1.
1 Listing files and directories
ls (list)
When you first reach the Cygwin command prompt, your current
working directory is your home directory. Your home directory is
where your personal files and subdirectories are saved.
To find out what is in your home directory, type
% ls (short for list)
The ls command lists the contents of your current working
directory.
There may be no files visible in your home directory, in which
case, the Cygwin prompt will be returned. Alternatively, there
may already be some files inserted by the System Administrator
when your account was created.
ls does not, in fact, cause all the files in your home directory to
be listed, but only those ones whose name does not begin with
a dot (.) Files beginning with a dot (.) are known as hidden files
and usually contain important program configuration information.
They are hidden because you should not change them unless
you are very familiar with UNIX!!!
To list all files in your home directory including those whose
names begin with a dot, type
% ls -a
ls is an example of a command which can take options: -a is
an example of an option. The options change the behaviour of
the command. There are online manual pages that tell you
which options a particular command can take, and how each
option modifies the behaviour of the command. (See later in this
tutorial)
1.2 Making Directories
mkdir (make directory)
We will now make a subdirectory in your home directory to hold
the files you will be creating and using in the course of this
tutorial. To make a subdirectory called unixstuff in your
current working directory type
% mkdir unixstuff
To see the directory you have just created, type
% ls
1.3 Changing to a different directory
cd (change directory)
The command cd directory means change the current
working directory to 'directory'. The current working directory
may be thought of as the directory you are in, i.e. your current
position in the file-system tree.
To change to the directory you have just made, type
% cd unixstuff
Type ls to see the contents (which should be empty)
Exercise 1a
Make another directory inside the unixstuff directory
called backups
1.4 The directories . and ..
Still in the unixstuff directory, type
% ls -a
As you can see, in the unixstuff directory (and in all other
directories), there are two special directories called (.) and (..)
In UNIX, (.) means the current directory, so typing
% cd .
NOTE: there is a space between cd and the dot
means stay where you are (the unixstuff directory).
This may not seem very useful at first, but using (.) as the name
of the current directory will save a lot of typing, as we shall see
later in the tutorial.
(..) means the parent of the current directory, so typing
% cd ..
will take you one directory up the hierarchy (back to your home
directory). Try it now.
Note: typing cd with no argument always returns you to your
home directory. This is very useful if you are lost in the file
system.
1.5 Pathnames
pwd (print working directory)
Pathnames enable you to work out where you are in relation to
the whole file-system. For example, to find out the absolute
pathname of your home-directory, type cd to get back to your
home-directory and then type
% pwd
The full pathname will look something like this -
/cygdrive/h/CygWin
which means that CygWin (your home directory) is in the
directory h (your windows directory), which is located in
/cygdrive which is a special directory maintained by Cygwin.
Cygwin provide access to Windows drives through the cygdrive
directory.
Exercise 1b
Use the commands ls, pwd and cd to explore the file system.
(Remember, if you get lost, type cd by itself to return to your
home-directory)
1.6 More about home directories and pathnames
Understanding pathnames
First type cd to get back to your home-directory, then type
% ls unixstuff
to list the conents of your unixstuff directory.
Now type
% ls backups
You will get a message like this -
backups: No such file or directory
The reason is, backups is not in your current working directory.
To use a command on a file (or directory) not in the current
working directory (the directory you are currently in), you must
either cd to the correct directory, or specify its full pathname. To
list the contents of your backups directory, you must type
% ls unixstuff/backups
~ (your home directory)
Home directories can also be referred to by the tilde ~ character.
It can be used to specify paths starting at your home directory.
So typing
% ls ~/unixstuff
will list the contents of your unixstuff directory, no matter where
you currently are in the file system.
What do you think
% ls ~
would list?
What do you think
% ls ~/..
would list?
Summary
ls list files and directories
ls -a list all files and directories
mkdir make a directory
cd directory change to named directory
cd change to home-directory
cd ~ change to home-directory
cd .. change to parent directory
pwd display the path of the current directory
UNIX Tutorial Two
2.1 Copying Files
cp (copy)
cp file1 file2 is the command which makes a copy
of file1 in the current working directory and calls it file2
Use your webbrowser and store a copy of this file into your
home directory. (Hint: Most webbrowsers allows you to store
a copy of a file pointed to by a link. Try right clicking on the
link.)
What we are going to do now, is to use the cp command to
copy it to your unixstuff directory.
First, cd to your home directory.
% cd ~
Then at the UNIX prompt, type,
% cp science.txt unixstuff
The above command means copy the file science.txt to
the unixstuff directory, keeping the name the same.
Exercise 2a
Create a backup of your science.txt file by copying it to a
file called science.bak
2.2 Moving files
mv (move)
mv file1 file2 moves (or renames) file1 to file2
To move a file from one place to another, use
the mv command. This has the effect of moving rather than
copying the file, so you end up with only one file rather than
two.
It can also be used to rename a file, by moving the file to the
same directory, but giving it a different name.
We are now going to move the file science.bak to your
backup directory.
First, change directories to your unixstuff directory (can you
remember how?). Then, inside the unixstuff directory, type
% mv science.bak backups/.
Type ls and ls backups to see if it has worked.
2.3 Removing files and directories
rm (remove), rmdir (remove directory)
To delete (remove) a file, use the rm command. As an
example, we are going to create a copy of
the science.txt file then delete it.
Inside your unixstuff directory, type
% cp science.txt tempfile.txt
% ls (to check if it has created the file)
% rm tempfile.txt
% ls (to check if it has deleted the file)
You can use the rmdir command to remove a directory
(make sure it is empty first). Try to remove
the backups directory. You will not be able to since UNIX
will not let you remove a non-empty directory.
Exercise 2b
Create a directory called tempstuff using mkdir , then
remove it using the rmdir command.
2.4 Displaying the contents of a file on the screen
cat (concatenate)
The command cat can be used to display the contents of a
file on the screen. Type:
% cat science.txt
As you can see, the file is longer than than the size of the
window, so it scrolls past making it unreadable.
less
The command less writes the contents of a file onto the
screen a page at a time. Type
% less science.txt
Press the [space-bar] if you want to see another page,
type [q] if you want to quit reading. As you can
see, less is used in preference to cat for long files.
head
The head command writes the first ten lines of a file to the
screen.
Type
% head science.txt
Then type
% head -5 science.txt
What difference did the -5 do to the head command?
tail
The tail command writes the last ten lines of a file to the
screen.
Type
% tail science.txt
How can you view the last 15 lines of the file?
2.5 Searching the contents of a file
Simple searching using less
Using less, you can search though a text file for a keyword
(pattern). For example, to search through science.txt for
the word 'science', type
% less science.txt
then, still in less (i.e. don't press [q] to quit), type a forward
slash [/] followed by the word to search
/science
As you can see, less finds and highlights the keyword.
Type [n] to search for the next occurrence of the word.
grep (don't ask why it is called grep)
grep is one of many standard UNIX utilities. It searches
files for specified words or patterns. Type
% grep science science.txt
As you can see, grep has printed out each line containg the
word science.
Or has it????
Try typing
% grep Science science.txt
The grep command is case sensitive; it distinguishes
between Science and science.
To ignore upper/lower case distinctions, use the -i option,
i.e. type
% grep -i science science.txt
To search for a phrase or pattern, you must enclose it in
single quotes (the apostrophe symbol). For example to
search for spinning top, type
% grep -i 'spinning top' science.txt
Some of the other options of grep are:
-v display those lines that do NOT match
-n precede each maching line with the line number
-c print only the total count of matched lines
Try some of them and see the different results. Don't forget,
you can use more than one option at a time, for example,
the number of lines without the words science or Science is
% grep -ivc science science.txt
wc (word count)
A handy little utility is the wc command, short for word
count. To do a word count on science.txt, type
% wc -w science.txt
To find out how many lines the file has, type
% wc -l science.txt
Summary
cp file1 file2 copy file1 and call it file2
mv file1 file2 move or rename file1 to file2
rm file remove a file
rmdir directory remove a directory
cat file display a file
more file display a file a page at a time
head file display the first few lines of a file
tail file display the last few lines of a file
grep 'keyword' file search a file for keywords
wc file count number of lines/words/characters in file
UNIX Tutorial Three
3.1 Redirection
Most processes initiated by UNIX commands write to the
standard output (that is, they write to the terminal screen), and
many take their input from the standard input (that is, they read
it from the keyboard). There is also the standard error, where
processes write their error messages, by default, to the terminal
screen.
We have already seen one use of the cat command to write the
contents of a file to the screen.
Now type cat without specifing a file to read
% cat
Then type a few words on the keyboard and press
the [Return] key.
Finally hold the [Ctrl] key down and press [d] (written as ^D
for short) to end the input.
What has happened?
If you run the cat command without specifing a file to read, it
reads the standard input (the keyboard), and on receiving
the'end of file' (^D), copies it to the standard output (the screen).
In UNIX, we can redirect both the input and the output of
commands.
3.2 Redirecting the Output
We use the > symbol to redirect the output of a command. For
example, to create a file called list1 containing a list of fruit, type
% cat > list1
Then type in the names of some fruit. Press [Return] after
each one.
pear
banana
apple
^D (Control D to stop)
What happens is the cat command reads the standard input
(the keyboard) and the > redirects the output, which normally
goes to the screen, into a file called list1
To read the contents of the file, type
% cat list1
Exercise 3a
Using the above method, create another file
called list2 containing the following fruit: orange, plum, mango,
grapefruit. Read the contents of list2
The form >> appends standard output to a file. So to add more
items to the file list1, type
% cat >> list1
Then type in the names of more fruit
peach
grape
orange
^D (Control D to stop)
To read the contents of the file, type
% cat list1
You should now have two files. One contains six fruit, the other
contains four fruit. We will now use the cat command to join
(concatenate) list1 and list2 into a new file called biglist. Type
% cat list1 list2 > biglist
What this is doing is reading the contents of list1 and list2 in
turn, then outputing the text to the file biglist
To read the contents of the new file, type
% cat biglist
3.3 Redirecting the Input
We use the < symbol to redirect the input of a command.
The command sort alphabetically or numerically sorts a list.
Type
% sort
Then type in the names of some vegetables.
Press [Return] after each one.
carrot
beetroot
artichoke
^D (control d to stop)
The output will be
artichoke
beetroot
carrot
Using < you can redirect the input to come from a file rather than
the keyboard. For example, to sort the list of fruit, type
% sort < biglist
and the sorted list will be output to the screen.
To output the sorted list to a file, type,
% sort < biglist > slist
Use cat to read the contents of the file slist
Summary
command > file redirect standard output to a file
command >> file append standard output to a file
command < file redirect standard input from a file
cat file1 file2 > file0 concatenate file1 and file2 to file0
sort sort data
UNIX Tutorial Four
4.1 Wildcards
The characters * and ?
The character * is called a wildcard, and will match against none
or more character(s) in a file (or directory) name. For example,
in your unixstuff directory, type
% ls list*
This will list all files in the current directory starting with list....
Try typing
% ls *list
This will list all files in the current directory ending with ....list
The character ? will match exactly one character.
So ls ?ouse will match files like house and mouse, but
not grouse.
Try typing
% ls ?list
4.2 Filename conventions
We should note here that a directory is merely a special type of
file. So the rules and conventions for naming files apply also to
directories.
In naming files, characters with special meanings such as / * &
% , should be avoided. Also, avoid using spaces within names.
The safest way to name a file is to use only alphanumeric
characters, that is, letters and numbers, together with _
(underscore) and . (dot).
File names conventionally start with a lower-case letter, and
may end with a dot followed by a group of letters indicating the
contents of the file. For example, all files consisting of C code
may be named with the ending .c, for example, prog1.c . Then in
order to list all files containing C code in your home directory,
you need only type ls *.c in that directory.
Beware: some applications give the same name to all the
output files they generate.
For example, some compilers, unless given the appropriate
option, produce compiled files named a.out. Should you forget
to use that option, you are advised to rename the compiled file
immediately, otherwise the next such file will overwrite it and it
will be lost.
4.3 Getting Help
On-line Manuals
There are on-line manuals which gives information about most
commands. The manual pages tell you which options a
particular command can take, and how each option modifies the
behaviour of the command. Type man command to read the
manual page for a particular command.
For example, to find out more about the wc (word count)
command, type
% man wc
Summary
* match any number of characters
? match one character
man command read the online manual page for a command
UNIX Tutorial Five
5.1 File system security (access rights)
In your unixstuff directory, type
% ls -l (l for long listing!)
You will see that you now get lots of details about the contents
of your directory, similar to the example below.
Each file (and directory) has associated access rights, which
may be found by typing ls -l. Also, ls -lg gives additional
information as to which group owns the file (beng95 in the
following example):
-rwxrw-r-- 1 ee51ab beng95 2450 Sept29 11:52
file1
In the left-hand column is a 10 symbol string consisting of the
symbols d, r, w, x, -, and, occasionally, s or S. If d is present, it
will be at the left hand end of the string, and indicates a
directory: otherwise - will be the starting symbol of the string.
The 9 remaining symbols indicate the permissions, or access
rights, and are taken as three groups of 3.
The left group of 3 gives the file permissions for the user that
owns the file (or directory) (ee51ab in the above example);
the middle group gives the permissions for the group of people to
whom the file (or directory) belongs (eebeng95 in the above
example);
the rightmost group gives the permissions for all others.
The symbols r, w, etc., have slightly different meanings
depending on whether they refer to a simple file or to a directory.
Access rights on files.
r (or -), indicates read permission (or otherwise), that is, the
presence or absence of permission to read and copy the file
w (or -), indicates write permission (or otherwise), that is, the
permission (or otherwise) to change a file
x (or -), indicates execution permission (or otherwise), that is, the
permission to execute a file, where appropriate
Access rights on directories.
r allows users to list files in the directory;
w means that users may delete files from the directory or move
files into it;
x means the right to access files in the directory. This implies that
you may read files in the directory provided you have read
permission on the individual files.
So, in order to read a file, you must have execute permission on
the directory containing that file, and hence on any directory
containing that directory as a subdirectory, and so on, up the
tree.
Some examples
a file that everyone can read, write and execute (and
-rwxrwxrwx
delete).
a file that only the owner can read and write - no-one else
-rw------- can read or write and no-one has execution rights (e.g. your
mailbox file).
5.2 Changing access rights
chmod (changing a file mode)
Only the owner of a file can use chmod to change the
permissions of a file. The options of chmod are as follows
Symbol Meaning
u user
g group
o other
a all
r read
w write (and delete)
x execute (and access directory)
+ add permission
- take away permission
For example, to remove read write and execute permissions on
the file biglist for the group and others, type
% chmod go-rwx biglist
This will leave the other permissions unaffected.
Warning: chmod and file access permissions are not fully
supported in some versions on Cygwin. Recent Cygwin versions
generally work well but the version installed in the databar does
not have full support. Do not expect chmod to work in the
databar. This section is presented for completeness.
To give read and write permissions on the file biglist to all,
% chmod a+rw biglist
Exercise 5a
Try changing access permissions on the file science.txt and on
the directory backups
Use ls -l to check that the permissions have changed.
5.3 Processes and Jobs
A process is an executing program identified by a unique PID
(process identifier). To see information about your processes,
with their associated PID and status, type
% ps
A process may be in the foreground, in the background, or be
suspended. In general the shell does not return the UNIX
prompt until the current process has finished executing.
Some processes take a long time to run and hold up the
terminal. Backgrounding a long process has the effect that the
UNIX prompt is returned immediately, and other tasks can be
carried out while the original process continues executing.
Running background processes
To background a process, type an & at the end of the command
line. For example, the command sleep waits a given number of
seconds before continuing. Type
% sleep 10
This will wait 10 seconds before returning the command prompt
%. Until the command prompt is returned, you can do nothing
except wait.
To run sleep in the background, type
% sleep 10 &
[1] 6259
The & runs the job in the background and returns the prompt
straight away, allowing you do run other programs while waiting
for that one to finish.
The first line in the above example is typed in by the user; the
next line, indicating job number and PID, is returned by the
machine. The user is be notified of a job number (numbered
from 1) enclosed in square brackets, together with a PID and is
notified when a background process is finished. Backgrounding
is useful for jobs which will take a long time to complete.
5.5 Killing a process
kill (terminate or signal a process)
It is sometimes necessary to kill a process (for example, when
an executing program is in an infinite loop)
To kill a job running in the foreground, type ^C (control c). For
example, run
% sleep 100
^C
Alternatively, processes can be killed by finding their process
numbers (PIDs) and using kill PID_number
% sleep 100 &
% ps
PID TT S TIME COMMAND
20077 pts/5 S 0:05 sleep 100
21563 pts/5 T 0:00 netscape
21873 pts/5 S 0:25 nedit
To kill off the process sleep 100, type
% kill 20077
and then type ps again to see if it has been removed from the
list.
If a process refuses to be killed, uses the -9 option, i.e. type
% kill -9 20077
Note: It is not possible to kill off other users' processes !!!
Summary
ls -lag list access rights for all files
chmod [options] file change access rights for named file
command & run command in background
^C kill the job running in the foreground
kill %1 kill job number 1
ps list current processes
kill 26152 kill process number 26152
UNIX Tutorial Six
Other useful UNIX commands
df
The df command reports on the space left on the file system.
For example, to find out how much space is left on the fileserver,
type
% df .
du
The du command outputs the number of kilobyes used by each
subdirectory. Useful if you have gone over quota and you want
to find out which directory has the most files. In your home-
directory, type
% du
Unix Cheat Sheet
Help on any Unix command.
Type man rm to read the manual for
man {command}
the rm command.
whatis {command} Give short description of command.
List a directory
It's ok to combine attributes, eg ls -laF gets a
ls {path}
long listing of all files with types.
ls {path_1} {path_2} List both {path_1} and {path_2}.
ls -l {path} Long listing, with date, size and permisions.
Show all files, including important .dot files that
ls -a {path}
don't otherwise show.
Show type of each file. "/" = directory, "*" =
ls -F {path}
executable.
ls -R {path} Recursive listing, with all subdirs.
ls {path} | more Show listing one screen at a time.
Change to directory
cd {dirname} There must be a space between.
cd ~ Go back to home directory, useful if you're lost.
cd .. Go back one directory.
Make a new directory
mkdir {dirname}
Remove a directory
rmdir {dirname} Only works if {dirname} is empty.
rm -r {dirname} Remove all files and subdirs. Careful!
Print working directory
Show where you are as full path. Useful if
pwd
you're lost or exploring.
Copy a file or directory
cp {file1} {file2}
cp -r {dir1} {dir2} Recursive, copy directory and all subdirs.
cat {newfile} >> {oldfile} Append newfile to end of oldfile.
Move (or rename) a file
Moving a file and renaming it are the same
mv {oldfile} {newfile}
thing.
mv {oldname} {newname}
Delete a file
? and * wildcards work like DOS should. "?" is
rm {filespec}
any character; "*" is any string of characters.
Good strategy: first list a group to make sure it's
ls {filespec}
rm {filespec}
what's you think...
...then delete it all at once.
View a text file
more {filename} View file one screen at a time.
less {filename} Like more, with extra features.
cat {filename} View file, but it scrolls.
cat {filename} | more View file one screen at a time.
Edit a text file.
gedit {filename} Basic text editor
Create a text file.
Enter your text (multiple lines with enter are
cat > {filename}
ok) and press control-d to save.
gedit {filename} Create some text and save it.
Compare two files
diff {file1} {file2} Show the differences.
sdiff {file1} {file2} Show files side by side.
Other text commands
grep '{pattern}' {file} Find regular expression in file.
spell {file} Display misspelled words.
wc {file} Count words in file.
wc -l {file} Count the number of lines in a file.
Make an Alias
Put the command in 'single quotes'. More
alias {name}='{command}'
useful in your .bashrc file.
Wildcards and Shortcuts
Match any string of characters, eg page* gets
*
page1, page10, and page.txt.
Match any single character, eg page? gets
?
page1 and page2, but not page10.
Match any characters in a range, eg page[1-
[...]
3] gets page1, page2, and page3.
Short for your home directory, eg cd ~ will take
~
you home, and rm -r ~ will destroy it.
. The current directory.
.. One directory up the tree, eg ls ...
(You pipe a command to another command,
Pipes and Redirection
and redirect it to a file.)
Redirect output to a file, eg ls > list.txt writes
{command} > {file}
directory to file.
Append output to an existing file, eg cat update
{command} >> {file}
>> archive adds update to end of archive.
{command} < {file} Get input from a file, eg sort < file.txt
Get input from file1, and write to file2,
{command} < {file1} > {file2} eg sort < old.txt > new.txt sorts old.txt and
saves as new.txt.
Pipe one command to another, eg ls |
{command} | {command} more gets directory and sends it to more to
show it one page at a time.
System info
date Show date and time.
df Check system disk capacity.
Check your disk usage and show bytes in each
du
directory.
Check your disk usage in a human readable
du -h
format
printenv Show all environmental variables
uptime Find out system load.
w Who's online and what are they doing?
top Real time processor and memory usage
Unix Directory Format
Long listings (ls -l) have this format:
- file
d directory, * executable
^ symbolic links (?) file size (bytes) file name / directory
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
drwxr-xr-x 11 valerie 16296 Mar 7 23:25 public_html/
-rw-r--r-- 1 valerie 256 Mar 8 23:42 index.html
^
^^^ user permission (rwx) date and time last modified
^^^ group permission (rwx)
^^^ world permission (rwx)