use cat to display /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf. What is your idea about the
purpose of these files ?
68

the Linux file tree

/etc/hosts contains hostnames with their ip address
/etc/resolv.conf should contain the ip address of a DNS name server.

7. Are there any files in /etc/skel/ ? Check also for hidden files.
Issue "ls -al /etc/skel/". Yes, there should be hidden files there.

8. Display /proc/cpuinfo. On what architecture is your Linux running ?

The file should contain at least one line with Intel or other cpu.

9. Display /proc/interrupts. What is the size of this file ? Where is this file stored ?
The size is zero, yet the file contains data. It is not stored anywhere because /proc is
a virtual file system that allows you to talk with the kernel. (If you answered "stored
in RAM-memory, that is also correct...).
10. Can you enter the /root directory ? Are there (hidden) files ?
Try "cd /root". Yes there are (hidden) files there.

11. Are ifconfig, fdisk, parted, shutdown and grub-install present in /sbin ? Why are
these binaries in /sbin and not in /bin ?
Because those files are only meant for system administrators.

12. Is /var/log a file or a directory ? What about /var/spool ?

Both are directories.

13. Open two command prompts (Ctrl-Shift-T in gnome-terminal) or terminals (CtrlAlt-F1, Ctrl-Alt-F2, ...) and issue the who am i in both. Then try to echo a word from
one terminal to the other.
tty-terminal: echo Hello > /dev/tty1
pts-terminal: echo Hello > /dev/pts/1

14. Read the man page of random and explain the difference between /dev/random
and /dev/urandom.
man 4 random

69

Part III. shell expansion

Chapter 10. commands and arguments

Table of Contents
10.1.
10.2.
10.3.
10.4.
10.5.
10.6.
10.7.

echo ..............................................................................................................
arguments .....................................................................................................
commands ....................................................................................................
aliases ...........................................................................................................
displaying shell expansion ...........................................................................
practice: commands and arguments .............................................................
solution: commands and arguments .............................................................

72
72
73
74
76
77
79

This chapter introduces you to shell expansion by taking a close look at commands
and arguments. Knowing shell expansion is important because many commands
on your Linux system are processed and most likely changed by the shell before they
are executed.
The command line interface or shell used on most Linux systems is called bash,
which stands for Bourne again shell. The bash shell incorporates features from sh
(the original Bourne shell), csh (the C shell), and ksh (the Korn shell).

71

commands and arguments

10.1. echo
This chapter frequently uses the echo command to demonstrate shell features. The
echo command is very simple: it echoes the input that it receives.
paul@laika:~$ echo Burtonville
Burtonville
paul@laika:~$ echo Smurfs are blue
Smurfs are blue

10.2. arguments
One of the primary features of a shell is to perform a command line scan. When
you enter a command at the shell's command prompt and press the enter key, then
the shell will start scanning that line, cutting it up in arguments. While scanning the
line, the shell may make many changes to the arguments you typed. This process
is called shell expansion. When the shell has finished scanning and modifying that
line, then it will be executed.

white space removal

Parts that are separated by one or more consecutive white spaces (or tabs) are
considered separate arguments, any white space is removed. The first argument is
the command to be executed, the other arguments are given to the command. The
shell effectively cuts your command into one or more arguments.
This explains why the following four different command lines are the same after shell
expansion.
[paul@RHELv4u3
Hello World
[paul@RHELv4u3
Hello World
[paul@RHELv4u3
Hello World
[paul@RHELv4u3
Hello World

~]$ echo Hello World

~]$ echo Hello
~]$ echo
~]$

World

echo

Hello

World
Hello

World

The echo command will display each argument it receives from the shell. The echo
command will also add a new white space between the arguments it received.

single quotes
You can prevent the removal of white spaces by quoting the spaces. The contents of
the quoted string are considered as one argument. In the screenshot below the echo
receives only one argument.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo 'A line with
A line with
single
quotes

72

single

quotes'

commands and arguments

[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

double quotes
You can also prevent the removal of white spaces by double quoting the spaces. Same
as above, echo only receives one argument.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo "A line with
A line with
double
quotes
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

double

quotes"

echo and quotes

Quoted lines can include special escaped characters recognised by the echo command
(when using echo -e). The screenshot below shows how to use \n for a newline and
\t for a tab (usually eight white spaces).
[paul@RHEL4b
A line with
a newline
[paul@RHEL4b
A line with
a newline
[paul@RHEL4b
A line with
[paul@RHEL4b
A line with
[paul@RHEL4b

~]$ echo -e "A line with \na newline"

~]$ echo -e 'A line with \na newline'

~]$ echo -e "A line with \ta tab"

a tab
~]$ echo -e 'A line with \ta tab'
a tab
~]$

The echo command can generate more than white spaces, tabs and newlines. Look
in the man page for a list of options.

10.3. commands
external or builtin commands ?
Not all commands are external to the shell, some are builtin. External commands
are programs that have their own binary and reside somewhere in the file system.
Many external commands are located in /bin or /sbin. Builtin commands are an
integral part of the shell program itself.

type
To find out whether a command given to the shell will be executed as an external
command or as a builtin command, use the type command.
paul@laika:~$ type cd

73

commands and arguments

cd is a shell builtin
paul@laika:~$ type cat
cat is /bin/cat

As you can see, the cd command is builtin and the cat command is external.
You can also use this command to show you whether the command is aliased or not.
paul@laika:~$ type ls
ls is aliased to `ls --color=auto'

running external commands

Some commands have both builtin and external versions. When one of these
commands is executed, the builtin version takes priority. To run the external version,
you must enter the full path to the command.
paul@laika:~$ type -a echo
echo is a shell builtin
echo is /bin/echo
paul@laika:~$ /bin/echo Running the external echo command...
Running the external echo command...

which
The which command will search for binaries in the $PATH environment variable
(variables will be explained later). In the screenshot below, it is determined that cd
is builtin, and ls, cp, rm, mv, mkdir, pwd, and which are external commands.
[root@RHEL4b ~]# which cp ls mv rm cd mkdir pwd which
/bin/cp
/bin/ls
/bin/mv
/bin/rm
/usr/bin/which: no cd in (/usr/kerberos/sbin:/usr/kerberos/bin:...
/bin/mkdir
/bin/pwd
/usr/bin/which

10.4. aliases
create an alias
The shell allows you to create aliases. Aliases are often used to create an easier to
remember name for an existing command or to easily supply parameters.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cat count.txt
one
two
three
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ alias dog=tac
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ dog count.txt

74

commands and arguments

three
two
one

abbreviate commands
An alias can also be useful to abbreviate an existing command.
paul@laika:~$ alias ll='ls -lh --color=auto'
paul@laika:~$ alias c='clear'
paul@laika:~$

default options
Aliases can be used to supply commands with default options. The example below
shows how to set the -i option default when typing rm.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$
rm: remove regular
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$
ls: winter.txt: No
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$
rm: remove regular
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

rm -i winter.txt
file `winter.txt'? no
rm winter.txt
ls winter.txt
such file or directory
touch winter.txt
alias rm='rm -i'
rm winter.txt
empty file `winter.txt'? no

Some distributions enable default aliases to protect users from accidentally erasing
files ('rm -i', 'mv -i', 'cp -i')

viewing aliases
You can provide one or more aliases as arguments to the alias command to get their
definitions. Providing no arguments gives a complete list of current aliases.
paul@laika:~$ alias c ll
alias c='clear'
alias ll='ls -lh --color=auto'

unalias
You can undo an alias with the unalias command.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$
/bin/rm
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$
alias rm='rm -i'
/bin/rm
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$
/bin/rm

which rm
alias rm='rm -i'
which rm

unalias rm
which rm

75

commands and arguments

[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

10.5. displaying shell expansion

You can display shell expansion with set -x, and stop displaying it with set +x. You
might want to use this further on in this course, or when in doubt about exactly what
the shell is doing with your command.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ set -x
++ echo -ne '\033]0;paul@RHELv4u3:~\007'
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo $USER
+ echo paul
paul
++ echo -ne '\033]0;paul@RHELv4u3:~\007'
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo \$USER
+ echo '$USER'
$USER
++ echo -ne '\033]0;paul@RHELv4u3:~\007'
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ set +x
+ set +x
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo $USER
paul

76

commands and arguments

10.6. practice: commands and arguments

1. How many arguments are in this line (not counting the command itself).
touch '/etc/cron/cron.allow' 'file 42.txt' "file 33.txt"

2. Is tac a shell builtin command ?

3. Is there an existing alias for rm ?
4. Read the man page of rm, make sure you understand the -i option of rm. Create
and remove a file to test the -i option.
5. Execute: alias rm='rm -i' . Test your alias with a test file. Does this work as
expected ?
6. List all current aliases.
7a. Create an alias called 'city' that echoes your hometown.
7b. Use your alias to test that it works.
8. Execute set -x to display shell expansion for every command.
9. Test the functionality of set -x by executing your city and rm aliases.
10 Execute set +x to stop displaying shell expansion.
11. Remove your city alias.
12. What is the location of the cat and the passwd commands ?
13. Explain the difference between the following commands:
echo
/bin/echo

14. Explain the difference between the following commands:

echo Hello
echo -n Hello

15. Display A B C with two spaces between B and C.

(optional)16. Complete the following command (do not use spaces) to display exactly
the following output:
4+4
10+14

=8
=24

18. Use echo to display the following exactly:

??\\

77

commands and arguments

19. Use one echo command to display three words on three lines.

78

commands and arguments

10.7. solution: commands and arguments

1. How many arguments are in this line (not counting the command itself).
touch '/etc/cron/cron.allow' 'file 42.txt' "file 33.txt"
answer: three

2. Is tac a shell builtin command ?

type tac

3. Is there an existing alias for rm ?

alias rm

4. Read the man page of rm, make sure you understand the -i option of rm. Create
and remove a file to test the -i option.
man rm
touch testfile
rm -i testfile

5. Execute: alias rm='rm -i' . Test your alias with a test file. Does this work as
expected ?
touch testfile
rm testfile (should ask for confirmation)

6. List all current aliases.

alias

7a. Create an alias called 'city' that echoes your hometown.

alias city='echo Antwerp'

7b. Use your alias to test that it works.

city (it should display Antwerp)

8. Execute set -x to display shell expansion for every command.

set -x

9. Test the functionality of set -x by executing your city and rm aliases.

shell should display the resolved aliases and then execute the command:
paul@deb503:~$ set -x
paul@deb503:~$ city
+ echo antwerp
antwerp

10 Execute set +x to stop displaying shell expansion.

set +x

11. Remove your city alias.

79

commands and arguments

unalias city

12. What is the location of the cat and the passwd commands ?
which cat (probably /bin/cat)
which passwd (probably /usr/bin/passwd)

13. Explain the difference between the following commands:

echo
/bin/echo

The echo command will be interpreted by the shell as the built-in echo command.
The /bin/echo command will make the shell execute the echo binary located in the
/bin directory.
14. Explain the difference between the following commands:
echo Hello
echo -n Hello

The -n option of the echo command will prevent echo from echoing a trailing newline.
echo Hello will echo six characters in total, echo -n hello only echoes five characters.
(The -n option might not work in the Korn shell.)
15. Display A B C with two spaces between B and C.
echo "A B

C"

16. Complete the following command (do not use spaces) to display exactly the
following output:
4+4
10+14

=8
=24

The solution is to use tabs with \t.

echo -e "4+4\t=8" ; echo -e "10+14\t=24"

18. Use echo to display the following exactly:

??\\
echo '??\\'

19. Use one echo command to display three words on three lines.
echo -e "one \ntwo \nthree"

80

Chapter 11. control operators

Table of Contents
11.1. ; semicolon ...................................................................................................
11.2. & ampersand ................................................................................................
11.3. $? dollar question mark ...............................................................................
11.4. && double ampersand .................................................................................
11.5. || double vertical bar ....................................................................................
11.6. combining && and || ...................................................................................
11.7. # pound sign ................................................................................................
11.8. \ escaping special characters ........................................................................
11.9. practice: control operators ...........................................................................
11.10. solution: control operators .........................................................................

82
82
82
83
83
83
84
84
85
86

In this chapter we put more than one command on the command line using control
operators. We also briefly discuss related parameters ($?) and similar special
characters(&).

81

control operators

11.1. ; semicolon
You can put two or more commands on the same line separated by a semicolon ; .
The shell will scan the line until it reaches the semicolon. All the arguments before
this semicolon will be considered a separate command from all the arguments after
the semicolon. Both series will be executed sequentially with the shell waiting for
each command to finish before starting the next one.
[paul@RHELv4u3
Hello
[paul@RHELv4u3
World
[paul@RHELv4u3
Hello
World
[paul@RHELv4u3

~]$ echo Hello

~]$ echo World
~]$ echo Hello ; echo World

~]$

11.2. & ampersand

When a line ends with an ampersand &, the shell will not wait for the command
to finish. You will get your shell prompt back, and the command is executed in
background. You will get a message when this command has finished executing in
background.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ sleep 20 &
[1] 7925
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$
...wait 20 seconds...
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$
[1]+ Done

sleep 20

The technical explanation of what happens in this case is explained in the chapter
about processes.

11.3. $? dollar question mark

The exit code of the previous command is stored in the shell variable $?. Actually $?
is a shell parameter and not a variable, since you cannot assign a value to $?.
paul@debian5:~/test$ touch file1
paul@debian5:~/test$ echo $?
0
paul@debian5:~/test$ rm file1
paul@debian5:~/test$ echo $?
0
paul@debian5:~/test$ rm file1
rm: cannot remove `file1': No such file or directory
paul@debian5:~/test$ echo $?
1
paul@debian5:~/test$

82

control operators

11.4. && double ampersand

The shell will interpret && as a logical AND. When using && the second command
is executed only if the first one succeeds (returns a zero exit status).
paul@barry:~$ echo first && echo second
first
second
paul@barry:~$ zecho first && echo second
-bash: zecho: command not found

Another example of the same logical AND principle. This example starts with a
working cd followed by ls, then a non-working cd which is not followed by ls.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cd gen && ls
file1 file3 File55 fileab FileAB
fileabc
file2 File4 FileA
Fileab fileab2
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ cd gen && ls
-bash: cd: gen: No such file or directory
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

11.5. || double vertical bar

The || represents a logical OR. The second command is executed only when the first
command fails (returns a non-zero exit status).
paul@barry:~$ echo first || echo second ; echo third
first
third
paul@barry:~$ zecho first || echo second ; echo third
-bash: zecho: command not found
second
third
paul@barry:~$

Another example of the same logical OR principle.

[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cd gen || ls
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ cd gen || ls
-bash: cd: gen: No such file or directory
file1 file3 File55 fileab FileAB
fileabc
file2 File4 FileA
Fileab fileab2
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

11.6. combining && and ||

You can use this logical AND and logical OR to write an if-then-else structure on
the command line. This example uses echo to display whether the rm command was
successful.
paul@laika:~/test$ rm file1 && echo It worked! || echo It failed!
It worked!
paul@laika:~/test$ rm file1 && echo It worked! || echo It failed!
rm: cannot remove `file1': No such file or directory

83

control operators
It failed!
paul@laika:~/test$

11.7. # pound sign

Everything written after a pound sign (#) is ignored by the shell. This is useful to
write a shell comment, but has no influence on the command execution or shell
expansion.
paul@debian4:~$ mkdir test
paul@debian4:~$ cd test
paul@debian4:~/test$ ls
paul@debian4:~/test$

# we create a directory
#### we enter the directory
# is it empty ?

11.8. \ escaping special characters

The backslash \ character enables the use of control characters, but without the shell
interpreting it, this is called escaping characters.
[paul@RHELv4u3
hello ; world
[paul@RHELv4u3
hello
world
[paul@RHELv4u3
escaping \ # &
[paul@RHELv4u3
escaping \?*"'

~]$ echo hello \; world

~]$ echo hello\ \ \ world
~]$ echo escaping \\\ \#\ \&\ \"\ \'
" '
~]$ echo escaping \\\?\*\"\'

end of line backslash

Lines ending in a backslash are continued on the next line. The shell does not interpret
the newline character and will wait on shell expansion and execution of the command
line until a newline without backslash is encountered.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo This command line \
> is split in three \
> parts
This command line is split in three parts
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

84

control operators

11.9. practice: control operators

0. Each question can be answered by one command line!
1. When you type passwd, which file is executed ?
2. What kind of file is that ?
3. Execute the pwd command twice. (remember 0.)
4. Execute ls after cd /etc, but only if cd /etc did not error.
5. Execute cd /etc after cd etc, but only if cd etc fails.
6. Echo it worked when touch test42 works, and echo it failed when the touch
failed. All on one command line as a normal user (not root). Test this line in your
home directory and in /bin/ .
7. Execute sleep 6, what is this command doing ?
8. Execute sleep 200 in background (do not wait for it to finish).
9. Write a command line that executes rm file55. Your command line should print
'success' if file55 is removed, and print 'failed' if there was a problem.
(optional)10. Use echo to display "Hello World with strange' characters \ * [ } ~ \
\ ." (including all quotes)

85

control operators

11.10. solution: control operators

0. Each question can be answered by one command line!
1. When you type passwd, which file is executed ?
which passwd

2. What kind of file is that ?

file /usr/bin/passwd

3. Execute the pwd command twice. (remember 0.)

pwd ; pwd

4. Execute ls after cd /etc, but only if cd /etc did not error.

cd /etc && ls

5. Execute cd /etc after cd etc, but only if cd etc fails.

cd etc || cd /etc

6. Echo it worked when touch test42 works, and echo it failed when the touch
failed. All on one command line as a normal user (not root). Test this line in your
home directory and in /bin/ .
paul@deb503:~$ cd ; touch test42 && echo it worked || echo it failed
it worked
paul@deb503:~$ cd /bin; touch test42 && echo it worked || echo it failed
touch: cannot touch `test42': Permission denied
it failed

7. Execute sleep 6, what is this command doing ?

pausing for six seconds

8. Execute sleep 200 in background (do not wait for it to finish).

sleep 200 &

9. Write a command line that executes rm file55. Your command line should print
'success' if file55 is removed, and print 'failed' if there was a problem.
rm file55 && echo success || echo failed

(optional)10. Use echo to display "Hello World with strange' characters \ * [ } ~ \

\ ." (including all quotes)
echo \"Hello World with strange\' characters \\ \* \[ \} \~ \\\\ \. \"
or
echo \""Hello World with strange' characters \ * [ } ~ \\ . "\"

86

Chapter 12. variables

Table of Contents
12.1. about variables .............................................................................................
12.2. quotes ...........................................................................................................
12.3. set .................................................................................................................
12.4. unset .............................................................................................................
12.5. env ................................................................................................................
12.6. export ...........................................................................................................
12.7. delineate variables ........................................................................................
12.8. unbound variables ........................................................................................
12.9. shell options .................................................................................................
12.10. shell embedding .........................................................................................
12.11. practice: shell variables ..............................................................................
12.12. solution: shell variables .............................................................................

88
90
90
90
90
91
91
92
92
93
94
95

In this chapter we learn to manage environment variables in the shell. These

variables are often read by applications.
We also take a brief look at child shells, embedded shells and shell options.

87

variables

12.1. about variables

$ dollar sign
Another important character interpreted by the shell is the dollar sign $. The shell
will look for an environment variable named like the string following the dollar
sign and replace it with the value of the variable (or with nothing if the variable does
not exist).
These are some examples using $HOSTNAME, $USER, $UID, $SHELL, and
$HOME.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo This is the $SHELL shell
This is the /bin/bash shell
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo This is $SHELL on computer $HOSTNAME
This is /bin/bash on computer RHELv4u3.localdomain
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo The userid of $USER is $UID
The userid of paul is 500
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo My homedir is $HOME
My homedir is /home/paul

case sensitive
This example shows that shell variables are case sensitive!
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo Hello $USER
Hello paul
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo Hello $user
Hello

$PS1
The $PS1 variable determines your shell prompt. You can use backslash escaped
special characters like \u for the username or \w for the working directory. The bash
manual has a complete reference.
In this example we change the value of $PS1 a couple of times.
paul@deb503:~$ PS1=prompt
prompt
promptPS1='prompt '
prompt
prompt PS1='> '
>
> PS1='\u@\h$ '
paul@deb503$
paul@deb503$ PS1='\u@\h:\W$'
paul@deb503:~$

To avoid unrecoverable mistakes, you can set normal user prompts to green and the
root prompt to red. This picture shows (one way) to do this.
88

variables

$PATH
The $PATH variable is determines where the shell is looking for commands to
execute (unless the command is builtin or aliased). This variable contains a list of
directories, separated by colons.
[[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo $PATH
/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:

The shell will not look in the current directory for commands to execute! (Looking
for executables in the current directory provided an easy way to hack PC-DOS
computers). If you want the shell to look in the current directory, then add a . at the
end of your $PATH.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ PATH=$PATH:.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo $PATH
/usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

Your path might be different when using su instead of su - because the latter will take
on the environment of the target user. The root user typically has /sbin directories
added to the $PATH variable.
[paul@RHEL3 ~]$ su
Password:
[root@RHEL3 paul]# echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin
[root@RHEL3 paul]# exit
[paul@RHEL3 ~]$ su Password:
[root@RHEL3 ~]# echo $PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:
[root@RHEL3 ~]#

creating variables
This example creates the variable $MyVar and sets its value. It then uses echo to
verify the value.
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ MyVar=555
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ echo $MyVar
555
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

89

variables

12.2. quotes
Notice that double quotes still allow the parsing of variables, whereas single quotes
prevent this.
[paul@RHELv4u3
[paul@RHELv4u3
555
[paul@RHELv4u3
555
[paul@RHELv4u3
$MyVar

~]$ MyVar=555
~]$ echo $MyVar
~]$ echo "$MyVar"
~]$ echo '$MyVar'

The bash shell will replace variables with their value in double quoted lines, but not
in single quoted lines.
paul@laika:~$ city=Burtonville
paul@laika:~$ echo "We are in $city today."
We are in Burtonville today.
paul@laika:~$ echo 'We are in $city today.'
We are in $city today.

12.3. set
You can use the set command to display a list of environment variables. On Ubuntu
and Debian systems, the set command will also list shell functions after the shell
variables. Use set | more to see the variables then.

12.4. unset
Use the unset command to remove a variable from your shell environment.
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b
8472
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b

~]$ MyVar=8472
~]$ echo $MyVar
~]$ unset MyVar
~]$ echo $MyVar

[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

12.5. env
The env command without options will display a list of exported variables. The
difference with set with options is that set lists all variables, including those not
exported to child shells.
But env can also be used to start a clean shell (a shell without any inherited
environment). The env -i command clears the environment for the subshell.
Notice in this screenshot that bash will set the $SHELL variable on startup.
90

variables
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ bash -c 'echo $SHELL $HOME $USER'
/bin/bash /home/paul paul
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ env -i bash -c 'echo $SHELL $HOME $USER'
/bin/bash
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

You can use the env command to set the $LANG, or any other, variable for just
one instance of bash with one command. The example below uses this to show the
influence of the $LANG variable on file globbing (see the chapter on file globbing).
[paul@RHEL4b test]$ env LANG=C bash -c 'ls File[a-z]'
Filea Fileb
[paul@RHEL4b test]$ env LANG=en_US.UTF-8 bash -c 'ls File[a-z]'
Filea FileA Fileb FileB
[paul@RHEL4b test]$

12.6. export
You can export shell variables to other shells with the export command. This will
export the variable to child shells.
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b
three four
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b
four

~]$
~]$
~]$
~]$

var3=three
var4=four
export var4
echo $var3 $var4

~]$ bash
~]$ echo $var3 $var4

But it will not export to the parent shell (previous screenshot continued).
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b
four five
[paul@RHEL4b
exit
[paul@RHEL4b
three four
[paul@RHEL4b

~]$ export var5=five

~]$ echo $var3 $var4 $var5
~]$ exit
~]$ echo $var3 $var4 $var5
~]$

12.7. delineate variables

Until now, we have seen that bash interprets a variable starting from a dollar sign,
continuing until the first occurrence of a non-alphanumeric character that is not an
underscore. In some situations, this can be a problem. This issue can be resolved with
curly braces like in this example.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ prefix=Super
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo Hello $prefixman and $prefixgirl
Hello and
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo Hello ${prefix}man and ${prefix}girl
Hello Superman and Supergirl
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

91

variables

12.8. unbound variables

The example below tries to display the value of the $MyVar variable, but it fails
because the variable does not exist. By default the shell will display nothing when a
variable is unbound (does not exist).
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ echo $MyVar
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

There is, however, the nounset shell option that you can use to generate an error
when a variable does not exist.
paul@laika:~$ set -u
paul@laika:~$ echo $Myvar
bash: Myvar: unbound variable
paul@laika:~$ set +u
paul@laika:~$ echo $Myvar
paul@laika:~$

In the bash shell set -u is identical to set -o nounset and likewise set +u is identical
to set +o nounset.

12.9. shell options

Both set and unset are builtin shell commands. They can be used to set options of
the bash shell itself. The next example will clarify this. By default, the shell will treat
unset variables as a variable having no value. By setting the -u option, the shell will
treat any reference to unset variables as an error. See the man page of bash for more
information.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo $var123
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ set -u
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo $var123
-bash: var123: unbound variable
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ set +u
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo $var123
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

To list all the set options for your shell, use echo $-. The noclobber (or -C) option
will be explained later in this book (in the I/O redirection chapter).
[paul@RHEL4b
himBH
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b
himuBCH
[paul@RHEL4b
[paul@RHEL4b
himBH
[paul@RHEL4b

~]$ echo $~]$ set -C ; set -u

~]$ echo $~]$ set +C ; set +u
~]$ echo $~]$

When typing set without options, you get a list of all variables without function when
the shell is on posix mode. You can set bash in posix mode typing set -o posix.
92

variables

12.10. shell embedding

Shells can be embedded on the command line, or in other words, the command line
scan can spawn new processes containing a fork of the current shell. You can use
variables to prove that new shells are created. In the screenshot below, the variable
$var1 only exists in the (temporary) sub shell.
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ echo $var1
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ echo $(var1=5;echo $var1)
5
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ echo $var1
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

You can embed a shell in an embedded shell, this is called nested embedding of
shells.
This screenshot shows an embedded shell inside an embedded shell.
paul@deb503:~$ A=shell
paul@deb503:~$ echo $C$B$A $(B=sub;echo $C$B$A; echo $(A=sub;echo $C$B$A))
shell subshell subsub

backticks
Single embedding can be useful to avoid changing your current directory. The
screenshot below uses backticks instead of dollar-bracket to embed.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo `cd /etc; ls -d * | grep pass`
passwd passwd- passwd.OLD
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

You can only use the $() notation to nest embedded shells, backticks cannot do this.

backticks or single quotes

Placing the embedding between backticks uses one character less than the dollar
and parenthesis combo. Be careful however, backticks are often confused with single
quotes. The technical difference between ' and ` is significant!
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ echo `var1=5;echo $var1`
5
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ echo 'var1=5;echo $var1'
var1=5;echo $var1
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

93

variables

12.11. practice: shell variables

1. Use echo to display Hello followed by your username. (use a bash variable!)
2. Create a variable answer with a value of 42.
3. Copy the value of $LANG to $MyLANG.
4. List all current shell variables.
5. List all exported shell variables.
6. Do the env and set commands display your variable ?
6. Destroy your answer variable.
7. Find the list of shell options in the man page of bash. What is the difference
between set -u and set -o nounset?
8. Create two variables, and export one of them.
9. Display the exported variable in an interactive child shell.
10. Create a variable, give it the value 'Dumb', create another variable with value 'do'.
Use echo and the two variables to echo Dumbledore.
11. Activate nounset in your shell. Test that it shows an error message when using
non-existing variables.
12. Deactivate nounset.
13. Find the list of backslash escaped characters in the manual of bash. Add the time
to your PS1 prompt.
14. Execute cd /var and ls in an embedded shell.
15. Create the variable embvar in an embedded shell and echo it. Does the variable
exist in your current shell now ?
16. Explain what "set -x" does. Can this be useful ?
(optional)17. Given the following screenshot, add exactly four characters to that
command line so that the total output is FirstMiddleLast.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo

First; echo

Middle; echo

Last

18. Display a long listing (ls -l) of the passwd command using the which command
inside back ticks.

94

variables

12.12. solution: shell variables

1. Use echo to display Hello followed by your username. (use a bash variable!)
echo Hello $USER

2. Create a variable answer with a value of 42.

answer=42

3. Copy the value of $LANG to $MyLANG.

MyLANG=$LANG

4. List all current shell variables.

set
set|more on Ubuntu/Debian

5. List all exported shell variables.

env

6. Do the env and set commands display your variable ?

env | more
set | more

6. Destroy your answer variable.

unset answer

7. Find the list of shell options in the man page of bash. What is the difference
between set -u and set -o nounset?
read the manual of bash (man bash), search for nounset -- both mean the same thing.
8. Create two variables, and export one of them.
var1=1; export var2=2

9. Display the exported variable in an interactive child shell.

bash
echo $var2

10. Create a variable, give it the value 'Dumb', create another variable with value 'do'.
Use echo and the two variables to echo Dumbledore.
varx=Dumb; vary=do
echo ${varx}le${vary}re
solution by Yves from Dexia : echo $varx'le'$vary're'
solution by Erwin from Telenet : echo "$varx"le"$vary"re

11. Activate nounset in your shell. Test that it shows an error message when using
non-existing variables.
95

variables
set -u
OR
set -o nounset

Both these lines have the same effect.

12. Deactivate nounset.
set +u
OR
set +o nounset

13. Find the list of backslash escaped characters in the manual of bash. Add the time
to your PS1 prompt.
PS1='\t \u@\h \W$ '

14. Execute cd /var and ls in an embedded shell.

echo $(cd /var ; ls)

The echo command is only needed to show the result of the ls command. Omitting
will result in the shell trying to execute the first file as a command.
15. Create the variable embvar in an embedded shell and echo it. Does the variable
exist in your current shell now ?
$(embvar=emb;echo $embvar) ; echo $embvar (the last echo fails).
$embvar does not exist in your current shell

16. Explain what "set -x" does. Can this be useful ?

It displays shell expansion for troubleshooting your command.

(optional)17. Given the following screenshot, add exactly four characters to that
command line so that the total output is FirstMiddleLast.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ echo

First; echo

Middle; echo

Last

echo -n First; echo -n Middle; echo Last

18. Display a long listing (ls -l) of the passwd command using the which command
inside back ticks.
ls -l `which passwd`

96

Chapter 13. shell history

Table of Contents
13.1. repeating the last command ......................................................................... 98
13.2. repeating other commands ........................................................................... 98
13.3. history ........................................................................................................... 98
13.4. !n ................................................................................................................... 98
13.5. Ctrl-r ............................................................................................................. 98
13.6. $HISTSIZE .................................................................................................. 99
13.7. $HISTFILE .................................................................................................. 99
13.8. $HISTFILESIZE .......................................................................................... 99
13.9. (optional)regular expressions ....................................................................... 99
13.10. (optional)repeating commands in ksh ...................................................... 100
13.11. practice: shell history ............................................................................... 101
13.12. solution: shell history ............................................................................... 102
The shell makes it easy for us to repeat commands, this chapter explains how.

97

shell history

13.1. repeating the last command

To repeat the last command in bash, type !!. This is pronounced as bang bang.
paul@debian5:~/test42$ echo this will be repeated > file42.txt
paul@debian5:~/test42$ !!
echo this will be repeated > file42.txt
paul@debian5:~/test42$

13.2. repeating other commands

You can repeat other commands using one bang followed by one or more characters.
The shell will repeat the last command that started with those characters.
paul@debian5:~/test42$ touch file42
paul@debian5:~/test42$ cat file42
paul@debian5:~/test42$ !to
touch file42
paul@debian5:~/test42$

13.3. history
To see older commands, use history to display the shell command history (or use
history n to see the last n commands).
paul@debian5:~/test$ history 10
38 mkdir test
39 cd test
40 touch file1
41 echo hello > file2
42 echo It is very cold today > winter.txt
43 ls
44 ls -l
45 cp winter.txt summer.txt
46 ls -l
47 history 10

13.4. !n
When typing ! followed by the number preceding the command you want repeated,
then the shell will echo the command and execute it.
paul@debian5:~/test$ !43
ls
file1 file2 summer.txt

winter.txt

13.5. Ctrl-r
Another option is to use Ctrl-r to search in the history. In the screenshot below i
only typed Ctrl-r followed by four characters apti and it finds the last command
containing these four consecutive characters.
98

shell history
paul@debian5:~$
(reverse-i-search)`apti': sudo aptitude install screen

13.6. $HISTSIZE
The $HISTSIZE variable determines the number of commands that will be
remembered in your current environment. Most distributions default this variable to
500 or 1000.
paul@debian5:~$ echo $HISTSIZE
500

You can change it to any value you like.

paul@debian5:~$ HISTSIZE=15000
paul@debian5:~$ echo $HISTSIZE
15000

13.7. $HISTFILE
The $HISTFILE variable points to the file that contains your history. The bash shell
defaults this value to ~/.bash_history.
paul@debian5:~$ echo $HISTFILE
/home/paul/.bash_history

A session history is saved to this file when you exit the session!
Closing a gnome-terminal with the mouse, or typing reboot as root will NOT save
your terminal's history.

13.8. $HISTFILESIZE
The number of commands kept in your history file can be set using $HISTFILESIZE.
paul@debian5:~$ echo $HISTFILESIZE
15000

13.9. (optional)regular expressions

It is possible to use regular expressions when using the bang to repeat commands.
The screenshot below switches 1 into 2.
paul@deianb5:~/test$ cat file1
paul@debian5:~/test$ !c:s/1/2
cat file2
hello
paul@debian5:~/test$

99

shell history

13.10. (optional)repeating commands in ksh

(just in case you end up on an AIX or Solaris computer that does not have bash
installed)
Repeating a command in the Korn shell is very similar. The Korn shell also has the
history command, but uses the letter r to recall lines from history.
This screenshot shows the history command. Note the different meaning of the
parameter.
$ history 17
17 clear
18 echo hoi
19 history 12
20 echo world
21 history 17

Repeating with r can be combined with the line numbers given by the history
command, or with the first few letters of the command.
$ r e
echo world
world
$ cd /etc
$ r
cd /etc
$

100

shell history

13.11. practice: shell history

1. Issue the command echo The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and
everything is 42.
2. Repeat the previous command using only two characters (there are two solutions!)
3. Display the last 5 commands you typed.
4. Issue the long echo from question 1 again, using the line numbers you received
from the command in question 3.
5. How many commands can be kept in memory for your current shell session ?
6. Where are these commands stored when exiting the shell ?
7. How many commands can be written to the history file when exiting your current
shell session ?
8. Make sure your current bash shell remembers the next 5000 commands you type.
9. Open more than one console (press Ctrl-shift-t in gnome-terminal) with the same
user account. When is command history written to the history file ?

101

shell history

13.12. solution: shell history

1. Issue the command echo The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and
everything is 42.
echo The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42

2. Repeat the previous command using only two characters (there are two solutions!)
!!
OR
!e

3. Display the last 5 commands you typed.

paul@ubu1010:~$ history 5
52 ls -l
53 ls
54 df -h | grep sda
55 echo The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42
56 history 5

You will receive different line numbers.

4. Issue the long echo from question 1 again, using the line numbers you received
from the command in question 3.
paul@ubu1010:~$ !56
echo The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42
The answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything is 42

5. How many commands can be kept in memory for your current shell session ?
echo $HISTSIZE

6. Where are these commands stored when exiting the shell ?

echo $HISTFILE

7. How many commands can be written to the history file when exiting your current
shell session ?
echo $HISTFILESIZE

8. Make sure your current bash shell remembers the next 5000 commands you type.
HISTSIZE=5000

9. Open more than one console (press Ctrl-shift-t in gnome-terminal) with the same
user account. When is command history written to the history file ?
when you type exit

102

Chapter 14. file globbing

Table of Contents
14.1.
14.2.
14.3.
14.4.
14.5.
14.6.
14.7.
14.8.

* asterisk ....................................................................................................
? question mark ..........................................................................................
[] square brackets .......................................................................................
a-z and 0-9 ranges .....................................................................................
$LANG and square brackets ......................................................................
preventing file globbing .............................................................................
practice: shell globbing ..............................................................................
solution: shell globbing ..............................................................................

104
104
104
105
105
105
107
108

The shell is also responsible for file globbing (or dynamic filename generation). This
chapter will explain file globbing.

103

file globbing

14.1. * asterisk
The asterisk * is interpreted by the shell as a sign to generate filenames, matching
the asterisk to any combination of characters (even none). When no path is given,
the shell will use filenames in the current directory. See the man page of glob(7) for
more information. (This is part of LPI topic 1.103.3.)
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
file1 file2 file3
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
File4 File55 FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
file1 file2 file3
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
File55
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
File55
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
File55
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

ls
File4 File55 FileA
ls File*
Fileab FileAB
ls file*
fileab fileabc
ls *ile55

fileab

Fileab

FileAB

fileabc

ls F*ile55
ls F*55

14.2. ? question mark

Similar to the asterisk, the question mark ? is interpreted by the shell as a sign to
generate filenames, matching the question mark with exactly one character.
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls
file1 file2 file3 File4 File55
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File?
File4 FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls Fil?4
File4
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls Fil??
File4 FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File??
File55 Fileab FileAB
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

FileA

fileab

Fileab

FileAB

fileabc

14.3. [] square brackets

The square bracket [ is interpreted by the shell as a sign to generate filenames,
matching any of the characters between [ and the first subsequent ]. The order in this
list between the brackets is not important. Each pair of brackets is replaced by exactly
one character.
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls
file1 file2 file3 File4 File55 FileA fileab Fileab FileAB
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[5A]
FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[A5]
FileA
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[A5][5b]
File55
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[a5][5b]
File55 Fileab
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls File[a5][5b][abcdefghijklm]
ls: File[a5][5b][abcdefghijklm]: No such file or directory

104

fileabc

file globbing
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[a5][5b][abcdefghijklm]
fileabc
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

You can also exclude characters from a list between square brackets with the
exclamation mark !. And you are allowed to make combinations of these wild cards.
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
file1 file2 file3
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
fileab
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
file1 file2 file3
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$
fileab
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

ls
File4 File55 FileA
ls file[a5][!Z]

fileab

Fileab

FileAB

fileabc

ls file[!5]*
fileab fileabc
ls file[!5]?

14.4. a-z and 0-9 ranges

The bash shell will also understand ranges of characters between brackets.
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls
file1 file3 File55 fileab FileAB
fileabc
file2 File4 FileA
Fileab fileab2
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[a-z]*
fileab fileab2 fileabc
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[0-9]
file1 file2 file3
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$ ls file[a-z][a-z][0-9]*
fileab2
[paul@RHELv4u3 gen]$

14.5. $LANG and square brackets

But, don't forget the influence of the LANG variable. Some languages include lower
case letters in an upper case range (and vice versa).
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls [A-Z]ile?
file1 file2 file3 File4
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls [a-z]ile?
file1 file2 file3 File4
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ echo $LANG
en_US.UTF-8
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ LANG=C
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ echo $LANG
C
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls [a-z]ile?
file1 file2 file3
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls [A-Z]ile?
File4
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$

14.6. preventing file globbing

The screenshot below should be no surprise. The echo * will echo a * when in an
empty directory. And it will echo the names of all files when the directory is not
empty.
105

file globbing
paul@ubu1010:~$ mkdir test42
paul@ubu1010:~$ cd test42
paul@ubu1010:~/test42$ echo *
*
paul@ubu1010:~/test42$ touch file42 file33
paul@ubu1010:~/test42$ echo *
file33 file42

Globbing can be prevented using quotes or by escaping the special characters, as

shown in this screenshot.
paul@ubu1010:~/test42$
file33 file42
paul@ubu1010:~/test42$
*
paul@ubu1010:~/test42$
*
paul@ubu1010:~/test42$
*

echo *
echo \*
echo '*'
echo "*"

106

file globbing

14.7. practice: shell globbing

1. Create a test directory and enter it.
2. Create files file1 file10 file11 file2 File2 File3 file33 fileAB filea fileA fileAAA
file( file 2 (the last one has 6 characters including a space)
3. List (with ls) all files starting with file
4. List (with ls) all files starting with File
5. List (with ls) all files starting with file and ending in a number.
6. List (with ls) all files starting with file and ending with a letter
7. List (with ls) all files starting with File and having a digit as fifth character.
8. List (with ls) all files starting with File and having a digit as fifth character and
nothing else.
9. List (with ls) all files starting with a letter and ending in a number.
10. List (with ls) all files that have exactly five characters.
11. List (with ls) all files that start with f or F and end with 3 or A.
12. List (with ls) all files that start with f have i or R as second character and end
in a number.
13. List all files that do not start with the letter F.
14. Copy the value of $LANG to $MyLANG.
15. Show the influence of $LANG in listing A-Z or a-z ranges.
16. You receive information that one of your servers was cracked, the cracker
probably replaced the ls command. You know that the echo command is safe to use.
Can echo replace ls ? How can you list the files in the current directory with echo ?
17. Is there another command besides cd to change directories ?

107

file globbing

14.8. solution: shell globbing

1. Create a test directory and enter it.
mkdir testdir; cd testdir

2. Create files file1 file10 file11 file2 File2 File3 file33 fileAB filea fileA fileAAA
file( file 2 (the last one has 6 characters including a space)
touch
touch
touch
touch

file1 file10 file11 file2 File2 File3

file33 fileAB filea fileA fileAAA
"file("
"file 2"

3. List (with ls) all files starting with file

ls file*

4. List (with ls) all files starting with File

ls File*

5. List (with ls) all files starting with file and ending in a number.
ls file*[0-9]

6. List (with ls) all files starting with file and ending with a letter
ls file*[a-z]

7. List (with ls) all files starting with File and having a digit as fifth character.
ls File[0-9]*

8. List (with ls) all files starting with File and having a digit as fifth character and
nothing else.
ls File[0-9]

9. List (with ls) all files starting with a letter and ending in a number.
ls [a-z]*[0-9]

10. List (with ls) all files that have exactly five characters.
ls ?????

11. List (with ls) all files that start with f or F and end with 3 or A.
ls [fF]*[3A]

12. List (with ls) all files that start with f have i or R as second character and end
in a number.
ls f[iR]*[0-9]

13. List all files that do not start with the letter F.
ls [!F]*

108

file globbing
14. Copy the value of $LANG to $MyLANG.
MyLANG=$LANG

15. Show the influence of $LANG in listing A-Z or a-z ranges.

see example in book

16. You receive information that one of your servers was cracked, the cracker
probably replaced the ls command. You know that the echo command is safe to use.
Can echo replace ls ? How can you list the files in the current directory with echo ?
echo *

17. Is there another command besides cd to change directories ?

pushd popd

109

Part IV. pipes and commands

Chapter 15. redirection and pipes

Table of Contents
15.1. stdin, stdout, and stderr ..............................................................................
15.2. output redirection .......................................................................................
15.3. error redirection .........................................................................................
15.4. input redirection .........................................................................................
15.5. confusing redirection ..................................................................................
15.6. quick file clear ...........................................................................................
15.7. swapping stdout and stderr ........................................................................
15.8. pipes ...........................................................................................................
15.9. practice: redirection and pipes ...................................................................
15.10. solution: redirection and pipes .................................................................

112
112
113
114
115
115
115
116
117
118

One of the powers of the Unix command line is the use of redirection and pipes.
This chapter first explains redirection of input, output and error streams. It then
introduces pipes that consist of several commands.

111

redirection and pipes

15.1. stdin, stdout, and stderr

The shell (and almost every other Linux command) takes input from stdin (stream
0) and sends output to stdout (stream 1) and error messages to stderr (stream 2) .
The keyboard often server as stdin, stdout and stderr both go to the disply. The shell
allows you to redirect these streams.

15.2. output redirection

> stdout
stdout can be redirected with a greater than sign. While scanning the line, the shell
will see the > sign and will clear the file.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo It is cold today!
It is cold today!
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo It is cold today! > winter.txt
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cat winter.txt
It is cold today!
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

Note that the > notation is in fact the abbreviation of 1> (stdout being referred to
as stream 1.

output file is erased

To repeat: While scanning the line, the shell will see the > sign and will clear the
file! This means that even when the command fails, the file will be cleared!
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cat winter.txt
It is cold today!
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ zcho It is cold today! > winter.txt
-bash: zcho: command not found
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cat winter.txt
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

noclobber
Erasing a file while using > can be prevented by setting the noclobber option.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cat winter.txt
It is cold today!
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ set -o noclobber

112

redirection and pipes

[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo It is cold today! > winter.txt
-bash: winter.txt: cannot overwrite existing file
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ set +o noclobber
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

overruling noclobber
The noclobber can be overruled with >|.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ set -o noclobber
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo It is cold today! > winter.txt
-bash: winter.txt: cannot overwrite existing file
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo It is very cold today! >| winter.txt
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cat winter.txt
It is very cold today!
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

>> append
Use >> to append output to a file.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo It is cold today! > winter.txt
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cat winter.txt
It is cold today!
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ echo Where is the summer ? >> winter.txt
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ cat winter.txt
It is cold today!
Where is the summer ?
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

15.3. error redirection

2> stderr
Redirecting stderr is done with 2>. This can be very useful to prevent error messages
from cluttering your screen. The screenshot below shows redirection of stdout to a
file, and stderr to /dev/null. Writing 1> is the same as >.
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ find / > allfiles.txt 2> /dev/null
[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

2>&1
To redirect both stdout and stderr to the same file, use 2>&1.
113

redirection and pipes

[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$ find / > allfiles_and_errors.txt 2>&1

[paul@RHELv4u3 ~]$

Note that the order of redirections is significant. For example, the command
ls > dirlist 2>&1

directs both standard output (file descriptor 1) and standard error (file descriptor 2)
to the file dirlist, while the command
ls 2>&1 > dirlist

directs only the standard output to file dirlist, because the standard error was made a
copy of the standard output before the standard output was redirected to dirlist.

15.4. input redirection

< stdin
Redirecting stdin is done with < (short for 0<).
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ cat < text.txt
one
two
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ tr 'onetw' 'ONEZZ' < text.txt
ONE
ZZO
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

<< here document

The here document (sometimes called here-is-document) is a way to append input
until a certain sequence (usually EOF) is encountered. The EOF marker can be typed
literally or can be called with Ctrl-D.
[paul@RHEL4b
> one
> two
> EOF
[paul@RHEL4b
one
two
[paul@RHEL4b
> brel
> brol
[paul@RHEL4b
brel
[paul@RHEL4b

~]$ cat <<EOF > text.txt

~]$ cat text.txt

~]$ cat <<brol > text.txt

~]$ cat text.txt

~]$

114

redirection and pipes

15.5. confusing redirection

The shell will scan the whole line before applying redirection. The following
command line is very readable and is correct.
cat winter.txt > snow.txt 2> errors.txt

But this one is also correct, but less readable.

2> errors.txt cat winter.txt > snow.txt

Even this will be understood perfectly by the shell.

< winter.txt > snow.txt 2> errors.txt cat

15.6. quick file clear

So what is the quickest way to clear a file ?
>foo

And what is the quickest way to clear a file when the noclobber option is set ?
>|bar

15.7. swapping stdout and stderr

When filtering an output stream, e.g. through a regular pipe ( | ) you only can filter
stdout. Say you want to filter out some unimportant error, out of the stderr stream.
This cannot be done directly, and you need to 'swap' stdout and stderr. This can be
done by using a 4th stream referred to with number 3:
3>&1 1>&2 2>&3

This Tower Of Hanoi like construction uses a temporary stream 3, to be able to swap
stdout (1) and stderr (2). The following is an example of how to filter out all lines
in the stderr stream, containing $uninterestingerror.
$command 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3 | grep -v $error 3>&1 1>&2 2>&3

But in this example, it can be done in a much shorter way, by using a pipe on
STDERR:
/usr/bin/$somecommand |& grep -v $uninterestingerror

115

redirection and pipes

15.8. pipes
One of the most powerful advantages of Linux is the use of pipes.
A pipe takes stdout from the previous command and sends it as stdin to the next
command. All commands in a pipe run simultaneously.

| vertical bar
Consider the following example.
paul@debian5:~/test$ ls /etc > etcfiles.txt
paul@debian5:~/test$ tail -4 etcfiles.txt
X11
xdg
xml
xpdf
paul@debian5:~/test$

This can be written in one command line using a pipe.

paul@debian5:~/test$ ls /etc | tail -4
X11
xdg
xml
xpdf
paul@debian5:~/test$

The pipe is represented by a vertical bar | between two commands.

multiple pipes
One command line can use multiple pipes. All commands in the pipe can run at the
same time.
paul@deb503:~/test$ ls /etc | tail -4 | tac
xpdf
xml
xdg
X11

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redirection and pipes

15.9. practice: redirection and pipes

1. Use ls to output the contents of the /etc/ directory to a file called etc.txt.
2. Activate the noclobber shell option.
3. Verify that nocclobber is active by repeating your ls on /etc/.
4. When listing all shell options, which character represents the noclobber option ?
5. Deactivate the noclobber option.
6. Make sure you have two shells open on the same computer. Create an empty
tailing.txt file. Then type tail -f tailing.txt. Use the second shell to append a line of
text to that file. Verify that the first shell displays this line.
7. Create a file that contains the names of five people. Use cat and output redirection
to create the file and use a here document to end the input.

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15.10. solution: redirection and pipes

1. Use ls to output the contents of the /etc/ directory to a file called etc.txt.
ls /etc > etc.txt

2. Activate the noclobber shell option.

set -o noclobber

3. Verify that nocclobber is active by repeating your ls on /etc/.

ls /etc > etc.txt (should not work)

4. When listing all shell options, which character represents the noclobber option ?
echo $- (noclobber is visible as C)

5. Deactivate the noclobber option.

set +o noclobber

6. Make sure you have two shells open on the same computer. Create an empty
tailing.txt file. Then type tail -f tailing.txt. Use the second shell to append a line of
text to that file. Verify that the first shell displays this line.
paul@deb503:~$ > tailing.txt
paul@deb503:~$ tail -f tailing.txt
hello
world
in the other shell:
paul@deb503:~$ echo hello >> tailing.txt
paul@deb503:~$ echo world >> tailing.txt

7. Create a file that contains the names of five people. Use cat and output redirection
to create the file and use a here document to end the input.
paul@deb503:~$ cat > tennis.txt << ace
> Justine Henin
> Venus Williams
> Serena Williams
> Martina Hingis
> Kim Clijsters
> ace
paul@deb503:~$ cat tennis.txt
Justine Henin
Venus Williams
Serena Williams
Martina Hingis
Kim Clijsters
paul@deb503:~$

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Chapter 16. filters

Table of Contents
16.1. cat ...............................................................................................................
16.2. tee ...............................................................................................................
16.3. grep .............................................................................................................
16.4. cut ...............................................................................................................
16.5. tr .................................................................................................................
16.6. wc ...............................................................................................................
16.7. sort ..............................................................................................................
16.8. uniq .............................................................................................................
16.9. comm ..........................................................................................................
16.10. od ..............................................................................................................
16.11. sed ............................................................................................................
16.12. pipe examples ...........................................................................................
16.13. practice: filters .........................................................................................
16.14. solution: filters .........................................................................................

120
120
120
121
122
123
124
124
125
126
126
127
128
129

Commands that are created to be used with a pipe are often called filters. These
filters are very small programs that do one specific thing very efficiently. They can
be used as building blocks.
This chapter will introduce you to the most common filters. The combination of
simple commands and filters in a long pipe allows you to design elegant solutions.

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16.1. cat
When between two pipes, the cat command does nothing (except putting stdin on
stdout.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ tac count.txt | cat | cat | cat | cat | cat
five
four
three
two
one
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

16.2. tee
Writing long pipes in Unix is fun, but sometimes you might want intermediate results.
This is were tee comes in handy. The tee filter puts stdin on stdout and also into a
file. So tee is almost the same as cat, except that it has two identical outputs.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ tac count.txt | tee temp.txt | tac
one
two
three
four
five
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat temp.txt
five
four
three
two
one
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

16.3. grep
The grep filter is famous among Unix users. The most common use of grep is to
filter lines of text containing (or not containing) a certain string.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat tennis.txt
Amelie Mauresmo, Fra
Kim Clijsters, BEL
Justine Henin, Bel
Serena Williams, usa
Venus Williams, USA
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat tennis.txt | grep Williams
Serena Williams, usa
Venus Williams, USA

You can write this without the cat.

[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ grep Williams tennis.txt
Serena Williams, usa
Venus Williams, USA

One of the most useful options of grep is grep -i which filters in a case insensitive
way.
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filters
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ grep Bel tennis.txt
Justine Henin, Bel
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ grep -i Bel tennis.txt
Kim Clijsters, BEL
Justine Henin, Bel
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

Another very useful option is grep -v which outputs lines not matching the string.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ grep -v Fra tennis.txt
Kim Clijsters, BEL
Justine Henin, Bel
Serena Williams, usa
Venus Williams, USA
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

And of course, both options can be combined to filter all lines not containing a case
insensitive string.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ grep -vi usa tennis.txt
Amelie Mauresmo, Fra
Kim Clijsters, BEL
Justine Henin, Bel
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

With grep -A1 one line after the result is also displayed.
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ grep -A1 Henin tennis.txt
Justine Henin, Bel
Serena Williams, usa

With grep -B1 one line before the result is also displayed.
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ grep -B1 Henin tennis.txt
Kim Clijsters, BEL
Justine Henin, Bel

With grep -C1 (context) one line before and one after are also displayed. All three
options (A,B, and C) can display any number of lines (using e.g. A2, B4 or C20).
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ grep -C1 Henin tennis.txt
Kim Clijsters, BEL
Justine Henin, Bel
Serena Williams, usa

16.4. cut
The cut filter can select columns from files, depending on a delimiter or a count of
bytes. The screenshot below uses cut to filter for the username and userid in the /etc/
passwd file. It uses the colon as a delimiter, and selects fields 1 and 3.
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[[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cut -d: -f1,3 /etc/passwd | tail -4
Figo:510
Pfaff:511
Harry:516
Hermione:517
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

When using a space as the delimiter for cut, you have to quote the space.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cut -d" " -f1 tennis.txt
Amelie
Kim
Justine
Serena
Venus
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

This example uses cut to display the second to the seventh character of /etc/passwd.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cut -c2-7 /etc/passwd | tail -4
igo:x:
faff:x
arry:x
ermion
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

16.5. tr
You can translate characters with tr. The screenshot shows the translation of all
occurrences of e to E.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat tennis.txt | tr 'e' 'E'
AmEliE MaurEsmo, Fra
Kim ClijstErs, BEL
JustinE HEnin, BEl
SErEna Williams, usa
VEnus Williams, USA

Here we set all letters to uppercase by defining two ranges.

[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat tennis.txt | tr 'a-z' 'A-Z'
AMELIE MAURESMO, FRA
KIM CLIJSTERS, BEL
JUSTINE HENIN, BEL
SERENA WILLIAMS, USA
VENUS WILLIAMS, USA
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

Here we translate all newlines to spaces.

[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat count.txt
one

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filters
two
three
four
five
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat count.txt | tr '\n' ' '
one two three four five [paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

The tr -s filter can also be used to squeeze multiple occurrences of a character to one.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat spaces.txt
one
two
three
four
five six
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat spaces.txt | tr -s ' '
one two three
four five six
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

You can also use tr to 'encrypt' texts with rot13.

[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat count.txt | tr 'a-z' 'nopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklm'
bar
gjb
guerr
sbhe
svir
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ cat count.txt | tr 'a-z' 'n-za-m'
bar
gjb
guerr
sbhe
svir
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

This last example uses tr -d to delete characters.

paul@debian5:~/pipes$ cat tennis.txt | tr -d e
Amli Maursmo, Fra
Kim Clijstrs, BEL
Justin Hnin, Bl
Srna Williams, usa
Vnus Williams, USA

16.6. wc
Counting words, lines and characters is easy with wc.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ wc
5 15 100 tennis.txt
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ wc
5 tennis.txt
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ wc
15 tennis.txt
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ wc
100 tennis.txt

tennis.txt
-l tennis.txt
-w tennis.txt
-c tennis.txt

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[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$

16.7. sort
The sort filter will default to an alphabetical sort.
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ cat music.txt
Queen
Brel
Led Zeppelin
Abba
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ sort music.txt
Abba
Brel
Led Zeppelin
Queen

But the sort filter has many options to tweak its usage. This example shows sorting
different columns (column 1 or column 2).
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ sort -k1 country.txt
Belgium, Brussels, 10
France, Paris, 60
Germany, Berlin, 100
Iran, Teheran, 70
Italy, Rome, 50
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ sort -k2 country.txt
Germany, Berlin, 100
Belgium, Brussels, 10
France, Paris, 60
Italy, Rome, 50
Iran, Teheran, 70

The screenshot below shows the difference between an alphabetical sort and a
numerical sort (both on the third column).
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ sort -k3 country.txt
Belgium, Brussels, 10
Germany, Berlin, 100
Italy, Rome, 50
France, Paris, 60
Iran, Teheran, 70
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ sort -n -k3 country.txt
Belgium, Brussels, 10
Italy, Rome, 50
France, Paris, 60
Iran, Teheran, 70
Germany, Berlin, 100

16.8. uniq
With uniq you can remove duplicates from a sorted list.
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filters

paul@debian5:~/pipes$ cat music.txt

Queen
Brel
Queen
Abba
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ sort music.txt
Abba
Brel
Queen
Queen
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ sort music.txt |uniq
Abba
Brel
Queen

uniq can also count occurrences with the -c option.

paul@debian5:~/pipes$ sort music.txt |uniq -c
1 Abba
1 Brel
2 Queen

16.9. comm
Comparing streams (or files) can be done with the comm. By default comm will
output three columns. In this example, Abba, Cure and Queen are in both lists, Bowie
and Sweet are only in the first file, Turner is only in the second.
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ cat > list1.txt
Abba
Bowie
Cure
Queen
Sweet
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ cat > list2.txt
Abba
Cure
Queen
Turner
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ comm list1.txt list2.txt
Abba
Bowie
Cure
Queen
Sweet
Turner

The output of comm can be easier to read when outputting only a single column. The
digits point out which output columns should not be displayed.
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ comm -12 list1.txt list2.txt
Abba
Cure
Queen
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ comm -13 list1.txt list2.txt
Turner
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ comm -23 list1.txt list2.txt

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filters
Bowie
Sweet

16.10. od
European humans like to work with ascii characters, but computers store files in bytes.
The example below creates a simple file, and then uses od to show the contents of
the file in hexadecimal bytes, in octal bytes and in ascii (or backslashed) characters.
paul@laika:~/test$ cat > text.txt
abcdefg
1234567
paul@laika:~/test$ od -t x1 text.txt
0000000 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 0a 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 0a
0000020
paul@laika:~/test$ od -b text.txt
0000000 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 012 061 062 063 064 065 066 067 012
0000020
paul@laika:~/test$ od -c text.txt
0000000
a
b
c
d
e
f
g \n
1
2
3
4
5
6
7 \n
0000020
paul@laika:~/test$

16.11. sed
The stream editor sed can perform editing functions in the stream, using regular
expressions.
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ echo level5 | sed 's/5/42/'
level42
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ echo level5 | sed 's/level/jump/'
jump5

Add g for global replacements (all occurrences of the string per line).
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ echo level5 level7 | sed 's/level/jump/'
jump5 level7
paul@debian5:~/pipes$ echo level5 level7 | sed 's/level/jump/g'
jump5 jump7

With d you can remove lines from a stream containing a character.

paul@debian5:~/test42$ cat tennis.txt
Venus Williams, USA
Martina Hingis, SUI
Justine Henin, BE
Serena williams, USA
Kim Clijsters, BE
Yanina Wickmayer, BE
paul@debian5:~/test42$ cat tennis.txt | sed '/BE/d'

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Venus Williams, USA
Martina Hingis, SUI
Serena williams, USA

16.12. pipe examples

who | wc
How many users are logged on to this system ?
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ who
root
tty1
Jul 25 10:50
paul
pts/0
Jul 25 09:29 (laika)
Harry
pts/1
Jul 25 12:26 (barry)
paul
pts/2
Jul 25 12:26 (pasha)
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ who | wc -l
4

who | cut | sort

Display a sorted list of logged on users.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ who | cut -d' ' -f1 | sort
Harry
paul
paul
root

Display a sorted list of logged on users, but every user only once.
[paul@RHEL4b pipes]$ who | cut -d' ' -f1 | sort | uniq
Harry
paul
root

grep | cut
Display a list of all bash user accounts on this computer. Users accounts are explained
in detail later.
paul@debian5:~$ grep bash /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
paul:x:1000:1000:paul,,,:/home/paul:/bin/bash
serena:x:1001:1001::/home/serena:/bin/bash
paul@debian5:~$ grep bash /etc/passwd | cut -d: -f1
root
paul
serena

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16.13. practice: filters

1. Put a sorted list of all bash users in bashusers.txt.
2. Put a sorted list of all logged on users in onlineusers.txt.
3. Make a list of all files in /etc that contain the string samba.
4. Make a sorted list of all files in /etc that contain the case insensitive string samba.
5. Look at the output of /sbin/ifconfig. Write a line that displays only ip address and
the subnet mask.
6. Write a line that removes all non-letters from a stream.
7. Write a line that receives a text file, and outputs all words on a separate line.
8. Write a spell checker on the command line. (There might be a dictionary in /usr/
share/dict/ .)

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16.14. solution: filters

1. Put a sorted list of all bash users in bashusers.txt.
grep bash /etc/passwd | cut -d: -f1 | sort > bashusers.txt

2. Put a sorted list of all logged on users in onlineusers.txt.

who | cut -d' ' -f1 | sort > onlineusers.txt

3. Make a list of all files in /etc that contain the string samba.
ls /etc | grep samba

4. Make a sorted list of all files in /etc that contain the case insensitive string samba.
ls /etc | grep -i samba | sort

5. Look at the output of /sbin/ifconfig. Write a line that displays only ip address and
the subnet mask.
/sbin/ifconfig | head -2 | grep 'inet ' | tr -s ' ' | cut -d' ' -f3,5

6. Write a line that removes all non-letters from a stream.

paul@deb503:~$ cat text
This is, yes really! , a text with ?&* too many str$ange# characters ;-)
paul@deb503:~$ cat text | tr -d ',!$?.*&^%#@;()-'
This is yes really a text with too many strange characters

7. Write a line that receives a text file, and outputs all words on a separate line.
paul@deb503:~$ cat text2
it is very cold today without the sun
paul@deb503:~$ cat text2 | tr ' ' '\n'
it
is
very
cold
today
without
the
sun

8. Write a spell checker on the command line. (There might be a dictionary in /usr/
share/dict/ .)
paul@rhel ~$ echo "The zun is shining today" > text
paul@rhel ~$ cat > DICT
is
shining
sun
the
today

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paul@rhel ~$ cat text | tr 'A-Z ' 'a-z\n' | sort | uniq | comm -23 - DICT
zun

You could also add the solution from question number 6 to remove non-letters, and
tr -s ' ' to remove redundant spaces.

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Chapter 17. basic Unix tools

Table of Contents
17.1. find .............................................................................................................
17.2. locate ..........................................................................................................
17.3. date .............................................................................................................
17.4. cal ...............................................................................................................
17.5. sleep ...........................................................................................................
17.6. time .............................................................................................................
17.7. gzip - gunzip ..............................................................................................
17.8. zcat - zmore ...............................................................................................
17.9. bzip2 - bunzip2 ..........................................................................................
17.10. bzcat - bzmore .........................................................................................
17.11. practice: basic Unix tools ........................................................................
17.12. solution: basic Unix tools ........................................................................

132
132
133
133
134
134
134
135
135
135
137
138

This chapter introduces commands to find or locate files and to compress files,
together with other common tools that were not discussed before. While the tools
discussed here are technically not considered filters, they can be used in pipes.

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basic Unix tools

17.1. find
The find command can be very useful at the start of a pipe to search for files. Here are
some examples. You might want to add 2>/dev/null to the command lines to avoid
cluttering your screen with error messages.
Find all files in /etc and put the list in etcfiles.txt
find /etc > etcfiles.txt

Find all files of the entire system and put the list in allfiles.txt
find / > allfiles.txt

Find files that end in .conf in the current directory (and all subdirs).
find . -name "*.conf"

Find files of type file (not directory, pipe or etc.) that end in .conf.
find . -type f -name "*.conf"

Find files of type directory that end in .bak .

find /data -type d -name "*.bak"

Find files that are newer than file42.txt

find . -newer file42.txt

Find can also execute another command on every file found. This example will look
for *.odf files and copy them to /backup/.
find /data -name "*.odf" -exec cp {} /backup/ \;

Find can also execute, after your confirmation, another command on every file found.
This example will remove *.odf files if you approve of it for every file found.
find /data -name "*.odf" -ok rm {} \;

17.2. locate
The locate tool is very different from find in that it uses an index to locate files. This
is a lot faster than traversing all the directories, but it also means that it is always
outdated. If the index does not exist yet, then you have to create it (as root on Red
Hat Enterprise Linux) with the updatedb command.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ locate Samba
warning: locate: could not open database: /var/lib/slocate/slocate.db:...
warning: You need to run the 'updatedb' command (as root) to create th...
Please have a look at /etc/updatedb.conf to enable the daily cron job.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ updatedb
fatal error: updatedb: You are not authorized to create a default sloc...
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ su Password:

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basic Unix tools

[root@RHEL4b ~]# updatedb
[root@RHEL4b ~]#

Most Linux distributions will schedule the updatedb to run once every day.

17.3. date
The date command can display the date, time, time zone and more.
paul@rhel55 ~$ date
Sat Apr 17 12:44:30 CEST 2010

A date string can be customised to display the format of your choice. Check the man
page for more options.
paul@rhel55 ~$ date +'%A %d-%m-%Y'
Saturday 17-04-2010

Time on any Unix is calculated in number of seconds since 1969 (the first second
being the first second of the first of January 1970). Use date +%s to display Unix
time in seconds.
paul@rhel55 ~$ date +%s
1271501080

When will this seconds counter reach two thousand million ?

paul@rhel55 ~$ date -d '1970-01-01 + 2000000000 seconds'
Wed May 18 04:33:20 CEST 2033

17.4. cal
The cal command displays the current month, with the current day highlighted.
paul@rhel55 ~$ cal
April 2010
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30

You can select any month in the past or the future.

paul@rhel55 ~$ cal 2 1970
February 1970
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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basic Unix tools

8 9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28

17.5. sleep
The sleep command is sometimes used in scripts to wait a number of seconds. This
example shows a five second sleep.
paul@rhel55 ~$ sleep 5
paul@rhel55 ~$

17.6. time
The time command can display how long it takes to execute a command. The date
command takes only a little time.
paul@rhel55 ~$ time date
Sat Apr 17 13:08:27 CEST 2010
real
user
sys

0m0.014s
0m0.008s
0m0.006s

The sleep 5 command takes five real seconds to execute, but consumes little cpu
time.
paul@rhel55 ~$ time sleep 5
real
user
sys

0m5.018s
0m0.005s
0m0.011s

This bzip2 command compresses a file and uses a lot of cpu time.
paul@rhel55 ~$ time bzip2 text.txt
real
user
sys

0m2.368s
0m0.847s
0m0.539s

17.7. gzip - gunzip

Users never have enough disk space, so compression comes in handy. The gzip
command can make files take up less space.

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basic Unix tools

paul@rhel55 ~$ ls -lh text.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 6.4M Apr 17 13:11 text.txt
paul@rhel55 ~$ gzip text.txt
paul@rhel55 ~$ ls -lh text.txt.gz
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 760K Apr 17 13:11 text.txt.gz

You can get the original back with gunzip.

paul@rhel55 ~$ gunzip text.txt.gz
paul@rhel55 ~$ ls -lh text.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 6.4M Apr 17 13:11 text.txt

17.8. zcat - zmore

Text files that are compressed with gzip can be viewed with zcat and zmore.
paul@rhel55 ~$ head -4 text.txt
/
/opt
/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.1.6
/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.1.6/routines.sh
paul@rhel55 ~$ gzip text.txt
paul@rhel55 ~$ zcat text.txt.gz | head -4
/
/opt
/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.1.6
/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.1.6/routines.sh

17.9. bzip2 - bunzip2

Files can also be compressed with bzip2 which takes a little more time than gzip,
but compresses better.
paul@rhel55 ~$ bzip2 text.txt
paul@rhel55 ~$ ls -lh text.txt.bz2
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 569K Apr 17 13:11 text.txt.bz2

Files can be uncompressed again with bunzip2.

paul@rhel55 ~$ bunzip2 text.txt.bz2
paul@rhel55 ~$ ls -lh text.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 6.4M Apr 17 13:11 text.txt

17.10. bzcat - bzmore

And in the same way bzcat and bzmore can display files compressed with bzip2.
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basic Unix tools

paul@rhel55 ~$ bzip2 text.txt

paul@rhel55 ~$ bzcat text.txt.bz2 | head -4
/
/opt
/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.1.6
/opt/VBoxGuestAdditions-3.1.6/routines.sh

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basic Unix tools

17.11. practice: basic Unix tools

1. Explain the difference between these two commands. This question is very
important. If you don't know the answer, then look back at the shell chapter.
find /data -name "*.txt"
find /data -name *.txt

2. Explain the difference between these two statements. Will they both work when
there are 200 .odf files in /data ? How about when there are 2 million .odf files ?
find /data -name "*.odf" > data_odf.txt
find /data/*.odf > data_odf.txt

3. Write a find command that finds all files created after January 30th 2010.
4. Write a find command that finds all *.odf files created in September 2009.
5. Count the number of *.conf files in /etc and all its subdirs.
6. Two commands that do the same thing: copy *.odf files to /backup/ . What would
be a reason to replace the first command with the second ? Again, this is an important
question.
cp -r /data/*.odf /backup/
find /data -name "*.odf" -exec cp {} /backup/ \;

7. Create a file called loctest.txt. Can you find this file with locate ? Why not ? How
do you make locate find this file ?
8. Use find and -exec to rename all .htm files to .html.
9. Issue the date command. Now display the date in YYYY/MM/DD format.
10. Issue the cal command. Display a calendar of 1582 and 1752. Notice anything
special ?

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basic Unix tools

17.12. solution: basic Unix tools

1. Explain the difference between these two commands. This question is very
important. If you don't know the answer, then look back at the shell chapter.
find /data -name "*.txt"
find /data -name *.txt

When *.txt is quoted then the shell will not touch it. The find tool will look in the
/data for all files ending in .txt.
When *.txt is not quoted then the shell might expand this (when one or more files
that ends in .txt exist in the current directory). The find might show a different result,
or can result in a syntax error.
2. Explain the difference between these two statements. Will they both work when
there are 200 .odf files in /data ? How about when there are 2 million .odf files ?
find /data -name "*.odf" > data_odf.txt
find /data/*.odf > data_odf.txt

The first find will output all .odf filenames in /data and all subdirectories. The shell
will redirect this to a file.
The second find will output all files named .odf in /data and will also output all files
that exist in directories named *.odf (in /data).
With two million files the command line would be expanded beyond the maximum
that the shell can accept. The last part of the command line would be lost.
3. Write a find command that finds all files created after January 30th 2010.
touch -t 201001302359 marker_date
find . -type f -newer marker_date
There is another solution :
find . -type f -newerat "20100130 23:59:59"

4. Write a find command that finds all *.odf files created in September 2009.
touch -t 200908312359 marker_start
touch -t 200910010000 marker_end
find . -type f -name "*.odf" -newer marker_start ! -newer marker_end

The exclamation mark ! -newer can be read as not newer.

5. Count the number of *.conf files in /etc and all its subdirs.
find /etc -type f -name '*.conf' | wc -l

6. Two commands that do the same thing: copy *.odf files to /backup/ . What would
be a reason to replace the first command with the second ? Again, this is an important
question.
cp -r /data/*.odf /backup/

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basic Unix tools

find /data -name "*.odf" -exec cp {} /backup/ \;

The first might fail when there are too many files to fit on one command line.
7. Create a file called loctest.txt. Can you find this file with locate ? Why not ? How
do you make locate find this file ?
You cannot locate this with locate because it is not yet in the index.
updatedb

8. Use find and -exec to rename all .htm files to .html.

paul@rhel55 ~$ find . -name '*.htm'
./one.htm
./two.htm
paul@rhel55 ~$ find . -name '*.htm' -exec mv {} {}l \;
paul@rhel55 ~$ find . -name '*.htm*'
./one.html
./two.html

9. Issue the date command. Now display the date in YYYY/MM/DD format.
date +%Y/%m/%d

10. Issue the cal command. Display a calendar of 1582 and 1752. Notice anything
special ?
cal 1582

The calendars are different depending on the country. Check http://linux-training.be/

files/studentfiles/dates.txt

139

Part V. vi

Chapter 18. Introduction to vi

Table of Contents
18.1. command mode and insert mode ............................................................... 142
18.2. start typing (a A i I o O) ........................................................................... 142
18.3. replace and delete a character (r x X) ........................................................ 142
18.4. undo and repeat (u .) .................................................................................. 143
18.5. cut, copy and paste a line (dd yy p P) ....................................................... 143
18.6. cut, copy and paste lines (3dd 2yy) ........................................................... 143
18.7. start and end of a line (0 or ^ and $) ......................................................... 144
18.8. join two lines (J) and more ........................................................................ 144
18.9. words (w b) ................................................................................................ 144
18.10. save (or not) and exit (:w :q :q! ) ............................................................. 145
18.11. Searching (/ ?) .......................................................................................... 145
18.12. replace all ( :1,$ s/foo/bar/g ) ................................................................... 146
18.13. reading files (:r :r !cmd) ........................................................................... 146
18.14. text buffers ............................................................................................... 146
18.15. multiple files ............................................................................................ 147
18.16. abbreviations ............................................................................................ 147
18.17. key mappings ........................................................................................... 147
18.18. setting options .......................................................................................... 147
18.19. practice: vi(m) .......................................................................................... 149
18.20. solution: vi(m) .......................................................................................... 150
The vi editor is installed on almost every Unix. Linux will very often install vim (vi
improved) which is similar. Every system administrator should know vi(m), because
it is an easy tool to solve problems.
The vi editor is not intuitive, but once you get to know it, vi becomes a very powerful
application. Most Linux distributions will include the vimtutor which is a 45 minute
lesson in vi(m).

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18.1. command mode and insert mode

The vi editor starts in command mode. In command mode, you can type commands.
Some commands will bring you into insert mode. In insert mode, you can type text.
The escape key will return you to command mode.
Table 18.1. getting to command mode
key

action

Esc

set vi(m) in command mode.

18.2. start typing (a A i I o O)

The difference between a A i I o and O is the location where you can start typing.
a will append after the current character and A will append at the end of the line. i
will insert before the current character and I will insert at the beginning of the line.
o will put you in a new line after the current line and O will put you in a new line
before the current line.
Table 18.2. switch to insert mode
command action
a

start typing after the current character

start typing at the end of the current line

start typing before the current character

start typing at the start of the current line

start typing on a new line after the current line

start typing on a new line before the current line

18.3. replace and delete a character (r x X)

When in command mode (it doesn't hurt to hit the escape key more than once) you
can use the x key to delete the current character. The big X key (or shift x) will delete
the character left of the cursor. Also when in command mode, you can use the r key
to replace one single character. The r key will bring you in insert mode for just one
key press, and will return you immediately to command mode.

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Introduction to vi
Table 18.3. replace and delete
command

action

delete the character below the cursor

delete the character before the cursor

replace the character below the cursor

paste after the cursor (here the last deleted character)

xp

switch two characters

18.4. undo and repeat (u .)

When in command mode, you can undo your mistakes with u. You can do your
mistakes twice with . (in other words, the . will repeat your last command).
Table 18.4. undo and repeat
command action
u

undo the last action

repeat the last action

18.5. cut, copy and paste a line (dd yy p P)

When in command mode, dd will cut the current line. yy will copy the current line.
You can paste the last copied or cut line after (p) or before (P) the current line.
Table 18.5. cut, copy and paste a line
command action
dd

cut the current line

yy

(yank yank) copy the current line

paste after the current line

paste before the current line

18.6. cut, copy and paste lines (3dd 2yy)

When in command mode, before typing dd or yy, you can type a number to repeat
the command a number of times. Thus, 5dd will cut 5 lines and 4yy will copy (yank)
4 lines. That last one will be noted by vi in the bottom left corner as "4 line yanked".
Table 18.6. cut, copy and paste lines
command action
3dd

cut three lines

4yy

copy four lines

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Introduction to vi

18.7. start and end of a line (0 or ^ and $)

When in command mode, the 0 and the caret ^ will bring you to the start of the current
line, whereas the $ will put the cursor at the end of the current line. You can add 0 and
$ to the d command, d0 will delete every character between the current character and
the start of the line. Likewise d$ will delete everything from the current character till
the end of the line. Similarly y0 and y$ will yank till start and end of the current line.
Table 18.7. start and end of line
command action
0

jump to start of current line

jump to start of current line

jump to end of current line

d0

delete until start of line

d$

delete until end of line

18.8. join two lines (J) and more

When in command mode, pressing J will append the next line to the current line.
With yyp you duplicate a line and with ddp you switch two lines.
Table 18.8. join two lines
command action
J

join two lines

yyp

duplicate a line

ddp

switch two lines

18.9. words (w b)
When in command mode, w will jump to the next word and b will move to the
previous word. w and b can also be combined with d and y to copy and cut words
(dw db yw yb).

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Introduction to vi
Table 18.9. words
command action
w

forward one word

back one word

3w

forward three words

dw

delete one word

yw

yank (copy) one word

5yb

yank five words back

7dw

delete seven words

18.10. save (or not) and exit (:w :q :q! )

Pressing the colon : will allow you to give instructions to vi (technically speaking,
typing the colon will open the ex editor). :w will write (save) the file, :q will quit an
unchanged file without saving, and :q! will quit vi discarding any changes. :wq will
save and quit and is the same as typing ZZ in command mode.
Table 18.10. save and exit vi
command action
:w
:w fname
:q

save (write)
save as fname
quit

:wq

save and quit

ZZ

save and quit

:q!

quit (discarding your changes)

:w!

save (and write to non-writable file!)

The last one is a bit special. With :w! vi will try to chmod the file to get write
permission (this works when you are the owner) and will chmod it back when the
write succeeds. This should always work when you are root (and the file system is
writable).

18.11. Searching (/ ?)
When in command mode typing / will allow you to search in vi for strings (can be
a regular expression). Typing /foo will do a forward search for the string foo and
typing ?bar will do a backward search for bar.

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Introduction to vi
Table 18.11. searching
command

action

/string

forward search for string

?string

backward search for string

go to next occurrence of search string

/^string

forward search string at beginning of line

/string$

forward search string at end of line

/br[aeio]l
/\<he\>

search for bral brel bril and brol

search for the word he (and not for here or the)

18.12. replace all ( :1,$ s/foo/bar/g )

To replace all occurrences of the string foo with bar, first switch to ex mode with : .
Then tell vi which lines to use, for example 1,$ will do the replace all from the first
to the last line. You can write 1,5 to only process the first five lines. The s/foo/bar/
g will replace all occurrences of foo with bar.
Table 18.12. replace
command

action

:4,8 s/foo/bar/g

replace foo with bar on lines 4 to 8

:1,$ s/foo/bar/g

replace foo with bar on all lines

18.13. reading files (:r :r !cmd)

When in command mode, :r foo will read the file named foo, :r !foo will execute the
command foo. The result will be put at the current location. Thus :r !ls will put a
listing of the current directory in your text file.
Table 18.13. read files and input
command action
:r fname (read) file fname and paste contents
:r !cmd execute cmd and paste its output

18.14. text buffers

There are 36 buffers in vi to store text. You can use them with the " character.

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Introduction to vi
Table 18.14. text buffers
command action
"add

delete current line and put text in buffer a

"g7yy

copy seven lines into buffer g

"ap

paste from buffer a

18.15. multiple files

You can edit multiple files with vi. Here are some tips.
Table 18.15. multiple files
command
vi file1 file2 file3
:args

action
start editing three files
lists files and marks active file

:n

start editing the next file

:e

toggle with last edited file

:rew

rewind file pointer to first file

18.16. abbreviations
With :ab you can put abbreviations in vi. Use :una to undo the abbreviation.
Table 18.16. abbreviations
command
:ab str long string
:una str

action
abbreviate str to be 'long string'
un-abbreviate str

18.17. key mappings

Similarly to their abbreviations, you can use mappings with :map for command mode
and :map! for insert mode.
This example shows how to set the F6 function key to toggle between set number
and set nonumber. The <bar> separates the two commands, set number! toggles
the state and set number? reports the current state.
:map <F6> :set number!<bar>set number?<CR>

18.18. setting options

Some options that you can set in vim.
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Introduction to vi

:set number ( also try :se nu )

:set nonumber
:syntax on
:syntax off
:set all (list all options)
:set tabstop=8
:set tx
(CR/LF style endings)
:set notx

You can set these options (and much more) in ~/.vimrc for vim or in ~/.exrc for
standard vi.
paul@barry:~$ cat ~/.vimrc
set number
set tabstop=8
set textwidth=78
map <F6> :set number!<bar>set number?<CR>
paul@barry:~$

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Introduction to vi

18.19. practice: vi(m)

1. Start the vimtutor and do some or all of the exercises. You might need to run
aptitude install vim on xubuntu.
2. What 3 key combination in command mode will duplicate the current line.
3. What 3 key combination in command mode will switch two lines' place (line five
becomes line six and line six becomes line five).
4. What 2 key combination in command mode will switch a character's place with
the next one.
5. vi can understand macro's. A macro can be recorded with q followed by the name
of the macro. So qa will record the macro named a. Pressing q again will end the
recording. You can recall the macro with @ followed by the name of the macro. Try
this example: i 1 'Escape Key' qa yyp 'Ctrl a' q 5@a (Ctrl a will increase the number
with one).
6. Copy /etc/passwd to your ~/passwd. Open the last one in vi and press Ctrl v. Use
the arrow keys to select a Visual Block, you can copy this with y or delete it with
d. Try pasting it.
7. What does dwwP do when you are at the beginning of a word in a sentence ?

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Introduction to vi

18.20. solution: vi(m)

1. Start the vimtutor and do some or all of the exercises. You might need to run
aptitude install vim on xubuntu.
vimtutor

2. What 3 key combination in command mode will duplicate the current line.
yyp

3. What 3 key combination in command mode will switch two lines' place (line five
becomes line six and line six becomes line five).
ddp

4. What 2 key combination in command mode will switch a character's place with
the next one.
xp

5. vi can understand macro's. A macro can be recorded with q followed by the name
of the macro. So qa will record the macro named a. Pressing q again will end the
recording. You can recall the macro with @ followed by the name of the macro. Try
this example: i 1 'Escape Key' qa yyp 'Ctrl a' q 5@a (Ctrl a will increase the number
with one).
6. Copy /etc/passwd to your ~/passwd. Open the last one in vi and press Ctrl v. Use
the arrow keys to select a Visual Block, you can copy this with y or delete it with
d. Try pasting it.
cp /etc/passwd ~
vi passwd
(press Ctrl-V)

7. What does dwwP do when you are at the beginning of a word in a sentence ?
dwwP can switch the current word with the next word.

150

Part VI. scripting

Chapter 19. scripting introduction

Table of Contents
19.1.
19.2.
19.3.
19.4.
19.5.
19.6.
19.7.
19.8.
19.9.

scripts are everywhere ...............................................................................

hello world .................................................................................................
she-bang .....................................................................................................
comment .....................................................................................................
variables .....................................................................................................
sourcing a script .........................................................................................
prevent setuid root spoofing ......................................................................
practice: introduction to scripting ..............................................................
solution: introduction to scripting ..............................................................

152

153
153
153
154
154
154
155
156
157

scripting introduction

19.1. scripts are everywhere

Shells like bash and Korn have support for programming constructs that can be saved
as scripts. These scripts in turn then become more shell commands. Many Linux
commands are scripts. User profile scripts are run when a user logs on and init
scripts are run when a daemon is stopped or started.
This means that system administrators also need basic knowledge of scripting to
understand how their servers and their applications are started, updated, upgraded,
patched, maintained, configured and removed, and also to understand how a user
environment is built.

19.2. hello world

Just like in every programming course, we start with a simple hello_world script.
The following script will output Hello World.
echo Hello World

After creating this simple script in vi or with echo, you'll have to chmod +x
hello_world to make it executable. And unless you add the scripts directory to your
path, you'll have to type the path to the script for the shell to be able to find it.
[paul@RHEL4a
[paul@RHEL4a
[paul@RHEL4a
Hello World
[paul@RHEL4a

~]$ echo echo Hello World > hello_world

~]$ chmod +x hello_world
~]$ ./hello_world
~]$

19.3. she-bang
Let's expand our example a little further by putting #!/bin/bash on the first line of
the script. The #! is called a she-bang (sometimes called sha-bang), where the shebang is the first two characters of the script.
#!/bin/bash
echo Hello World

You can never be sure which shell a user is running. A script that works flawlessly
in bash might not work in ksh, csh, or dash. To instruct a shell to run your script in
a certain shell, you can start your script with a she-bang followed by the shell it is
supposed to run in. This script will run in a bash shell.
#!/bin/bash
echo -n hello
echo A bash subshell `echo -n hello`

This script will run in a Korn shell (unless /bin/ksh is a hard link to /bin/bash). The
/etc/shells file contains a list of shells on your system.
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scripting introduction
#!/bin/ksh
echo -n hello
echo a Korn subshell `echo -n hello`

19.4. comment
Let's expand our example a little further by adding comment lines.
#!/bin/bash
#
# Hello World Script
#
echo Hello World

19.5. variables
Here is a simple example of a variable inside a script.
#!/bin/bash
#
# simple variable in script
#
var1=4
echo var1 = $var1

Scripts can contain variables, but since scripts are run in their own shell, the variables
do not survive the end of the script.
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$ echo $var1
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$ ./vars
var1 = 4
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$ echo $var1
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$

19.6. sourcing a script

Luckily, you can force a script to run in the same shell; this is called sourcing a script.
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$ source ./vars
var1 = 4
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$ echo $var1
4
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$

The above is identical to the below.

[paul@RHEL4a ~]$ . ./vars
var1 = 4
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$ echo $var1

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scripting introduction
4
[paul@RHEL4a ~]$

19.7. prevent setuid root spoofing

Some user may try to perform setuid based script root spoofing. This is a rare but
possible attack. To improve script security and to avoid interpreter spoofing, you need
to add -- after the #!/bin/bash, which disables further option processing so the shell
will not accept any options.
#!/bin/bash or
#!/bin/bash --

Any arguments after the -- are treated as filenames and arguments. An argument of
- is equivalent to --.

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scripting introduction

19.8. practice: introduction to scripting

0. Give each script a different name, keep them for later!
1. Write a script that outputs the name of a city.
2. Make sure the script runs in the bash shell.
3. Make sure the script runs in the Korn shell.
4. Create a script that defines two variables, and outputs their value.
5. The previous script does not influence your current shell (the variables do not exist
outside of the script). Now run the script so that it influences your current shell.
6. Is there a shorter way to source the script ?
7. Comment your scripts so that you know what they are doing.

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scripting introduction

19.9. solution: introduction to scripting

0. Give each script a different name, keep them for later!
1. Write a script that outputs the name of a city.
$ echo 'echo Antwerp' > first.bash
$ chmod +x first.bash
$ ./first.bash
Antwerp

2. Make sure the script runs in the bash shell.

$ cat first.bash
#!/bin/bash
echo Antwerp

3. Make sure the script runs in the Korn shell.

$ cat first.bash
#!/bin/ksh
echo Antwerp

Note that while first.bash will technically work as a Korn shell script, the name ending
in .bash is confusing.
4. Create a script that defines two variables, and outputs their value.
$ cat second.bash
#!/bin/bash
var33=300
var42=400
echo $var33 $var42

5. The previous script does not influence your current shell (the variables do not exist
outside of the script). Now run the script so that it influences your current shell.
source second.bash

6. Is there a shorter way to source the script ?

. ./second.bash

7. Comment your scripts so that you know what they are doing.
$ cat second.bash
#!/bin/bash
# script to test variables and sourcing
# define two variables
var33=300
var42=400
# output the value of these variables
echo $var33 $var42

157

Chapter 20. scripting loops

Table of Contents
20.1.
20.2.
20.3.
20.4.
20.5.
20.6.
20.7.

test [ ] .........................................................................................................
if if, then then, or else ...............................................................................
for loop .......................................................................................................
while loop ..................................................................................................
until loop ....................................................................................................
practice: scripting tests and loops ..............................................................
solution: scripting tests and loops ..............................................................

158

159
159
160
160
161
162
163

scripting loops

20.1. test [ ]
The test command can test whether something is true or false. Let's start by testing
whether 10 is greater than 55.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ test 10 -gt 55 ; echo $?
1
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

The test command returns 1 if the test fails. And as you see in the next screenshot,
test returns 0 when a test succeeds.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ test 56 -gt 55 ; echo $?
0
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

If you prefer true and false, then write the test like this.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ test 56 -gt 55 && echo true || echo false
true
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ test 6 -gt 55 && echo true || echo false
false

The test command can also be written as square brackets, the screenshot below is
identical to the one above.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ [ 56 -gt 55 ] && echo true || echo false
true
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ [ 6 -gt 55 ] && echo true || echo false
false

Below are some example tests. Take a look at man test to see more options for tests.
[
[
[
[
[
[
[
[
[
[

-d foo ]
'/etc' = $PWD ]
$1 != 'secret' ]
55 -lt $bar ]
$foo -ge 1000 ]
"abc" < $bar ]
-f foo ]
-r bar ]
foo -nt bar ]
-o nounset ]

Does the directory foo exist ?

Is the string /etc equal to the variable $PWD ?
Is the first parameter different from secret ?
Is 55 less than the value of $bar ?
Is the value of $foo greater or equal to 1000 ?
Does abc sort before the value of $bar ?
Is foo a regular file ?
Is bar a readable file ?
Is file foo newer than file bar ?
Is the shell option nounset set ?

Tests can be combined with logical AND and OR.

paul@RHEL4b:~$ [ 66 -gt 55 -a 66 -lt 500 ] && echo true || echo false
true
paul@RHEL4b:~$ [ 66 -gt 55 -a 660 -lt 500 ] && echo true || echo false
false
paul@RHEL4b:~$ [ 66 -gt 55 -o 660 -lt 500 ] && echo true || echo false
true

20.2. if if, then then, or else

The if then else construction is about choice. If a certain condition is met, then
execute something, else execute something else. The example below tests whether a
file exists, and if the file exists then a proper message is echoed.
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scripting loops
#!/bin/bash
if [ -f isit.txt ]
then echo isit.txt exists!
else echo isit.txt not found!
fi

If we name the above script 'choice', then it executes like this.

[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$ ./choice
isit.txt not found!
[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$ touch isit.txt
[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$ ./choice
isit.txt exists!
[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$

20.3. for loop

The example below shows the syntax of a classical for loop in bash.
for i in 1 2 4
do
echo $i
done

An example of a for loop combined with an embedded shell.

#!/bin/ksh
for counter in `seq 1 20`
do
echo counting from 1 to 20, now at $counter
sleep 1
done

This for loop use file globbing (from the shell expansion). Putting the instruction on
the command line has identical functionality.
kahlan@solexp11$ ls
count.ksh go.ksh
kahlan@solexp11$ for file in *.ksh ; do cp $file $file.backup ; done
kahlan@solexp11$ ls
count.ksh count.ksh.backup go.ksh go.ksh.backup

20.4. while loop

Below a simple example of a while loop.
let i=100;
while [ $i -ge 0 ] ;
do
echo Counting down, from 100 to 0, now at $i;
let i--;
done

Endless loops can be made with while true or while : , where the colon is the
equivalent of no operation in the Korn and bash shells.
#!/bin/ksh

160

scripting loops
# endless loop
while :
do
echo hello
sleep 1
done

20.5. until loop

Below a simple example of an until loop.
let i=100;
until [ $i -le 0 ] ;
do
echo Counting down, from 100 to 1, now at $i;
let i--;
done

161

scripting loops

20.6. practice: scripting tests and loops

1. Write a script that uses a for loop to count from 3 to 7.
2. Write a script that uses a for loop to count from 1 to 17000.
3. Write a script that uses a while loop to count from 3 to 7.
4. Write a script that uses an until loop to count down from 8 to 4.
5. Write a script that counts the number of files ending in .txt in the current directory.
6. Wrap an if statement around the script so it is also correct when there are zero files
ending in .txt.

162

scripting loops

20.7. solution: scripting tests and loops

1. Write a script that uses a for loop to count from 3 to 7.
#!/bin/bash
for i in 3 4 5 6 7
do
echo Counting from 3 to 7, now at $i
done

2. Write a script that uses a for loop to count from 1 to 17000.

#!/bin/bash
for i in `seq 1 17000`
do
echo Counting from 1 to 17000, now at $i
done

3. Write a script that uses a while loop to count from 3 to 7.

#!/bin/bash
i=3
while [ $i -le 7 ]
do
echo Counting from 3 to 7, now at $i
let i=i+1
done

4. Write a script that uses an until loop to count down from 8 to 4.

#!/bin/bash
i=8
until [ $i -lt 4 ]
do
echo Counting down from 8 to 4, now at $i
let i=i-1
done

5. Write a script that counts the number of files ending in .txt in the current directory.
#!/bin/bash
let i=0
for file in *.txt
do
let i++
done
echo "There are $i files ending in .txt"

6. Wrap an if statement around the script so it is also correct when there are zero files
ending in .txt.
#!/bin/bash
ls *.txt > /dev/null 2>&1
if [ $? -ne 0 ]

163

scripting loops
then echo "There are 0 files ending in .txt"
else
let i=0
for file in *.txt
do
let i++
done
echo "There are $i files ending in .txt"
fi

164

Chapter 21. scripting parameters

Table of Contents
21.1.
21.2.
21.3.
21.4.
21.5.
21.6.
21.7.
21.8.

script parameters ........................................................................................

shift through parameters ............................................................................
runtime input ..............................................................................................
sourcing a config file .................................................................................
get script options with getopts ...................................................................
get shell options with shopt .......................................................................
practice: parameters and options ................................................................
solution: parameters and options ...............................................................

165

166
166
167
167
167
169
170
171

scripting parameters

21.1. script parameters

A bash shell script can have parameters. The numbering you see in the script below
continues if you have more parameters. You also have special parameters containing
the number of parameters, a string of all of them, and also the process id, and the last
return code. The man page of bash has a full list.
#!/bin/bash
echo The first argument is $1
echo The second argument is $2
echo The third argument is $3
echo
echo
echo
echo

\$
\#
\?
\*

$$
$#
$?
$*

PID of the script

count arguments
last return code
all the arguments

Below is the output of the script above in action.

[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$ ./pars one two three
The first argument is one
The second argument is two
The third argument is three
$ 5610 PID of the script
# 3 count arguments
? 0 last return code
* one two three all the arguments
[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$ ./pars 1 2
The first argument is 1
The second argument is 2
The third argument is
$ 5612 PID of the script
# 2 count arguments
? 0 last return code
* 1 2 all the arguments
[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$

21.2. shift through parameters

The shift statement can parse all parameters one by one. This is a sample script.
kahlan@solexp11$ cat shift.ksh
#!/bin/ksh
if [ "$#" == "0" ]
then
echo You have to give at least one parameter.
exit 1
fi
while (( $# ))
do
echo You gave me $1
shift
done

166

scripting parameters
Below is some sample output of the script above.
kahlan@solexp11$ ./shift.ksh one
You gave me one
kahlan@solexp11$ ./shift.ksh one two three 1201 "33 42"
You gave me one
You gave me two
You gave me three
You gave me 1201
You gave me 33 42
kahlan@solexp11$ ./shift.ksh
You have to give at least one parameter.

21.3. runtime input

You can ask the user for input with the read command in a script.
#!/bin/bash
echo -n Enter a number:
read number

21.4. sourcing a config file

[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$ cat myApp.conf
# The config file of myApp
# Enter the path here
myAppPath=/var/myApp
# Enter the number of quines here
quines=5
[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$ cat myApp.bash
#!/bin/bash
#
# Welcome to the myApp application
#
. ./myApp.conf
echo There are $quines quines
[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$ ./myApp.bash
There are 5 quines
[paul@RHEL4a scripts]$

21.5. get script options with getopts

The getopts function allows you to parse options given to a command.
kahlan@solexp11$ cat options.ksh
#!/bin/ksh

167

scripting parameters

while getopts ":afz" option;

do
case $option in
a)
echo received -a
;;
f)
echo received -f
;;
z)
echo received -z
;;
*)
echo "invalid option -$OPTARG"
;;
esac
done

This is sample output from the script above.

kahlan@solexp11$ ./options.ksh
kahlan@solexp11$ ./options.ksh -af
received -a
received -f
kahlan@solexp11$ ./options.ksh -zfg
received -z
received -f
invalid option -g
kahlan@solexp11$ ./options.ksh -a -b -z
received -a
invalid option -b
received -z

You can also check for options that need an argument, as this example shows.
kahlan@solexp11$ cat argoptions.ksh
#!/bin/ksh
while getopts ":af:z" option;
do
case $option in
a)
echo received -a
;;
f)
echo received -f with $OPTARG
;;
z)
echo received -z
;;
:)
echo "option -$OPTARG needs an argument"
;;
*)
echo "invalid option -$OPTARG"
;;
esac
done

This is sample output from the script above.

kahlan@solexp11$ ./argoptions.ksh -a -f hello -z
received -a

168

scripting parameters
received -f with hello
received -z
kahlan@solexp11$ ./argoptions.ksh -zaf 42
received -z
received -a
received -f with 42
kahlan@solexp11$ ./argoptions.ksh -zf
received -z
option -f needs an argument

21.6. get shell options with shopt

You can toggle the values of variables controlling optional shell behaviour with the
shopt built-in shell command. The example below first verifies whether the cdspell
option is set; it is not. The next shopt command sets the value, and the third shopt
command verifies that the option really is set. You can now use minor spelling
mistakes in the cd command. The man page of bash has a complete list of options.
paul@laika:~$
1
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$
0
paul@laika:~$
/etc

shopt -q cdspell ; echo $?

shopt -s cdspell
shopt -q cdspell ; echo $?
cd /Etc

169

scripting parameters

21.7. practice: parameters and options

1. Write a script that receives four parameters, and outputs them in reverse order.
2. Write a script that receives two parameters (two filenames) and outputs whether
those files exist.
3. Write a script that asks for a filename. Verify existence of the file, then verify that
you own the file, and whether it is writable. If not, then make it writable.
4. Make a configuration file for the previous script. Put a logging switch in the config
file, logging means writing detailed output of everything the script does to a log file
in /tmp.

170

scripting parameters

21.8. solution: parameters and options

1. Write a script that receives four parameters, and outputs them in reverse order.
echo $4 $3 $2 $1

2. Write a script that receives two parameters (two filenames) and outputs whether
those files exist.
#!/bin/bash
if [ -f $1 ]
then echo $1 exists!
else echo $1 not found!
fi
if [ -f $2 ]
then echo $2 exists!
else echo $2 not found!
fi

3. Write a script that asks for a filename. Verify existence of the file, then verify that
you own the file, and whether it is writable. If not, then make it writable.
4. Make a configuration file for the previous script. Put a logging switch in the config
file, logging means writing detailed output of everything the script does to a log file
in /tmp.

171

Chapter 22. more scripting

Table of Contents
22.1.
22.2.
22.3.
22.4.
22.5.
22.6.
22.7.

eval .............................................................................................................
(( )) .............................................................................................................
let ................................................................................................................
case .............................................................................................................
shell functions ............................................................................................
practice : more scripting ............................................................................
solution : more scripting ............................................................................

172

173
173
173
174
175
176
177

more scripting

22.1. eval
eval reads arguments as input to the shell (the resulting commands are executed).
This allows using the value of a variable as a variable.
paul@deb503:~/test42$ answer=42
paul@deb503:~/test42$ word=answer
paul@deb503:~/test42$ eval x=\$$word ; echo $x
42

Both in bash and Korn the arguments can be quoted.

kahlan@solexp11$ answer=42
kahlan@solexp11$ word=answer
kahlan@solexp11$ eval "y=\$$word" ; echo $y
42

22.2. (( ))
The (( )) allows for evaluation of numerical expressions.
paul@deb503:~/test42$
true
paul@deb503:~/test42$
false
paul@deb503:~/test42$
paul@deb503:~/test42$
true
paul@deb503:~/test42$
true
paul@deb503:~/test42$
paul@deb503:~/test42$
false

(( 42 > 33 )) && echo true || echo false

(( 42 > 1201 )) && echo true || echo false
var42=42
(( 42 == var42 )) && echo true || echo false
(( 42 == $var42 )) && echo true || echo false
var42=33
(( 42 == var42 )) && echo true || echo false

22.3. let
The let built-in shell function instructs the shell to perform an evaluation of arithmetic
expressions. It will return 0 unless the last arithmetic expression evaluates to 0.
[paul@RHEL4b
7
[paul@RHEL4b
20
[paul@RHEL4b
18
[paul@RHEL4b
30

~]$ let x="3 + 4" ; echo $x

~]$ let x="10 + 100/10" ; echo $x
~]$ let x="10-2+100/10" ; echo $x
~]$ let x="10*2+100/10" ; echo $x

The shell can also convert between different bases.

[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ let x="0xFF" ; echo $x
255

173

more scripting
[paul@RHEL4b
192
[paul@RHEL4b
168
[paul@RHEL4b
56
[paul@RHEL4b
63
[paul@RHEL4b
192

~]$ let x="0xC0" ; echo $x

~]$ let x="0xA8" ; echo $x
~]$ let x="8#70" ; echo $x
~]$ let x="8#77" ; echo $x
~]$ let x="16#c0" ; echo $x

There is a difference between assigning a variable directly, or using let to evaluate

the arithmetic expressions (even if it is just assigning a value).
kahlan@solexp11$
kahlan@solexp11$
15 017 0x0f
kahlan@solexp11$
kahlan@solexp11$
15 15 15

dec=15 ; oct=017 ; hex=0x0f

echo $dec $oct $hex
let dec=15 ; let oct=017 ; let hex=0x0f
echo $dec $oct $hex

22.4. case
You can sometimes simplify nested if statements with a case construct.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ ./help
What animal did you see ? lion
You better start running fast!
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ ./help
What animal did you see ? dog
Don't worry, give it a cookie.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ cat help
#!/bin/bash
#
# Wild Animals Helpdesk Advice
#
echo -n "What animal did you see ? "
read animal
case $animal in
"lion" | "tiger")
echo "You better start running fast!"
;;
"cat")
echo "Let that mouse go..."
;;
"dog")
echo "Don't worry, give it a cookie."
;;
"chicken" | "goose" | "duck" )
echo "Eggs for breakfast!"
;;
"liger")
echo "Approach and say 'Ah you big fluffy kitty...'."
;;
"babelfish")
echo "Did it fall out your ear ?"
;;
*)
echo "You discovered an unknown animal, name it!"

174

more scripting
;;
esac
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$

22.5. shell functions

Shell functions can be used to group commands in a logical way.
kahlan@solexp11$ cat funcs.ksh
#!/bin/ksh
function greetings {
echo Hello World!
echo and hello to $USER to!
}
echo We will now call a function
greetings
echo The end

This is sample output from this script with a function.

kahlan@solexp11$ ./funcs.ksh
We will now call a function
Hello World!
and hello to kahlan to!
The end

A shell function can also receive parameters.

kahlan@solexp11$ cat addfunc.ksh
#!/bin/ksh
function plus {
let result="$1 + $2"
echo $1 + $2 = $result
}
plus 3 10
plus 20 13
plus 20 22

This script produces the following output.

kahlan@solexp11$ ./addfunc.ksh
3 + 10 = 13
20 + 13 = 33
20 + 22 = 42

175

more scripting

22.6. practice : more scripting

1. Write a script that asks for two numbers, and outputs the sum and product (as
shown here).
Enter a number: 5
Enter another number: 2
Sum:
Product:

5 + 2 = 7
5 x 2 = 10

2. Improve the previous script to test that the numbers are between 1 and 100, exit
with an error if necessary.
3. Improve the previous script to congratulate the user if the sum equals the product.
4. Write a script with a case insensitive case statement, using the shopt nocasematch
option. The nocasematch option is reset to the value it had before the scripts started.
5. If time permits (or if you are waiting for other students to finish this practice),
take a look at linux system scripts in /etc/init.d and /etc/rc.d and try to understand
them. Where does execution of a script start in /etc/init.d/samba ? There are also some
hidden scripts in ~, we will discuss them later.

176

more scripting

22.7. solution : more scripting

1. Write a script that asks for two numbers, and outputs the sum and product (as
shown here).
Enter a number: 5
Enter another number: 2
Sum:
Product:

5 + 2 = 7
5 x 2 = 10

#!/bin/bash
echo -n "Enter a number : "
read n1
echo -n "Enter another number : "
read n2
let sum="$n1+$n2"
let pro="$n1*$n2"
echo -e "Sum\t: $n1 + $n2 = $sum"
echo -e "Product\t: $n1 * $n2 = $pro"

2. Improve the previous script to test that the numbers are between 1 and 100, exit
with an error if necessary.
echo -n "Enter a number between 1 and 100 : "
read n1
if [ $n1 -lt 1 -o $n1 -gt 100 ]
then
echo Wrong number...
exit 1
fi

3. Improve the previous script to congratulate the user if the sum equals the product.
if [ $sum -eq $pro ]
then echo Congratulations $sum == $pro
fi

4. Write a script with a case insensitive case statement, using the shopt nocasematch
option. The nocasematch option is reset to the value it had before the scripts started.
#!/bin/bash
#
# Wild Animals Case Insensitive Helpdesk Advice
#
if shopt -q nocasematch; then
nocase=yes;
else
nocase=no;
shopt -s nocasematch;
fi
echo -n "What animal did you see ? "
read animal

177

more scripting

case $animal in
"lion" | "tiger")
echo "You better start running fast!"
;;
"cat")
echo "Let that mouse go..."
;;
"dog")
echo "Don't worry, give it a cookie."
;;
"chicken" | "goose" | "duck" )
echo "Eggs for breakfast!"
;;
"liger")
echo "Approach and say 'Ah you big fluffy kitty.'"
;;
"babelfish")
echo "Did it fall out your ear ?"
;;
*)
echo "You discovered an unknown animal, name it!"
;;
esac
if [ nocase = yes ] ; then
shopt -s nocasematch;
else
shopt -u nocasematch;
fi

5. If time permits (or if you are waiting for other students to finish this practice),
take a look at linux system scripts in /etc/init.d and /etc/rc.d and try to understand
them. Where does execution of a script start in /etc/init.d/samba ? There are also some
hidden scripts in ~, we will discuss them later.

178

Part VII. local user management

Chapter 23. users

Table of Contents
23.1. identify yourself .........................................................................................
23.2. users ...........................................................................................................
23.3. passwords ...................................................................................................
23.4. home directories .........................................................................................
23.5. user shell ....................................................................................................
23.6. switch users with su ...................................................................................
23.7. run a program as another user ...................................................................
23.8. practice: users ............................................................................................
23.9. solution: users ............................................................................................
23.10. shell environment .....................................................................................

180

181
183
185
190
191
192
193
195
196
198

users

23.1. identify yourself

whoami
The whoami command tells you your username.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# whoami
root
[root@RHEL5 ~]# su - paul
[paul@RHEL5 ~]$ whoami
paul

who
The who command will give you information about who is logged on the system.
[paul@RHEL5 ~]$ who
root
tty1
sandra
pts/0
paul
pts/1

2008-06-24 13:24
2008-06-24 14:05 (192.168.1.34)
2008-06-24 16:23 (192.168.1.37)

who am i
With who am i the who command will display only the line pointing to your current
session.
[paul@RHEL5 ~]$ who am i
paul
pts/1
2008-06-24 16:23 (192.168.1.34)

w
The w command shows you who is logged on and what they are doing.
$ w
05:13:36 up 3 min, 4 users, load average: 0.48, 0.72, 0.33
USER
TTY
FROM
LOGIN@
IDLE JCPU PCPU WHAT
root
tty1
05:11
2.00s 0.32s 0.27s find / -name shad
inge
pts/0 192.168.1.33 05:12
0.00s 0.02s 0.02s -ksh
laura pts/1 192.168.1.34 05:12
46.00s 0.03s 0.03s -bash
paul
pts/2 192.168.1.34 05:13
25.00s 0.07s 0.04s top

id
The id command will give you your user id, primary group id, and a list of the groups
that you belong to.
181

users

root@laika:~# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
root@laika:~# su - brel
brel@laika:~$ id
uid=1001(brel) gid=1001(brel) groups=1001(brel),1008(chanson),11578(wolf)

182

users

23.2. users
user management
User management on any Unix can be done in three complimentary ways. You can
use the graphical tools provided by your distribution. These tools have a look and
feel that depends on the distribution. If you are a novice Linux user on your home
system, then use the graphical tool that is provided by your distribution. This will
make sure that you do not run into problems.
Another option is to use command line tools like useradd, usermod, gpasswd, passwd
and others. Server administrators are likely to use these tools, since they are familiar
and very similar across many different distributions. This chapter will focus on these
command line tools.
A third and rather extremist way is to edit the local configuration files directly using
vi (or vipw/vigr). Do not attempt this as a novice on production systems!

/etc/passwd
The local user database on Linux (and on most Unixes) is /etc/passwd.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# tail /etc/passwd
inge:x:518:524:art dealer:/home/inge:/bin/ksh
ann:x:519:525:flute player:/home/ann:/bin/bash
frederik:x:520:526:rubius poet:/home/frederik:/bin/bash
steven:x:521:527:roman emperor:/home/steven:/bin/bash
pascale:x:522:528:artist:/home/pascale:/bin/ksh
geert:x:524:530:kernel developer:/home/geert:/bin/bash
wim:x:525:531:master damuti:/home/wim:/bin/bash
sandra:x:526:532:radish stresser:/home/sandra:/bin/bash
annelies:x:527:533:sword fighter:/home/annelies:/bin/bash
laura:x:528:534:art dealer:/home/laura:/bin/ksh

As you can see, this file contains seven columns separated by a colon. The columns
contain the username, an x, the user id, the primary group id, a description, the name
of the home directory, and the login shell.

root
The root user also called the superuser is the most powerful account on your Linux
system. This user can do almost anything, including the creation of other users. The
root user always has userid 0 (regardless of the name of the account).
[root@RHEL5 ~]# head -1 /etc/passwd
root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash

183

users

useradd
You can add users with the useradd command. The example below shows how to
add a user named yanina (last parameter) and at the same time forcing the creation
of the home directory (-m), setting the name of the home directory (-d), and setting
a description (-c).
[root@RHEL5 ~]# useradd -m -d /home/yanina -c "yanina wickmayer" yanina
[root@RHEL5 ~]# tail -1 /etc/passwd
yanina:x:529:529:yanina wickmayer:/home/yanina:/bin/bash

The user named yanina received userid 529 and primary group id 529.

/etc/default/useradd
Both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Debian/Ubuntu have a file called /etc/default/
useradd that contains some default user options. Besides using cat to display this
file, you can also use useradd -D.
[root@RHEL4 ~]# useradd -D
GROUP=100
HOME=/home
INACTIVE=-1
EXPIRE=
SHELL=/bin/bash
SKEL=/etc/skel

userdel
You can delete the user yanina with userdel. The -r option of userdel will also remove
the home directory.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# userdel -r yanina

usermod
You can modify the properties of a user with the usermod command. This example
uses usermod to change the description of the user harry.
[root@RHEL4 ~]# tail -1 /etc/passwd
harry:x:516:520:harry potter:/home/harry:/bin/bash
[root@RHEL4 ~]# usermod -c 'wizard' harry
[root@RHEL4 ~]# tail -1 /etc/passwd
harry:x:516:520:wizard:/home/harry:/bin/bash

184

users

23.3. passwords
passwd
Passwords of users can be set with the passwd command. Users will have to provide
their old password before twice entering the new one.
[harry@RHEL4 ~]$ passwd
Changing password for user harry.
Changing password for harry
(current) UNIX password:
New UNIX password:
BAD PASSWORD: it's WAY too short
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
[harry@RHEL4 ~]$

As you can see, the passwd tool will do some basic verification to prevent users
from using too simple passwords. The root user does not have to follow these rules
(there will be a warning though). The root user also does not have to provide the old
password before entering the new password twice.

/etc/shadow
User passwords are encrypted and kept in /etc/shadow. The /etc/shadow file is read
only and can only be read by root. We will see in the file permissions section how it
is possible for users to change their password. For now, you will have to know that
users can change their password with the /usr/bin/passwd command.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# tail /etc/shadow
inge:$1$yWMSimOV$YsYvcVKqByFVYLKnU3ncd0:14054:0:99999:7:::
ann:!!:14054:0:99999:7:::
frederik:!!:14054:0:99999:7:::
steven:!!:14054:0:99999:7:::
pascale:!!:14054:0:99999:7:::
geert:!!:14054:0:99999:7:::
wim:!!:14054:0:99999:7:::
sandra:!!:14054:0:99999:7:::
annelies:!!:14054:0:99999:7:::
laura:$1$Tvby1Kpa$lL.WzgobujUS3LClIRmdv1:14054:0:99999:7:::

The /etc/shadow file contains nine colon separated columns. The nine fields contain
(from left to right) the user name, the encrypted password (note that only inge and
laura have an encrypted password), the day the password was last changed (day 1 is
January 1, 1970), number of days the password must be left unchanged, password
expiry day, warning number of days before password expiry, number of days after
expiry before disabling the account, and the day the account was disabled (again,
since 1970). The last field has no meaning yet.
185

users

password encryption
encryption with passwd
Passwords are stored in an encrypted format. This encryption is done by the crypt
function. The easiest (and recommended) way to add a user with a password to the
system is to add the user with the useradd -m user command, and then set the user's
password with passwd.
[root@RHEL4 ~]# useradd -m xavier
[root@RHEL4 ~]# passwd xavier
Changing password for user xavier.
New UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
[root@RHEL4 ~]#

encryption with openssl

Another way to create users with a password is to use the -p option of useradd, but that
option requires an encrypted password. You can generate this encrypted password
with the openssl passwd command.
[root@RHEL4 ~]# openssl passwd stargate
ZZNX16QZVgUQg
[root@RHEL4 ~]# useradd -m -p ZZNX16QZVgUQg mohamed

encryption with crypt

A third option is to create your own C program using the crypt function, and compile
this into a command.
[paul@laika ~]$ cat MyCrypt.c
#include <stdio.h>
#define __USE_XOPEN
#include <unistd.h>
int main(int argc, char** argv)
{
if(argc==3)
{
printf("%s\n", crypt(argv[1],argv[2]));
}
else
{
printf("Usage: MyCrypt $password $salt\n" );
}
return 0;
}

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This little program can be compiled with gcc like this.
[paul@laika ~]$ gcc MyCrypt.c -o MyCrypt -lcrypt

To use it, we need to give two parameters to MyCript. The first is the unencrypted
password, the second is the salt. The salt is used to perturb the encryption algorithm in
one of 4096 different ways. This variation prevents two users with the same password
from having the same entry in /etc/shadow.
paul@laika:~$
12L4FoTS3/k9U
paul@laika:~$
01Y.yPnlQ6R.Y
paul@laika:~$
330asFUbzgVeg
paul@laika:~$
42XFxoT4R75gk

./MyCrypt stargate 12
./MyCrypt stargate 01
./MyCrypt stargate 33
./MyCrypt stargate 42

Did you notice that the first two characters of the password are the salt ?
The standard output of the crypt function is using the DES algorithm which is old
and can be cracked in minutes. A better method is to use MD5 passwords which can
be recognized by a salt starting with $1$.
paul@laika:~$ ./MyCrypt stargate
$1$12$xUIQ4116Us.Q5Osc2Khbm1
paul@laika:~$ ./MyCrypt stargate
$1$01$yNs8brjp4b4TEw.v9/IlJ/
paul@laika:~$ ./MyCrypt stargate
$1$33$tLh/Ldy2wskdKAJR.Ph4M0
paul@laika:~$ ./MyCrypt stargate
$1$42$Hb3nvP0KwHSQ7fQmIlY7R.

'$1$12'
'$1$01'
'$1$33'
'$1$42'

The MD5 salt can be up to eight characters long. The salt is displayed in /etc/shadow
between the second and third $, so never use the password as the salt!
paul@laika:~$ ./MyCrypt stargate '$1$stargate'
$1$stargate$qqxoLqiSVNvGr5ybMxEVM1

password defaults
/etc/login.defs
The /etc/login.defs file contains some default settings for user passwords like
password aging and length settings. (You will also find the numerical limits of user
ids and group ids and whether or not a home directory should be created by default).

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[root@RHEL4 ~]# grep -i pass /etc/login.defs
# Password aging controls:
# PASS_MAX_DAYS Maximum number of days a password may be used.
# PASS_MIN_DAYS Minimum number of days allowed between password changes.
# PASS_MIN_LEN
Minimum acceptable password length.
# PASS_WARN_AGE Number of days warning given before a password expires.
PASS_MAX_DAYS
99999
PASS_MIN_DAYS
0
PASS_MIN_LEN
5
PASS_WARN_AGE
7

chage
The chage command can be used to set an expiration date for a user account (-E),
set a minimum (-m) and maximum (-M) password age, a password expiration date,
and set the number of warning days before the password expiration date. Much of
this functionality is also available from the passwd command. The -l option of chage
will list these settings for a user.
[root@RHEL4 ~]# chage -l harry
Minimum:
0
Maximum:
99999
Warning:
7
Inactive:
-1
Last Change:
Jul 23, 2007
Password Expires:
Never
Password Inactive:
Never
Account Expires:
Never
[root@RHEL4 ~]#

disabling a password
Passwords in /etc/shadow cannot begin with an exclamation mark. When the second
field in /etc/passwd starts with an exclamation mark, then the password can not be
used.
Using this feature is often called locking, disabling, or suspending a user account.
Besides vi (or vipw) you can also accomplish this with usermod.
The first line in the next screenshot will disable the password of user harry, making
it impossible for harry to authenticate using this password.
[root@RHEL4 ~]# usermod -L harry
[root@RHEL4 ~]# tail -1 /etc/shadow
harry:!$1$143TO9IZ$RLm/FpQkpDrV4/Tkhku5e1:13717:0:99999:7:::

The root user (and users with sudo rights on su) still will be able to su to harry
(because the password is not needed here). Also note that harry will still be able to
login if he has set up passwordless ssh!

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[root@RHEL4 ~]# su - harry
[harry@RHEL4 ~]$

You can unlock the account again with usermod -U.

Watch out for tiny differences in the command line options of passwd, usermod,
and useradd on different distributions! Verify the local files when using features like
"disabling, suspending, or locking" users and passwords!

editing local files

If you still want to manually edit the /etc/passwd or /etc/shadow, after knowing these
commands for password management, then use vipw instead of vi(m) directly. The
vipw tool will do proper locking of the file.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# vipw /etc/passwd
vipw: the password file is busy (/etc/ptmp present)

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23.4. home directories

creating home directories
The easiest way to create a home directory is to supply the -m option with useradd
(it is likely set as a default option on Linux).
A less easy way is to create a home directory manually with mkdir which also
requires setting the owner and the permissions on the directory with chmod and
chown (both commands are discussed in detail in another chapter).
[root@RHEL5 ~]# mkdir /home/laura
[root@RHEL5 ~]# chown laura:laura /home/laura
[root@RHEL5 ~]# chmod 700 /home/laura
[root@RHEL5 ~]# ls -ld /home/laura/
drwx------ 2 laura laura 4096 Jun 24 15:17 /home/laura/

/etc/skel/
When using useradd with the -m option, the /etc/skel/ directory is copied to
the newly created home directory. The /etc/skel/ directory contains some (usually
hidden) files that contain profile settings and default values for applications. In this
way /etc/skel/ serves as a default home directory and as a default user profile.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# ls
total 48
drwxr-xr-x 2 root
drwxr-xr-x 97 root
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
-rw-r--r-- 1 root
-rw-r--r-- 1 root

-la /etc/skel/
root 4096 Apr 1 00:11 .
root 12288 Jun 24 15:36 ..
root
24 Jul 12 2006 .bash_logout
root
176 Jul 12 2006 .bash_profile
root
124 Jul 12 2006 .bashrc

deleting home directories

The -r option of userdel will make sure that the home directory is deleted together
with the user account.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# ls -ld /home/wim/
drwx------ 2 wim wim 4096 Jun 24 15:19 /home/wim/
[root@RHEL5 ~]# userdel -r wim
[root@RHEL5 ~]# ls -ld /home/wim/
ls: /home/wim/: No such file or directory

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23.5. user shell

login shell
The /etc/passwd file specifies the login shell for the user. In the screenshot below
you can see that user annelies will log in with the /bin/bash shell, and user laura with
the /bin/ksh shell.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# tail -2 /etc/passwd
annelies:x:527:533:sword fighter:/home/annelies:/bin/bash
laura:x:528:534:art dealer:/home/laura:/bin/ksh

You can use the usermod command to change the shell for a user.
[root@RHEL5 ~]# usermod -s /bin/bash laura
[root@RHEL5 ~]# tail -1 /etc/passwd
laura:x:528:534:art dealer:/home/laura:/bin/bash

chsh
Users can change their login shell with the chsh command. First, user harry obtains
a list of available shells (he could also have done a cat /etc/shells) and then changes
his login shell to the Korn shell (/bin/ksh). At the next login, harry will default into
ksh instead of bash.
[harry@RHEL4 ~]$ chsh -l
/bin/sh
/bin/bash
/sbin/nologin
/bin/ash
/bin/bsh
/bin/ksh
/usr/bin/ksh
/usr/bin/pdksh
/bin/tcsh
/bin/csh
/bin/zsh
[harry@RHEL4 ~]$ chsh -s /bin/ksh
Changing shell for harry.
Password:
Shell changed.
[harry@RHEL4 ~]$

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23.6. switch users with su

su to another user
The su command allows a user to run a shell as another user.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ su harry
Password:
[harry@RHEL4b paul]$

su to root
Yes you can alsu su to become root, when you know the root password.
[harry@RHEL4b paul]$ su root
Password:
[root@RHEL4b paul]#

su as root
Unless you are logged in as root, running a shell as another user requires that you
know the password of that user. The root user can become any user without knowing
the user's password.
[root@RHEL4b paul]# su serena
[serena@RHEL4b paul]$

su - $username
By default, the su command maintains the same shell environment. To become
another user and also get the target user's environment, issue the su - command
followed by the target username.
[paul@RHEL4b ~]$ su - harry
Password:
[harry@RHEL4b ~]$

su When no username is provided to su or su -, the command will assume root is the

target.
[harry@RHEL4b ~]$ su Password:
[root@RHEL4b ~]#

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23.7. run a program as another user

about sudo
The sudo program allows a user to start a program with the credentials of another
user. Before this works, the system administrator has to set up the /etc/sudoers file.
This can be useful to delegate administrative tasks to another user (without giving
the root password).
The screenshot below shows the usage of sudo. User paul received the right to run
useradd with the credentials of root. This allows paul to create new users on the
system without becoming root and without knowing the root password.
paul@laika:~$ useradd -m inge
useradd: unable to lock password file
paul@laika:~$ sudo useradd -m inge
[sudo] password for paul:
paul@laika:~$

Image copied from xkcd.com.

setuid on sudo
The sudo binary has the setuid bit set, so any user can run it with the effective userid
of root.

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paul@laika:~$ ls -l `which sudo`
-rwsr-xr-x 2 root root 107872 2008-05-15 02:41 /usr/bin/sudo
paul@laika:~$

visudo
Check the man page of visudo before playing with the /etc/sudoers file.

sudo su
On some linux systems like Ubuntu and Kubuntu, the root user does not have a
password set. This means that it is not possible to login as root (extra security). To
perform tasks as root, the first user is given all sudo rights via the /etc/sudoers. In
fact all users that are members of the admin group can use sudo to run all commands
as root.
root@laika:~# grep admin /etc/sudoers
# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

The end result of this is that the user can type sudo su - and become root without
having to enter the root password. The sudo command does require you to enter your
own password. Thus the password prompt in the screenshot below is for sudo, not
for su.
paul@laika:~$ sudo su Password:
root@laika:~#

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23.8. practice: users

1. Create the users Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Justine Henin, all of them
with password set to stargate, with username (lower case!) as their first name, and
their full name in the comment. Verify that the users and their home directory are
properly created.
2. Create a user called kornuser, give him the Korn shell (/bin/ksh) as his default
shell. Log on with this user (on a command line or in a tty).
3. Create a user named einstime without home directory, give him /bin/date as his
default logon shell. What happens when you log on with this user ? Can you think of
a useful real world example for changing a user's login shell to an application ?
4. Try the commands who, whoami, who am i, w, id, echo $USER $UID .
5a. Lock the venus user account with usermod.
5b. Use passwd -d to disable the serena password. Verify the serena line in /etc/
shadow before and after disabling.
5c. What is the difference between locking a user account and disabling a user
account's password ?
6. As root change the password of einstime to stargate.
7. Now try changing the password of serena to serena as serena.
8. Make sure every new user needs to change his password every 10 days.
9. Set the warning number of days to four for the kornuser.
10a. Set the password of two separate users to stargate. Look at the encrypted
stargate's in /etc/shadow and explain.
10b. Take a backup as root of /etc/shadow. Use vi to copy an encrypted stargate to
another user. Can this other user now log on with stargate as a password ?
11. Put a file in the skeleton directory and check whether it is copied to user's home
directory. When is the skeleton directory copied ?
12. Why use vipw instead of vi ? What could be the problem when using vi or vim ?
13. Use chsh to list all shells, and compare to cat /etc/shells. Change your login shell
to the Korn shell, log out and back in. Now change back to bash.
14. Which useradd option allows you to name a home directory ?
15. How can you see whether the password of user harry is locked or unlocked ? Give
a solution with grep and a solution with passwd.

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23.9. solution: users

1. Create the users Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Justine Henin, all of them
with password set to stargate, with username (lower case) as their first name, and
their full name in the comment. Verify that the users and their home directory are
properly created.
useradd -m -c "Serena Williams" serena ; passwd serena
useradd -m -c "Venus Williams" venus ; passwd venus
useradd -m -c "Justine Henin" justine ; passwd justine
tail /etc/passwd ; tail /etc/shadow ; ls /home
Keep user logon names in lowercase!

2. Create a user called kornuser, give him the Korn shell (/bin/ksh) as his default
shell. Log on with this user (on a command line or in a tty).
useradd -s /bin/ksh kornuser ; passwd kornuser

3. Create a user named einstime without home directory, give him /bin/date as his
default logon shell. What happens when you log on with this user ? Can you think of
a useful real world example for changing a user's login shell to an application ?
useradd -s /bin/date einstime ; passwd einstime

It can be useful when users need to access only one application on the server. Just
logging on opens the application for them, and closing the application automatically
logs them off.
4. Try the commands who, whoami, who am i, w, id, echo $USER $UID .
who ; whoami ; who am i ; w ; id ; echo $USER $UID

5a. Lock the venus user account with usermod.

usermod -L venus

5b. Use passwd -d to disable the serena password. Verify the serena line in /etc/
shadow before and after disabling.
grep serena /etc/shadow; passwd -d serena ; grep serena /etc/shadow

5c. What is the difference between locking a user account and disabling a user
account's password ?
Locking will prevent the user from logging on to the system with his password (by
putting a ! in front of the password in /etc/shadow). Disabling with passwd will erase
the password from /etc/shadow.
6. As root change the password of einstime to stargate.
Log on as root and type: passwd einstime

7. Now try changing the password of serena to serena as serena.

log on as serena, then execute: passwd serena... it should fail!

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users
8. Make sure every new user needs to change his password every 10 days.
For an existing user: chage -M 10 serena
For all new users: vi /etc/login.defs (and change PASS_MAX_DAYS to 10)

9. Set the warning number of days to four for the kornuser.

chage -W 4 kornuser

10a. Set the password of two separate users to stargate. Look at the encrypted
stargate's in /etc/shadow and explain.
If you used passwd, then the salt will be different for the two encrypted passwords.
10b. Take a backup as root of /etc/shadow. Use vi to copy an encrypted stargate to
another user. Can this other user now log on with stargate as a password ?
Yes.

11. Put a file in the skeleton directory and check whether it is copied to user's home
directory. When is the skeleton directory copied ?
When you create a user account with a new home directory.

12. Why use vipw instead of vi ? What could be the problem when using vi or vim ?
vipw will give a warning when someone else is already using that file.

13. Use chsh to list all shells, and compare to cat /etc/shells. Change your login shell
to the Korn shell, log out and back in. Now change back to bash.
On Red Hat Enterprise Linux: chsh -l
On Debian/Ubuntu: cat /etc/shells

14. Which useradd option allows you to name a home directory ?

-d

15. How can you see whether the password of user harry is locked or unlocked ? Give
a solution with grep and a solution with passwd.
grep harry /etc/shadow
passwd -S harry

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23.10. shell environment

It is nice to have these preset and custom aliases and variables, but where do they all
come from ? The shell uses a number of startup files that are checked (and executed)
whenever the shell is invoked. What follows is an overview of startup scripts.

/etc/profile
Both the bash and the ksh shell will verify the existence of /etc/profile and execute
it if it exists.
When reading this script, you might notice (at least on Debian Lenny and on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux 5) that it builds the PATH environment variable. The script might
also change the PS1 variable, set the HOSTNAME and execute even more scripts
like /etc/inputrc
You can use this script to set aliases and variables for every user on the system.

~/.bash_profile
When this file exists in the users home directory, then bash will execute it. On Debian
Linux it does not exist by default.
RHEL5 uses a brief ~/.bash_profile where it checks for the existence of ~/.bashrc
and then executes it. It also adds $HOME/bin to the $PATH variable.
[serena@rhel53 ~]$ cat .bash_profile
# .bash_profile
# Get the aliases and functions
if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi
# User specific environment and startup programs
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
export PATH

~/.bash_login
When .bash_profile does not exist, then bash will check for ~/.bash_login and
execute it.
Neither Debian nor Red Hat have this file by default.
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~/.profile
When neither ~/.bash_profile and ~/.bash_login exist, then bash will verify the
existence of ~/.profile and execute it. This file does not exist by default on Red Hat.
On Debian this script can execute ~/.bashrc and will add $HOME/bin to the $PATH
variable.
serena@deb503:~$ tail -12 .profile
# if running bash
if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then
# include .bashrc if it exists
if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then
. "$HOME/.bashrc"
fi
fi
# set PATH so it includes user's private bin if it exists
if [ -d "$HOME/bin" ] ; then
PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH"
fi

~/.bashrc
As seen in the previous points, the ~/.bashrc script might be executed by other scripts.
Let us take a look at what it does by default.
Red Hat uses a very simple ~/.bashrc, checking for /etc/bashrc and executing it. It
also leaves room for custom aliases and functions.
[serena@rhel53 ~]$ more .bashrc
# .bashrc
# Source global definitions
if [ -f /etc/bashrc ]; then
. /etc/bashrc
fi
# User specific aliases and functions

On Debian this script is quite a bit longer and configures $PS1, some history variables
and a number af active and inactive aliases.
serena@deb503:~$ ls -l .bashrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 serena serena 3116 2008-05-12 21:02 .bashrc

~/.bash_logout
When exiting bash, it can execute ~/.bash_logout. Debian and Red Hat both use this
opportunity to clear the screen.
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serena@deb503:~$ cat .bash_logout

# ~/.bash_logout: executed by bash(1) when login shell exits.
# when leaving the console clear the screen to increase privacy
if [ "$SHLVL" = 1 ]; then
[ -x /usr/bin/clear_console ] && /usr/bin/clear_console -q
fi

[serena@rhel53 ~]$ cat .bash_logout

# ~/.bash_logout
/usr/bin/clear

Debian overview
Below is a table overview of when Debian is running any of these bash startup scripts.
Table 23.1. Debian User Environment
script

su

su -

ssh

gdm

~./bashrc

no

yes

yes

yes

~/.profile

no

yes

yes

yes

/etc/profile

no

yes

yes

yes

/etc/bash.bashrc

yes

no

no

yes

RHEL5 overview
Below is a table overview of when Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 is running any of
these bash startup scripts.
Table 23.2. Red Hat User Environment
script

su

su -

ssh

gdm

~./bashrc

yes

yes

yes

yes

~/.bash_profile

no

yes

yes

yes

/etc/profile

no

yes

yes

yes

/etc/bashrc

yes

yes

yes

yes

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Chapter 24. groups

Table of Contents
24.1. about groups ...............................................................................................
24.2. groupadd .....................................................................................................
24.3. /etc/group ....................................................................................................
24.4. usermod ......................................................................................................
24.5. groupmod ...................................................................................................
24.6. groupdel ......................................................................................................
24.7. groups .........................................................................................................
24.8. gpasswd ......................................................................................................
24.9. vigr .............................................................................................................
24.10. practice: groups ........................................................................................
24.11. solution: groups ........................................................................................

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202
202
202
202
203
203
203
203
204
205
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groups

24.1. about groups

Users can be listed in groups. Groups allow you to set permissions on the group level
instead of having to set permissions for every individual user. Every Unix or Linux
distribution will have a graphical tool to manage groups. Novice users are advised
to use this graphical tool. More experienced users can use command line tools to
manage users, but be careful: Some distributions do not allow the mixed use of GUI
and CLI tools to manage groups (YaST in Novell Suse). Senior administrators can
edit the relevant files directly with vi or vigr.

24.2. groupadd
Groups can be created with the groupadd command. The example below shows the
creation of five (empty) groups.
root@laika:~#
root@laika:~#
root@laika:~#
root@laika:~#
root@laika:~#

groupadd
groupadd
groupadd
groupadd
groupadd

tennis
football
snooker
formula1
salsa

24.3. /etc/group
Users can be a member of several groups. Group membership is defined by the /etc/
group file.
root@laika:~# tail -5 /etc/group
tennis:x:1006:
football:x:1007:
snooker:x:1008:
formula1:x:1009:
salsa:x:1010:
root@laika:~#

The first field is the group's name. The second field is the group's (encrypted)
password (can be empty). The third field is the group identification or GID. The
fourth field is the list of members, these groups have no members.

24.4. usermod
Group membership can be modified with the useradd or usermod command.
root@laika:~#
root@laika:~#
root@laika:~#
root@laika:~#
root@laika:~#

usermod
usermod
usermod
usermod
usermod

-a
-a
-a
-a
-a

-G
-G
-G
-G
-G

tennis inge
tennis katrien
salsa katrien
snooker sandra
formula1 annelies

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root@laika:~# tail -5 /etc/group
tennis:x:1006:inge,katrien
football:x:1007:
snooker:x:1008:sandra
formula1:x:1009:annelies
salsa:x:1010:katrien
root@laika:~#

Be careful when using usermod to add users to groups. By default, the usermod
command will remove the user from every group of which he is a member if the group
is not listed in the command! Using the -a (append) switch prevents this behaviour.

24.5. groupmod
You can change the group name with the groupmod command.
root@laika:~# groupmod -n darts snooker
root@laika:~# tail -5 /etc/group
tennis:x:1006:inge,katrien
football:x:1007:
formula1:x:1009:annelies
salsa:x:1010:katrien
darts:x:1008:sandra

24.6. groupdel
You can permanently remove a group with the groupdel command.
root@laika:~# groupdel tennis
root@laika:~#

24.7. groups
A user can type the groups command to see a list of groups where the user belongs to.
[harry@RHEL4b ~]$ groups
harry sports
[harry@RHEL4b ~]$

24.8. gpasswd
You can delegate control of group membership to another user with the gpasswd
command. In the example below we delegate permissions to add and remove group
members to serena for the sports group. Then we su to serena and add harry to the
sports group.
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groups

[root@RHEL4b ~]# gpasswd -A serena sports

[root@RHEL4b ~]# su - serena
[serena@RHEL4b ~]$ id harry
uid=516(harry) gid=520(harry) groups=520(harry)
[serena@RHEL4b ~]$ gpasswd -a harry sports
Adding user harry to group sports
[serena@RHEL4b ~]$ id harry
uid=516(harry) gid=520(harry) groups=520(harry),522(sports)
[serena@RHEL4b ~]$ tail -1 /etc/group
sports:x:522:serena,venus,harry
[serena@RHEL4b ~]$

Group administrators do not have to be a member of the group. They can remove
themselves from a group, but this does not influence their ability to add or remove
members.
[serena@RHEL4b ~]$ gpasswd -d serena sports
Removing user serena from group sports
[serena@RHEL4b ~]$ exit

Information about group administrators is kept in the /etc/gshadow file.

[root@RHEL4b ~]# tail -1 /etc/gshadow
sports:!:serena:venus,harry
[root@RHEL4b ~]#

To remove all group administrators from a group, use the gpasswd command to set
an empty administrators list.
[root@RHEL4b ~]# gpasswd -A "" sports

24.9. vigr
Similar to vipw, the vigr command can be used to manually edit the /etc/group file,
since it will do proper locking of the file. Only experienced senior administrators
should use vi or vigr to manage groups.

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24.10. practice: groups

1. Create the groups tennis, football and sports.
2. In one command, make venus a member of tennis and sports.
3. Rename the football group to foot.
4. Use vi to add serena to the tennis group.
5. Use the id command to verify that serena is a member of tennis.
6. Make someone responsible for managing group membership of foot and sports.
Test that it works.

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groups

24.11. solution: groups

1. Create the groups tennis, football and sports.
groupadd tennis ; groupadd football ; groupadd sports

2. In one command, make venus a member of tennis and sports.

usermod -a -G tennis,sports venus

3. Rename the football group to foot.

groupmod -n foot football

4. Use vi to add serena to the tennis group.

vi /etc/group

5. Use the id command to verify that serena is a member of tennis.

id (and after logoff logon serena should be member)

6. Make someone responsible for managing group membership of foot and sports.
Test that it works.
gpasswd -A (to make manager)
gpasswd -a (to add member)

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Part VIII. file security

Chapter 25. standard file permissions

Table of Contents
25.1.
25.2.
25.3.
25.4.
25.5.

file ownership ............................................................................................

list of special files ......................................................................................
permissions .................................................................................................
practice: standard file permissions .............................................................
solution: standard file permissions .............................................................

208

209
210
210
215
216

standard file permissions

25.1. file ownership

user owner and group owner
The users and groups of a system can be locally managed in /etc/passwd and /etc/
group, or they can be in a NIS, LDAP, or Samba domain. These users and groups
can own files. Actually, every file has a user owner and a group owner, as can be
seen in the following screenshot.
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls -l
total 24
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 17
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 106
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul proj 984
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root
0
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$

Feb
Feb
Feb
Feb

7
5
5
7

11:53
17:04
15:38
16:07

file1
file2
data.odt
stuff.txt

User paul owns three files, two of those are also owned by the group paul; data.odt is
owned by the group proj. The root user owns the file stuff.txt, as does the group root.

chgrp
You can change the group owner of a file using the chgrp command.
root@laika:/home/paul#
root@laika:/home/paul#
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root
root@laika:/home/paul#
root@laika:/home/paul#
-rw-r--r-- 1 root paul

touch FileForPaul
ls -l FileForPaul
0 2008-08-06 14:11 FileForPaul
chgrp paul FileForPaul
ls -l FileForPaul
0 2008-08-06 14:11 FileForPaul

chown
The user owner of a file can be changed with chown command.
root@laika:/home/paul#
-rw-r--r-- 1 root paul
root@laika:/home/paul#
root@laika:/home/paul#
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul

ls -l FileForPaul
0 2008-08-06 14:11 FileForPaul
chown paul FileForPaul
ls -l FileForPaul
0 2008-08-06 14:11 FileForPaul

You can also use chown to change both the user owner and the group owner.
root@laika:/home/paul# ls -l FileForPaul
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 0 2008-08-06 14:11 FileForPaul
root@laika:/home/paul# chown root:project42 FileForPaul
root@laika:/home/paul# ls -l FileForPaul
-rw-r--r-- 1 root project42 0 2008-08-06 14:11 FileForPaul

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standard file permissions

25.2. list of special files

When you use ls -l, for each file you can see ten characters before the user and group
owner. The first character tells us the type of file. Regular files get a -, directories get
a d, symbolic links are shown with an l, pipes get a p, character devices a c, block
devices a b, and sockets an s.
Table 25.1. Unix special files
first
character

file type

normal file

directory

symbolic link

named pipe

block device

character device

socket

25.3. permissions
rwx
The nine characters following the file type denote the permissions in three triplets. A
permission can be r for read access, w for write access, and x for execute. You need
the r permission to list (ls) the contents of a directory. You need the x permission to
enter (cd) a directory. You need the w permission to create files in or remove files
from a directory.
Table 25.2. standard Unix file permissions
permission

on a file

on a directory

r (read)

read file contents (cat)

read directory contents (ls)

w (write)

change file contents (vi)

create files in (touch)

x (execute)

execute the file

enter the directory (cd)

three sets of rwx

We already know that the output of ls -l starts with ten characters for each file. This
screenshot shows a regular file (because the first character is a - ).
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standard file permissions

paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls -l proc42.bash
-rwxr-xr-- 1 paul proj 984 Feb 6 12:01 proc42.bash

Below is a table describing the function of all ten characters.

Table 25.3. Unix file permissions position
position

characters

function

this is a regular file

2-4

rwx

permissions for the user owner

5-7

r-x

permissions for the group owner

8-10

r--

permissions for others

When you are the user owner of a file, then the user owner permissions apply to
you. The rest of the permissions have no influence on your access to the file.
When you belong to the group that is the group owner of a file, then the group
owner permissions apply to you. The rest of the permissions have no influence on
your access to the file.
When you are not the user owner of a file and you do not belong to the group
owner, then the others permissions apply to you. The rest of the permissions have
no influence on your access to the file.

permission examples
Some example combinations on files and directories are seen in this screenshot. The
name of the file explains the permissions.
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls
total 12K
drwxr-xr-x 2 paul paul
-rwxrwxrwx 1 paul paul
-r--r----- 1 paul paul
-rwxrwx--- 1 paul paul
dr-xr-x--- 2 paul paul
dr-x------ 2 paul paul
paul@laika:~/perms$

-lh
4.0K
0
0
0
4.0K
4.0K

2007-02-07
2007-02-07
2007-02-07
2007-02-07
2007-02-07
2007-02-07

22:26
22:21
22:21
22:21
22:25
22:25

AllEnter_UserCreateDelete
EveryoneFullControl.txt
OnlyOwnersRead.txt
OwnersAll_RestNothing.txt
UserAndGroupEnter
OnlyUserEnter

To summarise, the first rwx triplet represents the permissions for the user owner.
The second triplet corresponds to the group owner; it specifies permissions for all
members of that group. The third triplet defines permissions for all other users that
are not the user owner and are not a member of the group owner.

setting permissions (chmod)

Permissions can be changed with chmod. The first example gives the user owner
execute permissions.
211

standard file permissions

paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod u+x permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rwxr--r-- 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

This example removes the group owners read permission.

paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod g-r permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rwx---r-- 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

This example removes the others read permission.

paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod o-r permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rwx------ 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

This example gives all of them the write permission.

paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod a+w permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rwx-w--w- 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

You don't even have to type the a.

paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod +x permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rwx-wx-wx 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

You can also set explicit permissions.

paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod u=rw permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rw--wx-wx 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

Feel free to make any kind of combination.

paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod u=rw,g=rw,o=r permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

Even fishy combinations are accepted by chmod.

paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod u=rwx,ug+rw,o=r permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rwxrw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

212

standard file permissions

setting octal permissions

Most Unix administrators will use the old school octal system to talk about and set
permissions. Look at the triplet bitwise, equating r to 4, w to 2, and x to 1.
Table 25.4. Octal permissions
binary

octal

permission

000

---

001

--x

010

-w-

011

-wx

100

r--

101

r-x

110

rw-

111

rwx

This makes 777 equal to rwxrwxrwx and by the same logic, 654 mean rw-r-xr-- . The
chmod command will accept these numbers.
paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod 777 permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rwxrwxrwx 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod 664 permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ chmod 750 permissions.txt
paul@laika:~/perms$ ls -l permissions.txt
-rwxr-x--- 1 paul paul 0 2007-02-07 22:34 permissions.txt

umask
When creating a file or directory, a set of default permissions are applied. These
default permissions are determined by the umask. The umask specifies permissions
that you do not want set on by default. You can display the umask with the umask
command.
[Harry@RHEL4b
0002
[Harry@RHEL4b
[Harry@RHEL4b
-rw-rw-r-- 1
[Harry@RHEL4b

~]$ umask
~]$ touch test
~]$ ls -l test
Harry Harry 0 Jul 24 06:03 test
~]$

As you can also see, the file is also not executable by default. This is a general security
feature among Unixes; newly created files are never executable by default. You have
213

standard file permissions

to explicitly do a chmod +x to make a file executable. This also means that the 1 bit
in the umask has no meaning--a umask of 0022 is the same as 0033.

mkdir -m
When creating directories with mkdir you can use the -m option to set the mode.
This screenshot explains.
paul@debian5~$ mkdir -m 700 MyDir
paul@debian5~$ mkdir -m 777 Public
paul@debian5~$ ls -dl MyDir/ Public/
drwx------ 2 paul paul 4096 2011-10-16 19:16 MyDir/
drwxrwxrwx 2 paul paul 4096 2011-10-16 19:16 Public/

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standard file permissions

25.4. practice: standard file permissions

1. As normal user, create a directory ~/permissions. Create a file owned by yourself
in there.
2. Copy a file owned by root from /etc/ to your permissions dir, who owns this file
now ?
3. As root, create a file in the users ~/permissions directory.
4. As normal user, look at who owns this file created by root.
5. Change the ownership of all files in ~/permissions to yourself.
6. Make sure you have all rights to these files, and others can only read.
7. With chmod, is 770 the same as rwxrwx--- ?
8. With chmod, is 664 the same as r-xr-xr-- ?
9. With chmod, is 400 the same as r-------- ?
10. With chmod, is 734 the same as rwxr-xr-- ?
11a. Display the umask in octal and in symbolic form.
11b. Set the umask to 077, but use the symbolic format to set it. Verify that this works.
12. Create a file as root, give only read to others. Can a normal user read this file ?
Test writing to this file with vi.
13a. Create a file as normal user, give only read to others. Can another normal user
read this file ? Test writing to this file with vi.
13b. Can root read this file ? Can root write to this file with vi ?
14. Create a directory that belongs to a group, where every member of that group
can read and write to files, and create files. Make sure that people can only delete
their own files.

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standard file permissions

25.5. solution: standard file permissions

1. As normal user, create a directory ~/permissions. Create a file owned by yourself
in there.
mkdir ~/permissions ; touch ~/permissions/myfile.txt

2. Copy a file owned by root from /etc/ to your permissions dir, who owns this file
now ?
cp /etc/hosts ~/permissions/

The copy is owned by you.

3. As root, create a file in the users ~/permissions directory.
(become root)# touch /home/username/permissions/rootfile

4. As normal user, look at who owns this file created by root.

ls -l ~/permissions

The file created by root is owned by root.

5. Change the ownership of all files in ~/permissions to yourself.
chown user ~/permissions/*

You cannot become owner of the file that belongs to root.

6. Make sure you have all rights to these files, and others can only read.
chmod 644 (on files)
chmod 755 (on directories)

7. With chmod, is 770 the same as rwxrwx--- ?

yes
8. With chmod, is 664 the same as r-xr-xr-- ?
No
9. With chmod, is 400 the same as r-------- ?
yes
10. With chmod, is 734 the same as rwxr-xr-- ?
no
11a. Display the umask in octal and in symbolic form.
umask ; umask -S

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standard file permissions

11b. Set the umask to 077, but use the symbolic format to set it. Verify that this works.
umask -S u=rwx,go=

12. Create a file as root, give only read to others. Can a normal user read this file ?
Test writing to this file with vi.
(become root)
# echo hello > /home/username/root.txt
# chmod 744 /home/username/root.txt
(become user)
vi ~/root.txt

13a. Create a file as normal user, give only read to others. Can another normal user
read this file ? Test writing to this file with vi.
echo hello > file ; chmod 744 file

Yes, others can read this file

13b. Can root read this file ? Can root write to this file with vi ?
Yes, root can read and write to this file. Permissions do not apply to root.
14. Create a directory that belongs to a group, where every member of that group
can read and write to files, and create files. Make sure that people can only delete
their own files.
mkdir /home/project42 ; groupadd project42
chgrp project42 /home/project42 ; chmod 775 /home/project42

You can not yet do the last part of this exercise...

217

Chapter 26. advanced file permissions

Table of Contents
26.1.
26.2.
26.3.
26.4.
26.5.

sticky bit on directory ................................................................................

setgid bit on directory ................................................................................
setgid and setuid on regular files ...............................................................
practice: sticky, setuid and setgid bits .......................................................
solution: sticky, setuid and setgid bits .......................................................

218

219
219
220
221
222

advanced file permissions

26.1. sticky bit on directory

You can set the sticky bit on a directory to prevent users from removing files that
they do not own as a user owner. The sticky bit is displayed at the same location as
the x permission for others. The sticky bit is represented by a t (meaning x is also
there) or a T (when there is no x for others).
root@RHELv4u4:~# mkdir /project55
root@RHELv4u4:~# ls -ld /project55
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 7 17:38 /project55
root@RHELv4u4:~# chmod +t /project55/
root@RHELv4u4:~# ls -ld /project55
drwxr-xr-t 2 root root 4096 Feb 7 17:38 /project55
root@RHELv4u4:~#

The sticky bit can also be set with octal permissions, it is binary 1 in the first of four
triplets.
root@RHELv4u4:~# chmod 1775 /project55/
root@RHELv4u4:~# ls -ld /project55
drwxrwxr-t 2 root root 4096 Feb 7 17:38 /project55
root@RHELv4u4:~#

You will typically find the sticky bit on the /tmp directory.
root@barry:~# ls -ld /tmp
drwxrwxrwt 6 root root 4096 2009-06-04 19:02 /tmp

26.2. setgid bit on directory

setgid can be used on directories to make sure that all files inside the directory are
owned by the group owner of the directory. The setgid bit is displayed at the same
location as the x permission for group owner. The setgid bit is represented by an
s (meaning x is also there) or a S (when there is no x for the group owner). As
this example shows, even though root does not belong to the group proj55, the files
created by root in /project55 will belong to proj55 since the setgid is set.
root@RHELv4u4:~# groupadd proj55
root@RHELv4u4:~# chown root:proj55 /project55/
root@RHELv4u4:~# chmod 2775 /project55/
root@RHELv4u4:~# touch /project55/fromroot.txt
root@RHELv4u4:~# ls -ld /project55/
drwxrwsr-x 2 root proj55 4096 Feb 7 17:45 /project55/
root@RHELv4u4:~# ls -l /project55/
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root proj55 0 Feb 7 17:45 fromroot.txt
root@RHELv4u4:~#

You can use the find command to find all setgid directories.
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advanced file permissions

paul@laika:~$ find / -type d -perm -2000 2> /dev/null

/var/log/mysql
/var/log/news
/var/local
...

26.3. setgid and setuid on regular files

These two permissions cause an executable file to be executed with the permissions
of the file owner instead of the executing owner. This means that if any user executes
a program that belongs to the root user, and the setuid bit is set on that program,
then the program runs as root. This can be dangerous, but sometimes this is good
for security.
Take the example of passwords; they are stored in /etc/shadow which is only readable
by root. (The root user never needs permissions anyway.)
root@RHELv4u4:~# ls -l /etc/shadow
-r-------- 1 root root 1260 Jan 21 07:49 /etc/shadow

Changing your password requires an update of this file, so how can normal non-root
users do this? Let's take a look at the permissions on the /usr/bin/passwd.
root@RHELv4u4:~# ls -l /usr/bin/passwd
-r-s--x--x 1 root root 21200 Jun 17 2005 /usr/bin/passwd

When running the passwd program, you are executing it with root credentials.
You can use the find command to find all setuid programs.
paul@laika:~$ find /usr/bin -type f -perm -04000
/usr/bin/arping
/usr/bin/kgrantpty
/usr/bin/newgrp
/usr/bin/chfn
/usr/bin/sudo
/usr/bin/fping6
/usr/bin/passwd
/usr/bin/gpasswd
...

In most cases, setting the setuid bit on executables is sufficient. Setting the setgid bit
will result in these programs to run with the credentials of their group owner.

220

advanced file permissions

26.4. practice: sticky, setuid and setgid bits

1a. Set up a directory, owned by the group sports.
1b. Members of the sports group should be able to create files in this directory.
1c. All files created in this directory should be group-owned by the sports group.
1d. Users should be able to delete only their own user-owned files.
1e. Test that this works!
2. Verify the permissions on /usr/bin/passwd. Remove the setuid, then try changing
your password as a normal user. Reset the permissions back and try again.
3. If time permits (or if you are waiting for other students to finish this practice), read
about file attributes in the man page of chattr and lsattr. Try setting the i attribute on
a file and test that it works.

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advanced file permissions

26.5. solution: sticky, setuid and setgid bits

1a. Set up a directory, owned by the group sports.
groupadd sports
mkdir /home/sports
chown root:sports /home/sports

1b. Members of the sports group should be able to create files in this directory.
chmod 770 /home/sports

1c. All files created in this directory should be group-owned by the sports group.
chmod 2770 /home/sports

1d. Users should be able to delete only their own user-owned files.
chmod +t /home/sports

1e. Test that this works!

Log in with different users (group members and others and root), create files and
watch the permissions. Try changing and deleting files...
2. Verify the permissions on /usr/bin/passwd. Remove the setuid, then try changing
your password as a normal user. Reset the permissions back and try again.
root@deb503:~# ls -l /usr/bin/passwd
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 31704 2009-11-14 15:41 /usr/bin/passwd
root@deb503:~# chmod 755 /usr/bin/passwd
root@deb503:~# ls -l /usr/bin/passwd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 31704 2009-11-14 15:41 /usr/bin/passwd

A normal user cannot change password now.

root@deb503:~# chmod 4755 /usr/bin/passwd
root@deb503:~# ls -l /usr/bin/passwd
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 31704 2009-11-14 15:41 /usr/bin/passwd

3. If time permits (or if you are waiting for other students to finish this practice), read
about file attributes in the man page of chattr and lsattr. Try setting the i attribute on
a file and test that it works.
paul@laika:~$ sudo su [sudo] password for paul:
root@laika:~# mkdir attr
root@laika:~# cd attr/
root@laika:~/attr# touch file42
root@laika:~/attr# lsattr
------------------ ./file42
root@laika:~/attr# chattr +i file42

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advanced file permissions

root@laika:~/attr# lsattr
----i------------- ./file42
root@laika:~/attr# rm -rf file42
rm: cannot remove `file42': Operation not permitted
root@laika:~/attr# chattr -i file42
root@laika:~/attr# rm -rf file42
root@laika:~/attr#

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Chapter 27. access control lists

Table of Contents
27.1.
27.2.
27.3.
27.4.
27.5.
27.6.
27.7.

acl in /etc/fstab ...........................................................................................

getfacl .........................................................................................................
setfacl .........................................................................................................
remove an acl entry ...................................................................................
remove the complete acl ............................................................................
the acl mask ...............................................................................................
eiciel ...........................................................................................................

225
225
225
226
226
226
227

Standard Unix permissions might not be enough for some organisations. This chapter
introduces access control lists or acl's to further protect files and directories.

224

access control lists

27.1. acl in /etc/fstab

File systems that support access control lists, or acls, have to be mounted with the
acl option listed in /etc/fstab. In the example below, you can see that the root file
system has acl support, whereas /home/data does not.
root@laika:~# tail -4 /etc/fstab
/dev/sda1
/
ext3
/dev/sdb2
/home/data
auto
pasha:/home/r
/home/pasha
nfs
wolf:/srv/data
/home/wolf
nfs

acl,relatime
noacl,defaults
defaults
defaults

0
0
0
0

1
0
0
0

27.2. getfacl
Reading acls can be done with /usr/bin/getfacl. This screenshot shows how to read
the acl of file33 with getfacl.
paul@laika:~/test$ getfacl file33
# file: file33
# owner: paul
# group: paul
user::rwgroup::r-mask::rwx
other::r--

27.3. setfacl
Writing or changing acls can be done with /usr/bin/setfacl. These screenshots show
how to change the acl of file33 with setfacl.
First we add user sandra with octal permission 7 to the acl.
paul@laika:~/test$ setfacl -m u:sandra:7 file33

Then we add the group tennis with octal permission 6 to the acl of the same file.
paul@laika:~/test$ setfacl -m g:tennis:6 file33

The result is visible with getfacl.

paul@laika:~/test$ getfacl file33
# file: file33
# owner: paul
# group: paul

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access control lists

user::rwuser:sandra:rwx
group::r-group:tennis:rwmask::rwx
other::r--

27.4. remove an acl entry

The -x option of the setfacl command will remove an acl entry from the targeted file.
paul@laika:~/test$
paul@laika:~/test$
user:sandra:rwx
paul@laika:~/test$
paul@laika:~/test$

setfacl -m u:sandra:7 file33

getfacl file33 | grep sandra
setfacl -x sandra file33
getfacl file33 | grep sandra

Note that omitting the u or g when defining the acl for an account will default it to
a user account.

27.5. remove the complete acl

The -b option of the setfacl command will remove the acl from the targeted file.
paul@laika:~/test$ setfacl -b file33
paul@laika:~/test$ getfacl file33
# file: file33
# owner: paul
# group: paul
user::rwgroup::r-other::r--

27.6. the acl mask

The acl mask defines the maximum effective permissions for any entry in the acl.
This mask is calculated every time you execute the setfacl or chmod commands.
You can prevent the calculation by using the --no-mask switch.
paul@laika:~/test$ setfacl --no-mask -m u:sandra:7 file33
paul@laika:~/test$ getfacl file33
# file: file33
# owner: paul
# group: paul
user::rwuser:sandra:rwx
#effective:rwgroup::r-mask::rw-

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access control lists

other::r--

27.7. eiciel
Desktop users might want to use eiciel to manage acls with a graphical tool.

You will need to install eiciel and nautilus-actions to have an extra tab in nautilus
to manage acls.
paul@laika:~$ sudo aptitude install eiciel nautilus-actions

227

Chapter 28. file links

Table of Contents
28.1.
28.2.
28.3.
28.4.
28.5.
28.6.
28.7.

inodes .........................................................................................................
about directories .........................................................................................
hard links ...................................................................................................
symbolic links ............................................................................................
removing links ...........................................................................................
practice : links ............................................................................................
solution : links ............................................................................................

228

229
230
231
231
232
233
234

file links

28.1. inodes
To understand links in a file system, you first have to understand what an inode is.

inode contents
An inode is a data structure that contains metadata about a file. When the file system
stores a new file on the hard disk, it stores not only the contents (data) of the file, but
also extra properties like the name of the file, the creation date, its permissions, the
owner of the file, and more. All this information (except the name of the file and the
contents of the file) is stored in the inode of the file.
The ls -l command will display some of the inode contents, as seen in this screenshot.
root@rhel53 ~# ls -ld /home/project42/
drwxr-xr-x 4 root pro42 4.0K Mar 27 14:29 /home/project42/

inode table
The inode table contains all of the inodes and is created when you create the file
system (with mkfs). You can use the df -i command to see how many inodes are
used and free on mounted file systems.
oot@rhel53 ~# df -i
Filesystem
Inodes
IUsed
IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
4947968 115326 4832642
3% /
/dev/hda1
26104
45
26059
1% /boot
tmpfs
64417
1
64416
1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1
262144
2207 259937
1% /home/project42
/dev/sdb1
74400
5519
68881
8% /home/project33
/dev/sdb5
0
0
0
- /home/sales
/dev/sdb6
100744
11 100733
1% /home/research

In the df -i screenshot above you can see the inode usage for several mounted file
systems. You don't see numbers for /dev/sdb5 because it is a fat file system.

inode number
Each inode has a unique number (the inode number). You can see the inode numbers
with the ls -li command.
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ touch file1
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ touch file2
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ touch file3
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls -li
total 12
817266 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 Feb

229

5 15:38 file1

file links
817267 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 Feb
817268 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 Feb
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$

5 15:38 file2
5 15:38 file3

These three files were created one after the other and got three different inodes (the
first column). All the information you see with this ls command resides in the inode,
except for the filename (which is contained in the directory).

inode and file contents

Let's put some data in one of the files.
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls -li
total 16
817266 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 Feb
817270 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 92 Feb
817268 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 Feb
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ cat file2
It is winter now and it is very cold.
We do not like the cold, we prefer hot
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$

5 15:38 file1
5 15:42 file2
5 15:38 file3

summer nights.

The data that is displayed by the cat command is not in the inode, but somewhere
else on the disk. The inode contains a pointer to that data.

28.2. about directories

a directory is a table
A directory is a special kind of file that contains a table which maps filenames
to inodes. Listing our current directory with ls -ali will display the contents of the
directory file.
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$
total 32
817262 drwxrwxr-x
2
800768 drwx------ 16
817266 -rw-rw-r-1
817270 -rw-rw-r-1
817268 -rw-rw-r-1
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$

ls -ali
paul
paul
paul
paul
paul

paul 4096 Feb

paul 4096 Feb
paul
0 Feb
paul
92 Feb
paul
0 Feb

5
5
5
5
5

15:42
15:42
15:38
15:42
15:38

.
..
file1
file2
file3

. and ..
You can see five names, and the mapping to their five inodes. The dot . is a mapping
to itself, and the dotdot .. is a mapping to the parent directory. The three other names
are mappings to different inodes.
230

file links

28.3. hard links

creating hard links
When we create a hard link to a file with ln, an extra entry is added in the directory.
A new file name is mapped to an existing inode.
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ln file2 hardlink_to_file2
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls -li
total 24
817266 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 Feb 5 15:38 file1
817270 -rw-rw-r-- 2 paul paul 92 Feb 5 15:42 file2
817268 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 0 Feb 5 15:38 file3
817270 -rw-rw-r-- 2 paul paul 92 Feb 5 15:42 hardlink_to_file2
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$

Both files have the same inode, so they will always have the same permissions and
the same owner. Both files will have the same content. Actually, both files are equal
now, meaning you can safely remove the original file, the hardlinked file will remain.
The inode contains a counter, counting the number of hard links to itself. When the
counter drops to zero, then the inode is emptied.

finding hard links

You can use the find command to look for files with a certain inode. The screenshot
below shows how to search for all filenames that point to inode 817270. Remember
that an inode number is unique to its partition.
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ find / -inum 817270 2> /dev/null
/home/paul/test/file2
/home/paul/test/hardlink_to_file2

28.4. symbolic links

Symbolic links (sometimes called soft links) do not link to inodes, but create a name
to name mapping. Symbolic links are created with ln -s. As you can see below, the
symbolic link gets an inode of its own.
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ln -s file2 symlink_to_file2
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$ ls -li
total 32
817273 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul 13 Feb 5 17:06 file1
817270 -rw-rw-r-- 2 paul paul 106 Feb 5 17:04 file2
817268 -rw-rw-r-- 1 paul paul
0 Feb 5 15:38 file3
817270 -rw-rw-r-- 2 paul paul 106 Feb 5 17:04 hardlink_to_file2
817267 lrwxrwxrwx 1 paul paul
5 Feb 5 16:55 symlink_to_file2 -> file2
paul@RHELv4u4:~/test$

231

file links

Permissions on a symbolic link have no meaning, since the permissions of the target
apply. Hard links are limited to their own partition (because they point to an inode),
symbolic links can link anywhere (other file systems, even networked).

28.5. removing links

Links can be removed with rm.
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$
paul@laika:~$

touch data.txt
ln -s data.txt sl_data.txt
ln data.txt hl_data.txt
rm sl_data.txt
rm hl_data.txt

232

file links

28.6. practice : links

1. Create two files named winter.txt and summer.txt, put some text in them.
2. Create a hard link to winter.txt named hlwinter.txt.
3. Display the inode numbers of these three files, the hard links should have the same
inode.
4. Use the find command to list the two hardlinked files
5. Everything about a file is in the inode, except two things : name them!
6. Create a symbolic link to summer.txt called slsummer.txt.
7. Find all files with inode number 2. What does this information tell you ?
8. Look at the directories /etc/init.d/ /etc/rc.d/ /etc/rc3.d/ ... do you see the links ?
9. Look in /lib with ls -l...
10. Use find to look in your home directory for regular files that do not(!) have one
hard link.

233

file links

28.7. solution : links

1. Create two files named winter.txt and summer.txt, put some text in them.
echo cold > winter.txt ; echo hot > summer.txt

2. Create a hard link to winter.txt named hlwinter.txt.

ln winter.txt hlwinter.txt

3. Display the inode numbers of these three files, the hard links should have the same
inode.
ls -li winter.txt summer.txt hlwinter.txt

4. Use the find command to list the two hardlinked files

find . -inum xyz

5. Everything about a file is in the inode, except two things : name them!
The name of the file is in a directory, and the contents is somewhere on the disk.
6. Create a symbolic link to summer.txt called slsummer.txt.
ln -s summer.txt slsummer.txt

7. Find all files with inode number 2. What does this information tell you ?
It tells you there is more than one inode table (one for every formatted partition +
virtual file systems)
8. Look at the directories /etc/init.d/ /etc/rc.d/ /etc/rc3.d/ ... do you see the links ?
ls -l /etc/init.d
ls -l /etc/rc.d
ls -l /etc/rc3.d

9. Look in /lib with ls -l...

ls -l /lib

10. Use find to look in your home directory for regular files that do not(!) have one
hard link.
find ~ ! -links 1 -type f

234

Part IX. Appendices

Appendix A. certifications
A.1. Certification
LPI: Linux Professional Institute
LPIC Level 1
This is the junior level certification. You need to pass exams 101 and 102 to
achieve LPIC 1 certification. To pass level one, you will need Linux command
line, user management, backup and restore, installation, networking, and basic system
administration skills.

LPIC Level 2
This is the advanced level certification. You need to be LPIC 1 certified and pass
exams 201 and 202 to achieve LPIC 2 certification. To pass level two, you will need
to be able to administer medium sized Linux networks, including Samba, mail, news,
proxy, firewall, web, and ftp servers.

LPIC Level 3
This is the senior level certification. It contains one core exam (301) which tests
advanced skills mainly about ldap. To achieve this level you also need LPIC Level
2 and pass a specialty exam (302 or 303). Exam 302 mainly focuses on Samba, and
303 on advanced security. More info on http://www.lpi.org.

Ubuntu
When you are LPIC Level 1 certified, you can take a LPI Ubuntu exam (199) and
become Ubuntu certified.

Red Hat Certified Engineer

The big difference with most other certifications is that there are no multiple choice
questions for RHCE. Red Hat Certified Engineers have to take a live exam consisting
of two parts. First, they have to troubleshoot and maintain an existing but broken
setup (scoring at least 80 percent), and second they have to install and configure a
machine (scoring at least 70 percent).
236

certifications

MySQL
There are two tracks for MySQL certification; Certified MySQL 5.0 Developer
(CMDEV) and Certified MySQL 5.0 DBA (CMDBA). The CMDEV is focused
towards database application developers, and the CMDBA towards database
administrators. Both tracks require two exams each. The MySQL cluster DBA
certification requires CMDBA certification and passing the CMCDBA exam.

Novell CLP/CLE
To become a Novell Certified Linux Professional, you have to take a live practicum.
This is a VNC session to a set of real SLES servers. You have to perform several
tasks and are free to choose your method (commandline or YaST or ...). No multiple
choice involved.

Sun Solaris
Sun uses the classical formula of multiple choice exams for certification. Passing
two exams for an operating system gets you the Solaris Certified Administrator for
Solaris X title.

Other certifications
There are many other lesser known certifications like EC council's Certified Ethical
Hacker, CompTIA's Linux+, and Sair's Linux GNU.

237

Appendix B. keyboard settings

B.1. about keyboard layout
Many people (like US-Americans) prefer the default US-qwerty keyboard layout. So
when you are not from the USA and want a local keyboard layout on your system,
then the best practice is to select this keyboard at installation time. Then the keyboard
layout will always be correct. Also, whenever you use ssh to remotely manage a linux
system, your local keyboard layout will be used, independent of the server keyboard
configuration. So you will not find much information on changing keyboard layout
on the fly on linux, because not many people need it. Below are some tips to help you.

B.2. X Keyboard Layout

This is the relevant portion in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, first for Belgian azerty, then for
US-qwerty.
[paul@RHEL5 ~]$ grep -i xkb /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Option
"XkbModel" "pc105"
Option
"XkbLayout" "be"

[paul@RHEL5 ~]$ grep -i xkb /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Option
"XkbModel" "pc105"
Option
"XkbLayout" "us"

When in Gnome or KDE or any other graphical environment, look in the graphical
menu in preferences, there will be a keyboard section to choose your layout. Use the
graphical menu instead of editing xorg.conf.

B.3. shell keyboard layout

When in bash, take a look in the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file. Below a sample USqwerty configuration, followed by a Belgian azerty configuration.
[paul@RHEL5 ~]$ cat /etc/sysconfig/keyboard
KEYBOARDTYPE="pc"
KEYTABLE="us"

[paul@RHEL5 ~]$ cat /etc/sysconfig/keyboard

KEYBOARDTYPE="pc"
KEYTABLE="be-latin1"

The keymaps themselves can be found in /usr/share/keymaps or /lib/kbd/keymaps.

238

keyboard settings
[paul@RHEL5 ~]$ ls -l /lib/kbd/keymaps/
total 52
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 1 00:14
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 1 00:14
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Apr 1 00:14
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 1 00:14
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 Apr 1 00:14
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root
3 Apr 1 00:14
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 1 00:14

239

amiga
atari
i386
include
mac
ppc -> mac
sun

Appendix C. hardware
C.1. buses
about buses
Hardware components communicate with the Central Processing Unit or cpu over
a bus. The most common buses today are usb, pci, agp, pci-express and pcmcia aka
pc-card. These are all Plag and Play buses.
Older x86 computers often had isa buses, which can be confugred using jumpers or
dip switches.

/proc/bus
To list the buses recognized by the Linux kernel on your computer, look at the
contents of the /proc/bus/ directory (screenshot from Ubuntu 7.04 and RHEL4u4
below).
root@laika:~# ls /proc/bus/
input pccard pci usb

[root@RHEL4b ~]# ls /proc/bus/

input pci usb

Can you guess which of these two screenshots was taken on a laptop ?

/usr/sbin/lsusb
To list all the usb devices connected to your system, you could read the contents
of /proc/bus/usb/devices (if it exists) or you could use the more readable output of
lsusb, which is executed here on a SPARC system with Ubuntu.
root@shaka:~# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0430:0100 Sun Microsystems, Inc. 3-button Mouse
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0430:0005 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Type 6 Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 04b0:0136 Nikon Corp. Coolpix 7900 (storage)
root@shaka:~#

/var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids
The /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids file contains a gzipped list of all known usb devices.
240

hardware

paul@barry:~$ zmore /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids | head

------> /var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids <-----#
# List of USB ID's
#
# Maintained by Vojtech Pavlik <[email protected]>
# If you have any new entries, send them to the maintainer.
# The latest version can be obtained from
# http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids
#
# $Id: usb.ids,v 1.225 2006/07/13 04:18:02 dbrownell Exp $

/usr/sbin/lspci
To get a list of all pci devices connected, you could take a look at /proc/bus/pci or
run lspci (partial output below).
paul@laika:~$ lspci
...
00:06.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments TSB43AB22/A IEEE-139...
00:08.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-816...
00:09.0 Multimedia controller: Philips Semiconductors SAA7133/SAA713...
00:0a.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI
00:0f.0 RAID bus controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VIA VT6420 SATA ...
00:0f.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A...
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1....
00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1....
...

C.2. interrupts
about interrupts
An interrupt request or IRQ is a request from a device to the CPU. A device raises
an interrupt when it requires the attention of the CPU (could be because the device
has data ready to be read by the CPU).
Since the introduction of pci, irq's can be shared among devices.
Interrupt 0 is always reserved for the timer, interrupt 1 for the keyboard. IRQ 2 is
used as a channel for IRQ's 8 to 15, and thus is the same as IRQ 9.

/proc/interrupts
You can see a listing of interrupts on your system in /proc/interrupts.
paul@laika:~$ cat /proc/interrupts

241

hardware
CPU0
0: 1320048
1:
10224
7:
0
8:
2
10:
3062
12:
131
15:
47073
18:
0
19:
31056
20:
19042
21:
44052
22:
188352
23:
632444
24:
1585

CPU1
555
7
0
1
21
2
0
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-fasteoi
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-edge
IO-APIC-fasteoi
IO-APIC-fasteoi
IO-APIC-fasteoi
IO-APIC-fasteoi
IO-APIC-fasteoi
IO-APIC-fasteoi
IO-APIC-fasteoi

timer
i8042
parport0
rtc
acpi
i8042
ide1
yenta
libata, ohci1394
eth0
uhci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2,...
ra0
nvidia
VIA82XX-MODEM, VIA8237

dmesg
You can also use dmesg to find irq's allocated at boot time.
paul@laika:~$ dmesg | grep "irq 1[45]"
[ 28.930069] ata3: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0x2090 irq 14
[ 28.930071] ata4: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0x2098 irq 15

C.3. io ports
about io ports
Communication in the other direction, from CPU to device, happens through IO
ports. The CPU writes data or control codes to the IO port of the device. But this is
not only a one way communication, the CPU can also use a device's IO port to read
status information about the device. Unlike interrupts, ports cannot be shared!

/proc/ioports
You can see a listing of your system's IO ports via /proc/ioports.
[root@RHEL4b ~]# cat /proc/ioports
0000-001f : dma1
0020-0021 : pic1
0040-0043 : timer0
0050-0053 : timer1
0060-006f : keyboard
0070-0077 : rtc
0080-008f : dma page reg
00a0-00a1 : pic2
00c0-00df : dma2
00f0-00ff : fpu
0170-0177 : ide1
02f8-02ff : serial
...

242

hardware

C.4. dma
about dma
A device that needs a lot of data, interrupts and ports can pose a heavy load on the
cpu. With dma or Direct Memory Access a device can gain (temporary) access to
a specific range of the ram memory.

/proc/dma
Looking at /proc/dma might not give you the information that you want, since it only
contains currently assigned dma channels for isa devices.
root@laika:~# cat /proc/dma
1: parport0
4: cascade

pci devices that are using dma are not listed in /proc/dma, in this case dmesg can be
useful. The screenshot below shows that during boot the parallel port received dma
channel 1, and the Infrared port received dma channel 3.
root@laika:~# dmesg | egrep -C 1 'dma 1|dma 3'
[
20.576000] parport: PnPBIOS parport detected.
[
20.580000] parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7, dma 1...
[
20.764000] irda_init()
-[
21.204000] pnp: Device 00:0b activated.
[
21.204000] nsc_ircc_pnp_probe() : From PnP, found firbase 0x2F8...
[
21.204000] nsc-ircc, chip->init

243

Index
Symbols
;, 82
!, 98, 105
!!, 98
? (file globbing), 104
/, 26, 51
/bin, 52, 73
/bin/bash, 71, 198
/bin/csh, 71
/bin/ksh, 71, 198
/bin/rm, 75
/bin/sh, 71
/boot, 54
/boot/grub, 54
/boot/grub/grub.conf, 54
/boot/grub/menu.lst, 54
/dev, 58
/dev/null, 58, 113
/dev/pts/1, 58
/dev/random, 68
/dev/tty1, 58
/dev/urandom, 67, 69
/dev/zero, 68
/etc, 54
/etc/bashrc, 199
/etc/debian-version, 11
/etc/default/useradd, 184
/etc/fstab, 225
/etc/gentoo-release, 11
/etc/group, 202, 209
/etc/gshadow, 204
/etc/hosts, 69
/etc/init.d/, 54
/etc/inputrc, 198
/etc/login.defs, 187
/etc/lsb-release, 11
/etc/mandriva-release, 11
/etc/passwd, 183, 191, 209
/etc/profile, 198
/etc/redhat-release, 11
/etc/resolv.conf, 69
/etc/shadow, 185, 220
/etc/shells, 153, 191
/etc/skel, 55, 190
/etc/slackware-version, 11

/etc/sudoers, 193, 194

/etc/SuSE-release, 11
/etc/sysconfig, 55
/etc/sysconfig/firstboot, 55
/etc/sysconfig/harddisks, 55
/etc/sysconfig/hwconf, 55
/etc/sysconfig/keyboard, 55
/etc/X11/xorg.conf, 54
/export, 56
/home, 56
/lib, 53
/lib/kbd/keymaps/, 55
/lib/modules, 53
/lib32, 53
/lib64, 53
/media, 56
/opt, 53
/proc, 59
/proc/bus, 240
/proc/bus/pci, 241
/proc/bus/usb/devices, 240
/proc/cpuinfo, 60
/proc/dma, 243
/proc/interrupts, 60, 241
/proc/ioports, 242
/proc/kcore, 61
/proc/sys, 60
/root, 56
/sbin, 52, 73
/srv, 56
/sys, 61
/tmp, 57
/usr, 62
/usr/bin, 62
/usr/bin/getfacl, 225
/usr/bin/passwd, 220
/usr/bin/setfacl, 225
/usr/include, 62
/usr/lib, 62
/usr/local, 62
/usr/share, 63
/usr/share/games, 63
/usr/share/man, 63
/usr/src, 63
/var, 64
/var/cache, 64
/var/lib, 65
/var/lib/rpm, 65

244

Index
/var/lib/usbutils/usb.ids, 240
/var/lock, 65
/var/log, 64
/var/log/messages, 64
/var/run, 65
/var/spool, 65
/var/spool/up2date, 65
/var/tmp, 65
., 26, 230
.., 25, 230
.bash_login, 198
.bash_logout, 199
.bash_profile, 198
.bashrc, 198, 199
.exrc, 148
.vimrc, 148
`(backtick), 93
~, 25
'(single quote), 93
[, 104
$? (shell variables), 82
$ (shell variables), 88
$HISTFILE, 99
$HISTFILESIZE, 99
$HISTSIZE, 99
$LANG, 105
$PATH, 74, 89
$PS1, 27
* (file globbing), 104
\, 84
&, 82
&&, 83
#!/bin/bash, 153
>, 112
>>, 113
>|, 113
|, 116
||, 83
1>, 113
2>, 113
2>&1, 113
777, 213

A
access control list, 225
acl, 227
acls, 225
agp, 240

AIX, 14
alias(bash), 74, 75
apropos, 21
aptitude, 15
aptitude(1), 13

B
backticks, 93
bash, 4
Belenix, 15
Bourne again shell, 71
BSD, 4
BSD Net/2, 4
bunzip2, 135
bus, 240
bzcat, 135
bzip2, 135, 135
bzmore, 135

C
cal, 133
Canonical, 13
case sensitive, 35
cat, 120
cat(1), 45
cd(bash builtin), 25
cd -(bash builtin), 26
CentOS, 12
chage(1), 188
chgrp(1), 209
chkconfig, 55
chmod, 213
chmod(1), 145, 211
chmod +x, 153, 214
chown(1), 209
chsh(1), 191
CMDBA, 237
CMDEV, 237
comm(1), 125
command line scan, 72
command mode(vi), 142
copyleft, 8
copyright, 7, 7
cp(1), 37, 38
cpu, 240
crypt, 186
Ctrl D, 45
current directory, 25

245

Index
cut(1), 121

D
daemon, 21
date, 133
debian, 12
Debian, 15
Dennis Ritchie, 3
devfs, 61
df -i, 229
directory, 230
distributions, 11, 51
dma, 243
dmesg(1), 242, 243
Douglas McIlroy, 3
dumpkeys(1), 55

E
echo(1), 72, 73
echo $-, 92
eiciel, 227
ELF, 53
embedding(shell), 93
env(1), 90, 90
environment variable, 88
EOF, 114
executables, 52
export, 91

F
Fedora, 11, 12, 12
FHS, 51
file(1), 35, 53
file globbing, 103
file ownership, 209
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, 51
filters, 119
find(1), 132, 219, 220, 231
FireWire, 61
for loop (bash), 160
FOSS, 7
four freedoms, 8
FreeBSD, 4, 14
Free Software, 7
free software, 8
freeware, 7

gcc(1), 187
getfacl, 225
GID, 202
glob(7), 104
GNU/Hurd, 4
GNU/Solaris, 15
GNU Project, 4
gpasswd, 203
GPL, 8
GPLv3, 8
grep(1), 120
grep -i, 120
grep -v, 121
groupadd(1), 202
groupdel(1), 203
groupmod(1), 203
groups(1), 203
gunzip(1), 135
gzip, 135
gzip(1), 134

H
hard link, 231
head(1), 44
hidden files, 27
history, 98
HP-UX, 14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/, 17
http://screencasts.ubuntu.com, 18
http://www.linux-training.be, 18
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/, 51
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/, 18
http://www.tldp.org, 17
http://xkcd.com, 13, 193
https://help.ubuntu.com, 18

I
id(1), 181
IEEE 1394, 61
if then else (bash), 159
inode, 229, 231
inode table, 229
insert mode(vi), 142
interrupt, 241
IO Ports, 242
IRQ, 241
isa, 240

gcc, 4
246

Index

K
Ken Thompson, 3
keymaps(5), 55
Korn Shell, 191
kudzu, 55

open source, 8
open source definition, 8
open source software, 7
OpenSSH, 14
openssl(1), 186
OpenSUSE, 13

L
less(1), 46
let, 173
Linus Torvalds, 4
ln, 231
ln(1), 231
loadkeys(1), 55
locate(1), 132
logical AND, 83
logical OR, 83
Logiciel Libre, 8
LPIC 1 Certification, 236
LPIC 2 Certification, 236
ls, 210, 229
ls(1), 27, 28, 229, 230
lspci, 241
lsusb, 240

M
MacOSX, 14
magic(5), 36
man(1), 21, 22, 22
mandb(1), 23
man hier, 51
man -k, 21
Mark Shuttleworth, 12
mkdir(1), 29, 214
mkdir -p, 29
more(1), 46
Multics, 3
mv(1), 39

N
NetBSD, 4, 14
Nexenta, 15
noclobber, 112
nounset(shell), 92
Novell, 13
Novell Certified Linux Professional, 237

O
od(1), 126
OpenBSD, 4, 14

P
package manager, 11
parent directory, 25
passwd(1), 22, 185, 185, 186, 220
passwd(5), 22
path, 26, 27
pc-card, 240
pci, 240
pci-express, 240
pcmcia, 240
pipe, 116
popd, 33
primary group, 184
proprietary, 7
public domain, 7
pushd, 33
pwd(1), 25, 27

R
random number generator, 68
read, 167
Red Hat, Inc., 12
Red Hat Desktop, 12
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, 11, 12
Red Hat Network, 65
Red Hat Update Agent, 65
rename(1), 39
repository, 11
RHCE, 236
RHEL AS, 12
RHEL ES, 12
RHEL WS, 12
Richard Stallman, 4
rm(1), 36, 232
rmdir(1), 29
rmdir -p, 29
rm -rf, 37
root, 183, 193
root directory, 51
rpm, 12, 65

247

Index

set, 92
set(shell), 90
set +x, 76
setfacl, 225
setgid, 219, 219
setuid, 193, 220, 220
set -x, 76
shell, 198
shell comment, 84
shell escaping, 84
shell expansion, 72, 72
shopt, 169
skeleton, 55
sleep, 134
soft link, 231
Solaris, 14
sort(1), 124
stderr, 112
stdin, 112, 116, 120
stdout, 112, 116, 120
sticky bit, 219
strings(1), 46
su -, 89
su(1), 192, 192
sudo, 193
sudo(1), 194
sudo su -, 194
SunOS, 14
Sun Solaris, 14
Suse, 13
symbolic link, 231
sysfs, 61
System V, 53

Ubuntu, 11, 12, 15

Ubuntu, Linux for Human Beings, 13
umask(1), 213
unalias(bash), 75
Unbreakable Linux, 12
UNICS, 3
uniq(1), 124
Unix, 3, 3
unset, 92
unset(shell), 90
until loop (bash), 161
updatedb(1), 132
usb, 61, 240
useradd, 184, 190
useradd(1), 186, 190
useradd -D, 184
userdel(1), 184
usermod, 202
usermod(1), 184, 188, 189

T
tab key(bash), 27
tac(1), 46
tail(1), 44
tee(1), 120
test, 159
Theo De Raadt, 14
time, 134
touch(1), 36
tr, 123
tr(1), 122
Tru64, 14
type(shell), 73

V
vi(1), 141
vigr(1), 204
vim(1), 141
vimtutor(1), 141
vipw(1), 189
visudo(1), 194
vrije software, 8

W
w(1), 181
wc(1), 123
whatis(1), 21
whereis(1), 22
which(1), 74
while loop (bash), 160
who(1), 181
who am i, 181
whoami(1), 181
wild cards, 105

X
X, 54
Xen, 12
X Window System, 54

Z
zcat, 135
248

Index
zmore, 135

249