Linux Fundamentals

Paul Cobbaut
Linux Fundamentals
Paul Cobbaut

Publication date 2015-05-24 CEST

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 author:

• Paul Cobbaut: [email protected], http://www.linkedin.com/in/cobbaut

Contributors to the Linux Training project are:

• Serge van Ginderachter: [email protected], build scripts and infrastructure setup

• Ywein Van den Brande: [email protected], license and legal sections

• Hendrik De Vloed: [email protected], buildheader.pl script

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://blog.bdesmet.be

• Rich Yonts: [email protected],

Copyright 2007-2015 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. Linux history .................................................................................................................................... 3
1.1. 1969 ....................................................................................................................................... 4
1.2. 1980s ...................................................................................................................................... 4
1.3. 1990s ...................................................................................................................................... 4
1.4. 2015 ....................................................................................................................................... 5
2. distributions ...................................................................................................................................... 6
2.1. Red Hat .................................................................................................................................. 7
2.2. Ubuntu ................................................................................................................................... 7
2.3. Debian .................................................................................................................................... 7
2.4. Other ...................................................................................................................................... 7
2.5. Which to choose ? ................................................................................................................. 8
3. licensing ............................................................................................................................................. 9
3.1. about software licenses ....................................................................................................... 10
3.2. public domain software and freeware ................................................................................. 10
3.3. Free Software or Open Source Software ............................................................................ 10
3.4. GNU General Public License .............................................................................................. 11
3.5. using GPLv3 software ......................................................................................................... 11
3.6. BSD license ......................................................................................................................... 12
3.7. other licenses ....................................................................................................................... 12
3.8. combination of software licenses ........................................................................................ 12
II. installing Linux ......................................................................................................................................... 13
4. installing Debian 8 ......................................................................................................................... 15
4.1. Debian .................................................................................................................................. 16
4.2. Downloading ........................................................................................................................ 16
4.3. virtualbox networking ......................................................................................................... 32
4.4. setting the hostname ............................................................................................................ 34
4.5. adding a static ip address .................................................................................................... 34
4.6. Debian package management .............................................................................................. 35
5. installing CentOS 7 ........................................................................................................................ 36
5.1. download a CentOS 7 image .............................................................................................. 37
5.2. Virtualbox ............................................................................................................................ 39
5.3. CentOS 7 installing ............................................................................................................. 44
5.4. CentOS 7 first logon ........................................................................................................... 52
5.5. Virtualbox network interface .............................................................................................. 53
5.6. configuring the network ...................................................................................................... 54
5.7. adding one static ip address ................................................................................................ 54
5.8. package management ........................................................................................................... 55
5.9. logon from Linux and MacOSX ......................................................................................... 56
5.10. logon from MS Windows ................................................................................................. 56
6. getting Linux at home ................................................................................................................... 58
6.1. download a Linux CD image .............................................................................................. 59
6.2. download Virtualbox ........................................................................................................... 59
6.3. create a virtual machine ...................................................................................................... 60
6.4. attach the CD image ............................................................................................................ 65
6.5. install Linux ......................................................................................................................... 68
III. first steps on the command line .............................................................................................................. 69
7. man pages ....................................................................................................................................... 71
7.1. man $command ................................................................................................................... 72
7.2. man $configfile .................................................................................................................... 72
7.3. man $daemon ...................................................................................................................... 72
7.4. man -k (apropos) ................................................................................................................. 72
7.5. whatis ................................................................................................................................... 72
7.6. whereis ................................................................................................................................. 72
7.7. man sections ........................................................................................................................ 73

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7.8. man $section $file ............................................................................................................... 73

7.9. man man .............................................................................................................................. 73
7.10. mandb ................................................................................................................................ 73
8. working with directories ............................................................................................................... 74
8.1. pwd ...................................................................................................................................... 75
8.2. cd .......................................................................................................................................... 75
8.3. absolute and relative paths .................................................................................................. 76
8.4. path completion ................................................................................................................... 77
8.5. ls ........................................................................................................................................... 77
8.6. mkdir .................................................................................................................................... 79
8.7. rmdir .................................................................................................................................... 79
8.8. practice: working with directories ....................................................................................... 81
8.9. solution: working with directories ...................................................................................... 82
9. working with files ........................................................................................................................... 84
9.1. all files are case sensitive ................................................................................................... 85
9.2. everything is a file .............................................................................................................. 85
9.3. file ........................................................................................................................................ 85
9.4. touch .................................................................................................................................... 86
9.5. rm ......................................................................................................................................... 87
9.6. cp .......................................................................................................................................... 88
9.7. mv ........................................................................................................................................ 89
9.8. rename .................................................................................................................................. 90
9.9. practice: working with files ................................................................................................ 91
9.10. solution: working with files .............................................................................................. 92
10. working with file contents ........................................................................................................... 94
10.1. head .................................................................................................................................... 95
10.2. tail ...................................................................................................................................... 95
10.3. cat ....................................................................................................................................... 96
10.4. tac ....................................................................................................................................... 97
10.5. more and less ..................................................................................................................... 98
10.6. strings ................................................................................................................................. 98
10.7. practice: file contents ........................................................................................................ 99
10.8. solution: file contents ...................................................................................................... 100
11. the Linux file tree ...................................................................................................................... 101
11.1. filesystem hierarchy standard .......................................................................................... 102
11.2. man hier ........................................................................................................................... 102
11.3. the root directory / ........................................................................................................... 102
11.4. binary directories ............................................................................................................. 103
11.5. configuration directories .................................................................................................. 105
11.6. data directories ................................................................................................................ 107
11.7. in memory directories ..................................................................................................... 109
11.8. /usr Unix System Resources ............................................................................................ 114
11.9. /var variable data ............................................................................................................. 116
11.10. practice: file system tree ............................................................................................... 118
11.11. solution: file system tree ............................................................................................... 120
IV. shell expansion ...................................................................................................................................... 122
12. commands and arguments ........................................................................................................ 125
12.1. arguments ......................................................................................................................... 126
12.2. white space removal ........................................................................................................ 126
12.3. single quotes .................................................................................................................... 127
12.4. double quotes ................................................................................................................... 127
12.5. echo and quotes ............................................................................................................... 127
12.6. commands ........................................................................................................................ 128
12.7. aliases ............................................................................................................................... 129
12.8. displaying shell expansion .............................................................................................. 130
12.9. practice: commands and arguments ................................................................................ 131
12.10. solution: commands and arguments .............................................................................. 133
13. control operators ........................................................................................................................ 135

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13.1. ; semicolon ....................................................................................................................... 136

13.2. & ampersand .................................................................................................................... 136
13.3. $? dollar question mark ................................................................................................... 136
13.4. && double ampersand .................................................................................................... 137
13.5. || double vertical bar ........................................................................................................ 137
13.6. combining && and || ....................................................................................................... 137
13.7. # pound sign .................................................................................................................... 138
13.8. \ escaping special characters ........................................................................................... 138
13.9. practice: control operators ............................................................................................... 139
13.10. solution: control operators ............................................................................................. 140
14. shell variables ............................................................................................................................. 141
14.1. $ dollar sign ..................................................................................................................... 142
14.2. case sensitive ................................................................................................................... 142
14.3. creating variables ............................................................................................................. 142
14.4. quotes ............................................................................................................................... 143
14.5. set ..................................................................................................................................... 143
14.6. unset ................................................................................................................................. 143
14.7. $PS1 ................................................................................................................................. 144
14.8. $PATH ............................................................................................................................. 145
14.9. env .................................................................................................................................... 146
14.10. export ............................................................................................................................. 146
14.11. delineate variables ......................................................................................................... 147
14.12. unbound variables .......................................................................................................... 147
14.13. practice: shell variables ................................................................................................. 148
14.14. solution: shell variables ................................................................................................. 149
15. shell embedding and options ..................................................................................................... 150
15.1. shell embedding ............................................................................................................... 151
15.2. shell options ..................................................................................................................... 152
15.3. practice: shell embedding ................................................................................................ 153
15.4. solution: shell embedding ................................................................................................ 154
16. shell history ................................................................................................................................. 155
16.1. repeating the last command ............................................................................................ 156
16.2. repeating other commands .............................................................................................. 156
16.3. history .............................................................................................................................. 156
16.4. !n ...................................................................................................................................... 156
16.5. Ctrl-r ................................................................................................................................ 157
16.6. $HISTSIZE ...................................................................................................................... 157
16.7. $HISTFILE ...................................................................................................................... 157
16.8. $HISTFILESIZE .............................................................................................................. 157
16.9. prevent recording a command ......................................................................................... 158
16.10. (optional)regular expressions ........................................................................................ 158
16.11. (optional) Korn shell history ......................................................................................... 158
16.12. practice: shell history .................................................................................................... 159
16.13. solution: shell history .................................................................................................... 160
17. file globbing ................................................................................................................................ 161
17.1. * asterisk .......................................................................................................................... 162
17.2. ? question mark ............................................................................................................... 162
17.3. [] square brackets ............................................................................................................ 163
17.4. a-z and 0-9 ranges ........................................................................................................... 164
17.5. $LANG and square brackets ........................................................................................... 164
17.6. preventing file globbing .................................................................................................. 165
17.7. practice: shell globbing ................................................................................................... 166
17.8. solution: shell globbing ................................................................................................... 167
V. pipes and commands .............................................................................................................................. 169
18. I/O redirection ............................................................................................................................ 171
18.1. stdin, stdout, and stderr ................................................................................................... 172
18.2. output redirection ............................................................................................................. 173
18.3. error redirection ............................................................................................................... 175

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