ACS-294-001 Unix (Fall Term, 2023-2024) Page 3

What Is an Operating System?

An Operating System (which is software) is a complex master
control program whose principal function is to use the resources
of a computer efficiently.

The operating system is always there, waiting to serve you and to

manage the resources of your computer.

In Unix, the operating system can be divided into three layers:

utilities, shell, and kernel.

Utilities: The utilities of an operating system are the standard

commands and programs associated with the operating
system.

Shell: A shell is a program that runs other programs.

Kernel: The kernel is a collection of software that provides

the basic capabilities of the operating system.

“Unix” Is the Name of a Culture

Unix means much more than a family of operating systems.

In using Unix, we will learn to approach and solve problems by

combining simple programs into elegant structures.

The Unix Connection

Host: The main computer that actually does most of the work.
Character Terminal:

A character terminal has nothing more than a screen and a

keyboard, and can display only characters.
ACS-294-001 Unix (Fall Term, 2023-2024) Page 4

Graphics Terminal:
It can display everything that can be drawn on a screen
using small dots: pictures, geometric shapes, and so on.
Most graphics terminals have a mouse and are designed to
be used with a graphical user interface.

Console:
A display screen and a keyboard that are part of the host
computer itself.
A Console is just another terminal.

What Happens When You Press a Key?

Each time you press a key, a signal is sent to the host. The host
responds by sending its own signal back to your terminal telling
it to display the appropriate character on the screen.
If the host computer is far away, you might not see the letters
appear on the screen immediately after you press keys.

Network Connections
Network
A network refers to two or more computers connected together.
People connect computers into networks in order to share resources.

Local Area Network (LAN)

When computers are connected directly by using some type of
cable, we call the network LAN.

Wide Area Network (WAN)

Many LANs are connected to other networks, forming a bigger
network that is called WAN.
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Backbone
A high-speed link that ties together the smaller LANs into one
large wide area network.

Gateways
Some computers, called gateways, will act as the links between
the campus network and the outside world.

Internet
Around the world, the major wide area networks are connected
to a system known as the Internet. Any computer on the Internet
can connect to any other computer on the Internet.

Client-Server Relationship
Server
In network terminology, any program that offers a resource is
called a server.
A program that provides access to files over the network is
called a file server; A program that coordinates the printing of
data using different printers is called a print server.
Sometimes the name server is used to refer to a real computer
too (i.e., mail server, news server, …).

Client
A program that uses a resource is called a client.
Unix system programmers often talk about the connection
between a client program and a server as the Client-Server
Relationship.

VT-100 Terminal:
A very old terminal made by Digital Equipment Corporation.
ACS-294-001 Unix (Fall Term, 2023-2024) Page 6

Starting to Use Unix

System Manager/Administrator:
All Unix systems require administration and maintenance.
The person who performs these duties is called the system
manager or system administrator.

Userid: A name that identifies you to the system.

Password: A secret code that you must type in each time you use
the system.
Account: Once you have permission to use a system, we say that you
have a Unix account on that computer.
Logging In: Starting work with Unix
Logging Out: Stopping working with Unix
1. logout 2. exit 3. login 4. Ctrl-D (for some systems)
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Getting Down to Work: The Shell Prompt

The program that reads and interprets your commands is called a

“shell”. When the shell is ready for you to type the next
command, it will display a “prompt”.

If you use the C-Shell, your prompt will be a %.

If you system manager has customized your environment, the

prompt may be somewhat different, i.e., mars.acs.uwinnipeg.ca>.

With a Bourne shell, a $ may be your prompt.

Upper- and Lowercase

Unix is case sensitive.

Some cases to use uppercase letters:

1. Passwords
2. Environment variables (TERM, HOME, …)
3. Writing programs
4. Electronic mail (E-mail) address
Example: uwinnipeg.ca vs. Uwinnipeg.ca

Who Has Been Using Your Account: last

The command last can display login and logout information about
users and terminals.
Example:
mars% last
sliao pts/1 wnpgmb0426w-ds02 Sat Sep 2 15:40 still logged in
nischal pts/1 acs-3d07b-f01.uw Fri Sep 1 12:23 - 12:24 (00:00)
acs2941 pts/1 acs-3d07b-f01.uw Fri Sep 1 12:22 - 12:23 (00:00)
. . .
aulakh-s pts/4 142.161.217.182 Sun Mar 19 03:28 - 04:03 (00:34)

wtmp begins Sun Mar 19 03:27:57 2023

mars%
ACS-294-001 Unix (Fall Term, 2023-2024) Page 8

passwd: You can change your password by using the command

passwd.

Userid vs. User

A user is a person who utilizes a Unix system in some way.
Unix itself only knows about userids. If someone logs in with your
userid, Unix has no way of knowing whether or not it is really you.
Example:
mars% finger
Login Name Tty Idle Login Time Office Office Phone Host
sliao Simon Liao pts/1 Sep 2 15:40
(wnpgmb0426w-ds02-202-50-88.dynamic.bellmts.net)
mars%

The Superuser Userid: root

Within Unix, all userids are considered equal, except the
superuser root.

Using the Keyboard with Unix

TTYs: When the Unix was first developed, the programmers used
Teletype ASR33 terminals. The terminals had letters,
numbers, and a “Control” key. TTY (Teletype) quickly
became a way to refer to any terminal.
tty is a command to display the name of your terminal.
mars% tty
/dev/pts/1
mars%

stty is a command to set up your terminal.

Another convention derived from Teletypes is how we use the
word “print”. Teletype printed output on paper. But now the
same information would be displayed on a screen.

“Print” means “Display”

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Examples: appreciate
pwd Print Working Directory
lpr Line Printer

How to Deal with Different Types of Terminals?

For older Unix systems, the descriptions of all different types
of terminals into a single file, termcap database. The newer
Unix systems should use the terminfo database and associated
libraries.

How Does Unix Know What Terminal You Are Using?

There is a global variable named TERM whose value is the type
of terminal you are using.
mars% echo $TERM
vt100
mars%

Understanding Your Keyboard

Unix must work with any terminals and there is no such thing as
a standard keyboard. As a solution, Unix defines standard codes
that are mapped into different keyboards.
Some codes:
erase: Erase the last character that you typed.
werase: Erase the last word you typed.
kill: Erase the whole line.
intr: Abort the program that is currently running (interrupt).
quit: quit is designed for advanced programmers. When you stop a
program with quit, it not only stops the program, but also
makes a copy of the contents of memory at that instant.
stop: Pause the screen display.
start: Restart the screen display.
eof: End of file
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Checking the Special Keys for Your Terminals: stty

To check how your Unix system uses your particular terminal,
you can use the stty (set terminal) command.
mars% stty
speed 38400 baud; line = 0;
kill = ^X;
-brkint -imaxbel
mars%

You can set some special keys in your .login file.

For example, add
stty kill ^X

to your .login file will change the kill key to ^X.

Summary of some Keyboard Codes:

Code Key Purpose
intr ^C stop a program that is running
erase <Backspace>,<Delete> erase the last character typed
werase ^W erase the last word typed
kill ^X, ^U erase the entire line
quit ^\ stop a program, save core file
stop ^S pause the screen display
start ^Q restart the screen display
eof ^D indicate there is no more data

Teletype (ASR33) Control Signals

<Ctrl-H>: Caused the print carriage to back up a single space
before printing the next character.
<Ctrl-M>: Moved the print carriage to the beginning of the line.
<Ctrl-J>: Moved the paper up one line.
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<Ctrl-M> <Ctrl-J>: Would position the carriage and the paper at

the beginning of the next line.
<Ctrl-I>: Tab Setting

How Teletype Control Signals are Used by Unix

^H: When you press the <Backspace> key, Unix interprets the
signal as being a ^H.
^I: When you press the <Tab> key, Unix interprets it as a ^I.
^M: Signal that you have reached the end of a line. (return)
^J: Mark the end of each line. (newline)

Unix treats the data typed at the keyboard the same as data read
from a file.

When you display data, each newline (^J) is changed by Unix into a
return newline (^M^J) combination.
Q. Can you press ^J instead of <Return> to enter a command at any time?
A. Yes!
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Programs to Use Right Away

date The date command will display the current time and date.
Example:
mars% date
Tue Sep 5 15:29:51 CDT 2023
mars%

cal The cal command displays a calendar.

Examples:
mars% cal
September 2023
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

mars%
calendar
Unix does have a calendar command, which is different from cal.
The calendar program offers a reminder service based on a file
named calendar in your home directory. The program calendar will
check this file and display all the lines that have today’s and
tomorrow’s date.
Example:
pearl% cat calendar
January 5 Day1
January 6 Day2
January 7 Day3
January 8 Day4
pearl% date
Thu Jan 5 17:13:26 CST 2019
pearl% calendar
Jan 05 Day1
Jan 06 Day2
pearl%
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uptime

The uptime command will tell you that how long your particular
computer has been up.
Example:
mars% uptime
15:30:55 up 20 days, 5:49, 3 users, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.05
mars%

In this case, mars has been up for 20 day, 5 hour and 49 minutes,
and there are 3 users currently logged in. The last three numbers
show the average number of jobs in the run queue over the last 1, 5
and 15 minutes, respectively.

hostname
The hostname command will display the name of the system you
are using.
Example:
mars% hostname
mars-acs-uwinnipeg-ca
mars%
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The Online Unix Manual

Unix comes with a large, built-in manual that is accessible at any
time from your terminal.

The Online Manual is a collection of files, stored on disk, each of

which contains the documentation about one Unix command or topic.

The Online Manual can be accessed at any time by using the man
command.
Examples:
man cp
man man
man mv lpr ln

How Is the Online Manual Organized?

Section
1 Executable programs or shell commands
2 System calls (functions provided by the kernel)
3 Library calls (functions within program libraries)
4 Special files (usually found in /dev)
5 File formats and conventions (e.g. /etc/passwd)
6 Games
7 Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions)
8 System administration commands (usually only for root)
9 Kernel routines (nonstandard)

The most important section is Section 1. Section 2, 3, 4, and 5

may be important to programmers.
ACS-294-001 Unix (Fall Term, 2023-2024) Page 15

The following conventions apply to the SYNOPSIS section and can

be used as a guide in other sections:
bold text type exactly as shown
italic text replace with appropriate argument
[-abc] any or all arguments within [ ] are optional
-a | -b options delimited by | cannot be used together
argument … argument is repeatable
[expression] … entire expression within [ ] is repeatable
…

Examples:
man kill
will show the description of kill that resides in Section 1 of the
manual;
man –s 2 kill
will show the description of kill that resides in Section 2 of the
manual;
man -s 7 man
will show the description of man in Section 7;
man umask
will show the description of umask that resides in Section 1 of
the manual:
ACS-294-001 Unix (Fall Term, 2023-2024) Page 16

mars% man kill

KILL(1) User Commends KILL(1)

NAME
kill - terminate a process

SYNOPSIS
kill [-s signal|-p] [-q sigval] [-a] [--] pid...
kill -l [signal]
.
.
.

At the end of the kill man pages are the following a few lines, which
tell us there are other pages related to this one:
SEE ALSO
bash(1), tcsh(1), kill(2), sigvec(2), signal(7)

AUTHOR
Taken from BSD 4.4. The ability to translate process names to
process ids was added by Salvatore Valente …

AVAILABILITY
The kill command is part of the util-linux package and is available
from Linux Kernel Archive …

NAME: This is what the command is all about.

SYNOPSIS: Official explanation of how to enter the command.
DESCRIPTION: Could be divided into two separate sections:
Description & Options.
FILES: This section shows the names of the files that are
used by this command.
SEE ALSO: It shows you other places to look in the manual for
more information.