Linux Command Line Made Easy

A Practical, Step By Step Guide To

Linux Commands For Beginners And
Intermediates

Craig Berg
Introduction
Welcome to the Linux Command Line Guide For Beginners, and thank you
for choosing this book as your pass to the Linux world.
Please note that this book is for beginners at Linux, not power users.
Whether you are coming from a version of Windows or OSx or giving
Linux a try, this book will be invaluable to you.
However, while this book is indeed very beginner-friendly, it will not take
you from a novice to a Linux command Line master in one night.
That’s because the Linux Command Line is vast and challenging to master,
especially for beginners. Learning it requires a great deal of determination
and effort not because the Linux command line is complex or requires
genius-level IQ, but because it’s large and contains hundreds if not
thousands of commands.
In all honesty, we can dedicate a single chapter to one command and all its
arguments.
Nevertheless, the command line is a fundamental tool for Linux users. The
command line brings you every possible tool to work with in the ins and
outs of your operating system with just a keyboard. If you are skeptical
about this, follow the book, and you will realize real power.
The book has an efficient organizational structure:

1. The first chapter gives you the basics and must-know elements
of working with the Linux Command line.
2. In the second chapter, we shall look at Linux configuration and
where config files of applications are stored, and how to
manage them.
3. In the third chapter, we shall dive into the Linux tools and
common commands you will find yourself using most of the
time as you work with the command line.
4. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion on Linux
permissions, groups, and more.
In simple terms, Linux and Linux command line is amazing because it
opens many opportunities for you.
In this beginners’ book, we do not assume you have any programming
knowledge. That’s why the book will walk you through every step.
Read the book from start to finish because its structure is a lot like a
syllabus and less like a quick reference guide.
All you need is a computer and internet access for Linux installation—more
on that later. Once you have what you need, we can get started with the
installation and hands-on typing command lines, the fun part!
PS: I’d like your feedback. If you are happy with this book, please leave a
review on Amazon.
Please leave a review for this book on Amazon by visiting the page below:
https://amzn.to/2VMR5qr
Table of Content
Introduction
Section 1
Linux Installation
Guide
How to Choose A Linux Distribution
Installing Linux on Windows: Virtualization.
Installing Linux on Windows: Dual Boot
Installing Linux on Windows: WSL
Installing Linux on Mac OSx: Virtual Machine
Section 2
Linux Command, Terminal, and Shell
Linux Dictionary
The Command Line History
Simple Commands
Section 3
Navigating the Filesystem
The Current Working Directory
Tips and Notes about Linux Filesystem
ls Command Deep Dive
Section 4
Understanding the Filesystem
The less command
 The Linux Filesystem
Section 5:
File and Directory Manipulation in Linux
Creating Directories – mkdir
Copying Files and Directories – cp Command
Moving, Renaming Files and Directories – mv command
Deleting Files and Directories – rm Command
Wildcards
Soft and Hard Links
Section 6
Commands for Working With Commands
Commands: Simple definition
Identifying Commands
Creating Custom Commands
Permissions
Owners, Groups, and Others
Read, Write, and Execute File Permissions
Changing File Modes – chmod command
Set Default Permissions – umask command
Sudo and su Users
Changing File Owners – chown command
Changing Users password – passwd command
Conclusion
 Section 1
Linux Installation
Guide
The first thing we will do before diving into the command line is getting
your system setup. For Windows or PC users, you have three available
options that allow you to run Linux on any system running Microsoft office.
We will cover each option individually in the upcoming sections.
These available options for PC users include:

Using Linux as Dual Boot with Windows,

Installing Linux on a Virtualization software,
Windows subsystem for Linux (WSL) features and finally
Using Live Media such as USB or DVDs.
For Mac OS users, you can use Dual Boot alongside Linux, use
Virtualization software, or opt for live media.
Let us get started.
How to Choose A Linux Distribution
This section covers how to choose the right Linux distribution.
A Linux distribution, commonly called a distro, is a different “flavor” of a
Linux operating system built on top of the native Linux kernel to carry out
various use-cases and preferences.
Since all distributions are Linux-based, they tend to be quite similar, and
therefore usable interchangeably. For example, a distribution like Ubuntu is
the most popular due to its ease of use and the ability to abstract small
configuration tasks for its users. A distribution such as Arch Linux does not
offer the same features and is better suited if you want to have more control
over the system and tweak it to suit your needs.
If you are entirely new to Linux, opt for a Debian distro such as Ubuntu or
Linux Mint, Arch distros such as Manjaro are also supported by this book.
Please do not take this recommendation to mean that these distributions are
beginner-geared. This book recommends these distros because they provide
a familiar environment for new users.
Installing Linux on Windows: Virtualization.
The first method we will explore for PC users is using Virtualization
Software. This is the easiest method as it does not require you to change
any system configuration or settings. All you require is a piece of simple-to-
use software.
The first step is to download the iso file for your Linux distribution. For this
book, we will opt for Ubuntu 20.04.1—the current version as of writing this
book.
Open the browser, navigate to the resource link below, and download the
Ubuntu iso.
https://ubuntu.com/
Next, we need to get virtualization software. We are going to use Oracle
VirtualBox as it is easy to install and use. You can also choose other tools
such as VMware, KVM, or Hyper-V. Open your browser, navigate to the
resource link below, and download the latest version of VirtualBox.
https://www.virtualbox.org/
NOTE: You will have to enable virtualization technology (VT-X) to run
any virtualization software. Check the web on how to enable Virtualization
for your specific device.
Once you download the VirtualBox installer, launch it and go through the
typical Windows installation process. Ensure to select all the features during
the installation process as shown below.
During the installation process, the setup may prompt you to install the
Oracle USB driver. Select install.

With the software setup, we can begin installing Ubuntu or your Linux
distribution.
In most cases, the distribution you choose will provide an installation guide.
Check the guide for your specific distribution.
Once you launch VirtualBox, you will get a window similar to the one
shown below:
Next, click on New, which will launch a box that requires you to provide
basic details about your Operating system. Enter the name of the
VirtualBox—feel free to provide any suitable name. In this case, we shall
name it Ubuntu.
Next, select the location in your filesystem where you want the Virtual
machine file stored. You can leave this as default. Next, choose the type
from the dropdown menu. If you provide a name for popular Operating
Systems, VirtualBox should detect the Type and Version. If this does not
happen, select the type as Linux and type as Ubuntu_64.
Select Debian for all Debian derivatives and Arch for Arch-based distros.
Next, select Expert mode, which will provide you with more options. Select
the amount of memory you want to allocate for your OS. We recommend
above 4GB unless you have less, in which case, you can allocate 1- 2GB.
Next, select create virtual disk now and click on create now:

Select the size and location storage for the virtual disk in the next windows
—leave this as default.
In hard disk file type, select VirtualBox Disk image and set as dynamically
allocated. That ensures the size of the hard disk increases as the system
needs more storage.
Click on create.
That should create a virtual machine that should be available in the list of
your virtual machines.
Now click on the Settings icon to launch the virtual machine’s settings, then
next, select the System option on the left side menu. That will give you all
the settings on the virtual system of your virtual machine. Under processor,
select the number of processors to allocate the machine.
Next, go to storage settings and select the Controller IDE. Under attributes,
click on the disk icon and select “Choose a disk file.” This will launch the
file explorer. Navigate to your download folder and select the Ubuntu iso
image we downloaded earlier.
Click on save and go back to the main menu. Select the start option to boot
up the virtual machine. During bootup, VirtualBox will prompt you to select
the startup disk. Select the Ubuntu iso we configured.
That will boot you up in the GRUB menu to select which option to use.
Select Ubuntu in the first option—as shown below.

If all configurations and settings are working properly, this should boot up
using the Ubuntu installer from the iso. Once in the installer menu, select
Install Ubuntu as we are running it on a virtual machine.
Continue with the installation options such as Language and Keyboard
Layout. Next, you can select either Normal installation, which comes
prepackaged with games and other utilities, or Minimal install, which only
contains basic system utilities.
Since we will work with the terminal, it’s best to choose the Minimal install
option.
You can enable or disable to install updates during the installation.
In the next section, select erase disk, and install Ubuntu. If you want to
customize disk allocation, choose advanced options.
As we are running a virtual machine that only affects the virtual disks, we
can use the entire disk for the installation.

Select install now, which will prompt you to confirm changes to the disk.
Go ahead and click yes and confirm.
Confirm your location and click on next. In the next step, enter your details
and set up your username and password, and click on continue.
Finally, click “install” to begin the installation process. Once the installation
is complete, you should boot into Ubuntu and start working with Linux.
Installing Linux on Windows: Dual Boot
Here, we are going to cover how to dual boot Windows alongside Ubuntu.
For this method, you will require a USB flash drive and free space on your
hard disk.
The first step—as usual—is to download the Ubuntu iso from the official
site. Next, we are going to download a tool to burn the iso on the flash
drive.
Open your browser, navigate to the resource page below, and download the
windows installer.
https://balena.io/etcher
Once you have acquired the installer, install and launch to begin the
process. Once you launch Balena, you will get a window that resembles the
one shown below:

In the window above, select the “Flash from File” option. Doing this will
prompt you to provide the location of the Ubuntu image we downloaded.
Next, Insert your Flash disk into your computer; BalenaEtcher should
automatically detect it.
If you have more than one device connected, choose the correct from the
Target menu. Once selected, click on Flash to begin the burning process.
NOTE: This will wipe your USB drive. Backup important data!
The next thing we are going to do is create a partition for our Linux
installation. On your Windows machine, Right-click the start menu and
launch the Disk management tool.
On the partition you want to create some space, right-click and select
Shrink Volume. Provide the amount of space to allocate to the partition; the
recommendation is more than 10GB of storage.
Once completed, reboot your machine and select your boot devices as the
USB device we created above.
NOTE: Check the web on how to select a boot device for your specific
machine.
This will boot Ubuntu and take you to the installation window. Follow the
process in the above section until you get to a point where the system
prompts you to select the installation type. Select install Alongside window
and click continue and complete the process.
Installing Linux on Windows: WSL
In a recent version of Windows, Microsoft has introduced a feature that
allows you to run Linux from within your system without a Hypervisor.
However, this feature is only available in the most recent version of
Windows 10. If you have earlier versions of Windows, consider using other
methods to run Linux.
For this to work, we need to enable the WSL feature. Open the start menu
and search for “Turn Windows features on or Off.” This will launch the
windows features window where we can turn on the WSL feature.

Click on Ok to apply the changes. This process may require you to reboot
your machine. Next, open Microsoft store and search for Ubuntu. Select
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and click on install.

Once the WSL feature is enabled and Ubuntu installed, Launch the
application to start the installation. Provide a Linux username and password
to boot up the machine.

NOTE: WSL Installation does not provide a GUI interface, but since this
guide is about working with the terminal, this should not be a problem.
Installing Linux on Mac OSx: Virtual Machine
Because of this book’s scope, we shall not discuss a step-by-step process to
install Linux on a Virtual Machine on Mac. Check the Linux installation
process for Windows as they are similar.
 Section 2
Linux Command, Terminal, and
Shell
Before we dive deep into executing Linux commands, let us first define a
few common terms in Linux.
Although these terms are basic, it’s good to get a good handle on their
meaning and differences:
Linux Dictionary
The most common Linux terms you need to know are:

1. A command – A command in Linux refers to a set of

characters recognized by the kernel and used to perform
various tasks.
2. A Terminal – Terminal refers to a graphical interface used to
take the user’s command and bash it along to the shell. It
usually includes a shell prompt with the format of
username@machinenane and a cursor. Although you will find
various terminal versions in different distros, they mainly carry
out the same tasks.
3. Shell – The shell refers to the middleman between the user and
the kernel. It allows you to enter commands and interprets
them to the kernel. Linux includes various types of shells, such
as bash, zhs, fish, dash, etc.
Since you now know the most important terms, let’s get started with our
first command in Linux.
If you are using a virtual machine or dual boot, open the Applications
menu, and search for the terminal.
For WSL users, launch the Ubuntu application; you should drop into a shell
immediately.
Once in the shell, you should see something like this:
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$
We call that a shell prompt; it indicates that the shell is ready to access
commands and execute them. The shell prompt may vary depending on
your distribution but mainly includes your username@machinename,
followed by a dollar sign. If you have a pound sign # rather than a dollar $
sign, it means you are running the shell session with superuser privileges.
That means you have logged-in in as a superuser or launched a terminal that
includes root privileges.
If the terminal is ready and all things look good, let us try to enter some
rubbish text and see what happens.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ dfsskdhd
Since the command entered does not make any sense to the shell, it shall
give you an error and provide a prompt to enter another command.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ dfsskdhd
dfsskdhd: command not found
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$
The Command Line History
The shell gives us the ability to view all the commands we execute. We can
view this by pressing the up or down arrow key. This feature is called The
command Line History; it can store over 500 commands.
Simple Commands
Since we have verified that the terminal and shell are working, let us
execute valid commands.
The first command we are going to type is pwd , used to print the current
working directory.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ pwd
/home/ubuntu
The command tells us that we are in the /home/ubuntu directory—we’ll
learn more about directories in upcoming chapters.
Try another command such as free to see the total amount of free memory
in your system.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ free
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 4127084 2684684 1213048 17720 229352 130866
8
Swap: 12582912 164640 12418272
Once done with our terminal session, we can close it by terminating the
terminal window or using the shell prompt’s exit command.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ exit
NOTE: Even when you are running a terminal session as a user, various
terminal sessions are always running in the background. These terminal
sessions are known as virtual consoles and are accessible by pressing CTRL
+ ALT + F1
 Section 3
Navigating the Filesystem
In this chapter, we will learn how to navigate the Linux filesystem using the
command line.
Navigating the filesystem using the command line is an essential skill as
most of the time, you will be working with files.
Now, before jumping directly into the terminal, let us talk about Linux
Filesystem.
Linux and all other Unix-like Operating systems use the hierarchical
directory file structure. The hierarchical directory structure is where
directories and files have a tree-like filesystem or organizational structure.
Directories are also known as folders.
The first directory in the hierarchical structure is called the root directory.
The root directory also contains subdirectories and other files within it.
These subdirectories also contain other directories and files and so on.
You can learn more about HFS here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard
https://tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/Linux-Filesystem-
Hierarchy.html
For Windows-like systems, you will find each specific filesystem structure
for each storage device.
In Linux, a single system contains a single filesystem structure despite the
number of storage devices connected. Each storage device connected gets
mounted on a certain point in the filesystem.
The Current Working Directory
Those used to working with the graphical system navigate the directory
easily as it’s just going up and down.
However, the terminal does not provide a graphical method to access files
and directories, making navigating the Linux Filesystem not easy. It’s a
complex system, and without knowing where we are or where we want to
go, we can’t do much.
NOTE: At each point in the terminal, you are inside a specific directory.
Some terminals may show you which directory you are in at that moment.
We can view which directory we are in by using the pwd command. Unless
you navigate to a different location in the file system once you launch a
terminal session, your current directory is your home directory. Each
account in Linux is assigned their home directory where that specific
account is allowed to read, write and execute files in that directory.
A root user or users in sudo group can access all files and directories within
the filesystem.
Listing Files and Directories
To list files and directories within the current working directory, we use the
ls command.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ ls
Desktop Documents Music Pictures Public Templates Videos
The ls command is an amazing command that you can use to do more than
list files and directories of the current directory. We will discuss the ls
command a bit more deeply in later sections.
Moving Between Directories
To move between directories. i.e., from our current directory within the
filesystem to another location in the filesystem, we use the cd command.
The cd command is followed by the pathname of the directory we want to
navigate to.
A pathname refers to the directories or subdirectories we navigate to get to
that directory.
If that sounds confusing, here’s a simpler explanation:
Consider an instance where we want to navigate to a directory called music.
To get there, first, we go to home, then the username, then Downloads, and
then music. The pathname is thus /home/username/Downloads/Music.
Pathnames can be provided in two ways, i.e., Relative and Absolute
pathways.
Let us discuss the difference between these pathname styles:
1: Absolute Pathnames
Absolute pathnames are very common when working with Linux
directories. They mainly begin with the root directory (uppermost directory)
and follow the tree (subdirectories) branch by branch to the target location.
An example of an absolute path is the one shown above.
Let us talk about where devices get mounted in Linux. The path to where
devices get mounted by default is /media/username/<name of storage
device>. That means that, from the root directory indicated by /, we go to
the media directory, then username directory, and finally, the device name.
If you want to see the top directory, cd into / to view all the files.

Depending on the distribution you are using, you may get additional or
fewer directories than those shown above.
You may notice that once we navigate to a specific directory, the shell
prompt style changes appending the current path before the dollar sign.
For example, change directory to /usr/share using the command cd
/usr/share
ubuntu@VSALEM:/$ cd /usr/share
ubuntu@VSALEM:/usr/share$
2: Relative Pathnames
Relative pathnames are the other type of pathnames in Linux. Unlike
absolute pathnames where you start at the root directory, relative pathnames
start at the current working directory.
To achieve this, relative pathnames use special symbols to indicate relative
positions in the filesystem. These symbols include the dot (.) and the dot dot
(..)
The dot symbol represents the current working directory while the dot dot
symbol represents the working directory parent.
Let us see how it works.
In your terminal, navigate to /usr/share or any directory where you have
read permission.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ cd /usr/share/
ubuntu@VSALEM:/usr/share$ pwd
/usr/share
Suppose we want to go to the parent directory of share, which is /usr? We
can either use the absolute path and cd /usr or use the relative path by
entering the command cd ..
Now the question becomes, which should you use? The answer is the one
that requires less typing.
For example:
Let us assume you are in your /home folder. To go to /usr/share we can go
using cd /usr/share or cd ../../usr/share
NOTE: If you do not include the . (representing the current directory), the
shell automatically includes it
For example:
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ cd /usr
ubuntu@VSALEM:/usr$ cd share
ubuntu@VSALEM:/usr/share$ cd ..
ubuntu@VSALEM:/usr$ cd ./share
ubuntu@VSALEM:/usr/share$
That means if the working directory is not specified, the shell automatically
assumes.
Tips and Notes about Linux Filesystem
Here’re some tips and pointers on working with the Linux filesystem:
1. Use the cd command to go back to your home directory in an
instance.
2. cd - - The cd command with the dash (-) argument takes you back
to the previous working directory.
3. cd ~ - Changes to the directory of the username specified.
4. Filenames in Linux are case sensitive. Thus, Directory and
directory are two different files.
5. Avoid using spaces while naming files and directories. Although
Linux does support spaces, use underscores, dots or dashes because
navigating directories with spaces is very hard. Here’s an example:
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ cd This\ directory\ has\ spaces/
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ cd This.Dir.Has.Spaces/
6. Linux contains hidden files that start with a dot (.). To view hidden
files and directories, use ls -a, which includes the hidden attribute.

Linux does
not contain or recognize the concept of file extensions. However, that does
not mean that if Linux does not, programs running in Linux don’t.
ls Command Deep Dive
As you continue to work with Linux, you will realize that ls is probably one
of the most used commands. That is perhaps for a good reason because it
provides you with the ability to view files and directories, their attributes
and permissions, and much more.
In this subsection, we shall delve deeper into the ls command and its
arguments and learn how to use them.
Up to now, we have covered how to list files and directories within our
current working directory.
Apart from the current directory, we can specify which directory to list
without moving into it.
For example:

From the above command, we can see the contents of the /usr/share
directory directly from the home directory.
You can also list more than one directory using a single command, shown
below:
The command above lists files and directories in both the home directory
(~) and /usr directory.
We can also pass some more arguments to the ls command to get more
details about the files and directories.

a. The -l argument changes the format which the files and

directories are listed and provides more details. Example:
Don’t worry about what the details mean as we will cover them in
upcoming sections, but from the output above, we get a lot more details
about the same files.
That brings us to a fundamental concept about commands. Most commands
in Linux uses what we call arguments. Arguments are additional options
used to modify the behavior of a command. (Case in point).
In some cases, options and arguments can mean two different things. For
example, a command to manage wireless devices may take the device name
as an option and another argument to modify its operations.
The general syntax for arguments and options is:
command -option argument
Most commands have arguments, including a single letter preceded by a
dash (-) symbol such as ls -l. These arguments can also be chained together
using a single dash, as shown in the example below:
With the above command, the ls command gets modified using -al
argument to list files in a specific format and include hidden files and
directories.
You can also modify the sorting order of files and directories using the –
reverse argument.

As you can see, the file listings order is now in reverse, listing them in an
alphabetical-descending order.
Do you remember what we mentioned about how a single command can
take up an entire chapter? The Ls is one of those commands.
Here, however, we shall not delve deep. Check out the ls manual to learn
more.
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/ls.1.html
Instead, we shall list some of the ls most common arguments, which
include:

1. -a or --all – This argument lists all files and directories,

including hidden ones (beginning with a dot) not listed under a
normal ls command.
2. -t – the -t argument sorts files by the date of modification.
3. -d or --directory - This argument in conjunction with -l
argument lists details about the directory itself and not its
contents.
4. -r or --reverse – As we have seen, the –reverse command lists
files in reverse order. In a normal ls command, files and
directories get displayed in an alphabetical-ascending order.
5. -l – Used to list files and directories in a long format.
6. -F or --classify – The classify argument places a character
indicator at the end of a file or directory. For example, it will
append a forward slash (/) to a directory.
7. -h or --human-readable – The -h argument, used in
conjunction with the -l argument, shows the size of files and
directories in a human-readable format. i.e., In kilobytes,
megabytes, gigabytes, and so on instead of bytes.
8. -S – the -S argument sorts the files and directories by their file
size.
Let us talk about the details we get from using ls -l command.
We saw something similar to this.
Let us examine one file and see what it means.
1. drwxr-xx-x – The first field indicates the file type and the access
rights to that file. The first character in the first field indicates the
file type, and the rest used to show access rights. Among various
file types, a leading dash in the first character indicates a regular
file while a d indicates a directory. The next three characters show
the access rights of the file owner. The next three characters in the
second field indicate the access rights for the filegroup members,
while the last characters in the third field show access rights for
everyone else.
Note: Details about what that means are in the users, groups, and
permissions chapter.
2. 1 – The next is a number used to indicate the file’s number of hard
disks. We shall discuss file links in upcoming chapters.
3. ubuntu – The next field we see is the username of the owner of the
file. Because my username is called Ubuntu, the owner is hence
Ubuntu. Try listing /usr directory and see the difference
4. ubuntu – This field shows the group owner of the file. We will
cover users and groups in later chapters.
5. 4.0k – This shows the size of files in a human readable format. If
you do not use the -h argument, the size will appear shown in
bytes.
6. Nov 2 11:15 – The next is the date and time of file modification.
7. .bashrc – This indicated the name of the file.
 Section 4
Understanding the Filesystem
Now that we have learned how to explore and navigate the filesystem, we
can move to the next part: understanding the organizational structure of the
Linux filesystem.
We will start by learning how to view file contents. Then we shall move to
how Linux organizes everything, including where applications are stored,
boot configuration, users’ directories, and more, and then finish off with
symbolic and hard links.
As you may recall from earlier chapters, we mentioned that Linux does not
require file extension to determine files and filetypes. For example, where a
normal document would have a file extension like *.pdf, *.odt, or *.doc ,
Linux does not require that.
In this section, we will learn how to view the contents of file using the file
command.
To start, create a text file using the command:
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ echo “Hello world!”> myfile.txt
At the moment, don’t worry about what the commands mean. Next, use the
file command to see the file content.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ file myfile.txt
myfile.txt: ASCII text
Linux then tells you that myfile.txt is an ASCII text file, which is true. It’s
good to note that there are numerous filetypes. In Linux, you will often
come across the phrase, “In Linux, everything is a file,” which is true. In
Linux, even directories are types of files.
The less command
Let us take on another fun Linux command, the less command. The less
command is a tool that allows you to view the contents of a file. Do not
confuse this with the file command that shows the type of file.
In Linux, many files are in raw ASCII text, such as source code files, bash
scripts, configuration files, and much more. Using the less command
allows us to view and examine what is in these files. In the next section, we
will learn how to use various tools, including vi and nano , to edit files but
for now, let us view what is in them.
The general syntax for the less command is:
less <filename>
Using the less command, we can view the content of file and scroll up and
down using up-down arrow keys. If the files’ contents are larger than a
single page determined by the terminal window, we can use space to
navigate to the next page. Once done with the file, we use the Q key to quit
from the file.
For example, use the less command to view a file used to store sources for
install packages.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ sudo less /etc/apt/sources.list
The less command works very well when used in combination with
keyboard commands. The following are some of the keyboard shortcuts to
use while working with less.
1. Spacebar – Used to scroll to the next page of a file.
2. Up Arrow – used to scroll up one line
3. Down Arrow – Scrolls down one line at a time.
4. Q – Quits the less commands
5. H – used to display the less help menu.
6. B – used to scroll to the previous page.
7. G – Scrolls to the end of the file.
8. /characters – used to Search forward to the next occurrence of a
string.
The less command is an improvement of its predecessor command known
as less. Try running the command:
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ whatis less
less (1) - opposite of more
The Linux Filesystem
The Linux filesystem is probably the most important section of this book.
Hence, the book will give you a deep understanding of the Linux
filesystem, such as where the root directory is, tec.
Once you understand the FS, you will be in a position to find more
commands, read, write, execute files, and so much more. Understand this
part, and you can work with any Linux distro like a master.
In most cases, the layout of the Linux filesystem is the same across all
Linux distribution. Although this is not always the case in all distributions,
in most cases, the structure is similar and implemented by the Linux
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.
https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/index.html
As we explore the filesystem and understand what lies beneath this
incredible operating system, use your device to these directories practically,
use the file command to examine a fil, and even use the less command to
see what a certain file contains.
Linux Directory Organization
Here are the Directories found in Linux systems and what each directory is
reserved to include:
1. / - This is the root directory of a Linux system where everything
starts.
2. /bin – The bin directory stores or contains binaries required for the
system to boot and run.
3. /boot – boot directory contains the Linux kernel, RAM disk image,
and the required bootloader. You will find files such as
/boot/grub/grub.conf or menu on a system that uses grub as the
bootloader .lst, Kernel images such as /boot/vmlinuz etc.
4. /dev – Dev directory contains device nodes. This is a special kind
of directory used by the kernel to store a list of devices it
recognizes.
5. /etc – etc is one of the most important directories in Linux
systems. It contains a list of system-wide configuration files. /etc
directory can also contain a collection of shell scripts used to
launch services during system boot. Almost every file in the /etc
 directory is plain text. Common files found in this directory include
/etc/passwd that has a list of user accounts, /etc/resolv.conf that has
the DNS resolver configuration, /etc/crontab that has a list of
startup operations.
6. /home – The home directory has specific directories for each user
to prevent users from tampering with other directories. However,
this is not always the case, and you may find special cases where
this does not happen.
7. /lib – Lib folder contains a collection of shared library files used
by the core Linux system. Think of dll directories in Windows
systems.
8. /lost+found – This directory contains all devices and partitions
formatted in a Linux filesystem such as ext4 or ext3. This
directory’s purpose is to work in case of a partial recovery from a
filesystem corruption event. In most cases, unless something
terrible happens to your system, this directory is usually empty.
9. /media – We mentioned the media directory in earlier chapters. It
is mainly used by modern Linux systems to store mount points for
removable devices mounted automatically.
10. /mnt – the /mnt directory holds devices mounted
manually.
11. /opt – the /opt directory holds third party software
installed on the system. If you are using commercial software, you
will most likely find it here.
12. /proc – This is a special kind of directory and acts as a
filesystem. It is not a real filesystem in the way files are stored in
the disk. The /proc directory acts as a virtual filesystem maintained
by the Linux kernel. It has files that allow a view of the kernel.
Files stored in the /proc directory are readable. They give a picture
of how the kernel manages the system. For example, to view the
CPU information, you can use the command less /proc/cpuinfo.
13. /root – This directory contains the files for the root user.
It is the official root user home directory.
14. /sbin – The /sbin directory is used by the kernel to store
system binaries. System binaries are critical programs used to
carry out vital tasks on the system. Linux mainly reserves them
for superuser accounts.
15. /tmp – this directory stores temporary or transient files
generated by various programs. This directory gets cleared
upon a reboot.
16. /usr – This is another important directory in Linux. It
contains programs and support files used by all users. This is
one of the largest directories in the Linux system and contains
thousands of files.
17. /usr/bin - /usr/bin This one holds the executable
programs that have been installed by your Linux distribution.
18. /usr/lib – Contains shared libraries for programs stored in
/usr/bin directory.
19. /usr/local – This directory contains programs not included
by a specific Linux distribution by default but is available for
system-wide use. For example, programs compiled by users get
stored in this directory. Although this directory exists by
default, it remains empty until privileged users add files to it.
20. /usr/sbin – Used to store system admin programs.
21. /usr/share – The /usr/share directory contains shared data
used by programs in /usr/bin directory. You will find some
configuration files here, icons, themes, cursors, sound config
files, and more.
22. /usr/share/doc – This directory stores documentation files
for most packages installed in the system.
23. /var – This directory stores data that constantly changes,
such as databases, spool files, mail, and more. All other
directories in Linux except /tmp and /home are static.
24. /var/log – As the name suggests, the /tmp/log directory
stores log files for various system operations. This directory
requires constant monitoring as it contains critical log files for
 the system. You may require superuser privileges to view log
files.
Now that we have explored the world of Linux FS, we can learn how to
work with files and directories. How we can copy, move, delete,
rename, etc. files and directories. In the next chapter, we are going to
get hands-on with file operations.
 Section 5:
File and Directory Manipulation in
Linux
This section shall discuss the commands that allow us to work with
Linux files and directories.
File and directory operations are very common when working with
computers, and thus, the commands in this section are essential.
As we go through the chapter, you will discover that it is easier to
move, rename, delete, and do file operation using a graphical file
manager. However, if you want more control and flexibility over what
you carry out, the command line provides that power.
Let us get started:
Creating Directories – mkdir
The first command we are going to look at is the mkdir command. The
mkdir command creates directories in the current or specified
workspace. Here is how the mkdir command works:
mkdir directoryName
Although it may seem simple enough, the mkdir is pretty powerful. You
can create more than one directory in a single command as:
mkdir dir1 dir2 dir2 dir4 dir5…dir(n)
Once the command gets executed, it creates all the directories passed
above as:
 Copying Files and Directories – cp Command
The next command is the cp command used to copy files and
directories from one location to another within a Linux filesystem.
The cp commands support two syntaxes:
cp file1 file2 or cp dir1 dir2
This syntax copies file1 or dir2 to file2 or dir2. This comes in handy
when working with single items or a single directory.
The next syntax for the cp command is:

In this case, the cp command copies all the specified files from the current
directory to the specified directory.
The cp command has a wide selection of options that you can use to
manipulate how and what the command does. Although we will not discuss
all of them, here are options worth mentioning.
1. -a or --archive – Using the cp command using the --archive
option allows you to copy files and directories with all their
respective attributes and permissions. Without the argument, the
 copy command uses the permissions of the user carrying out the
copy command. For example, if the ubuntu user owned the copied
file, and root performed the copy, root owns the file. Be careful
with this.
2. -i or --interactive – The interactive argument enables the cp
command to prompt the user before overwriting a file. By default,
cp will automatically and silently overwrite a file.
3. -v or --verbose – As the name suggests, Verbose suggests shows
informative messages as each file and directory gets copied.
4. -r or --recursive – Allows the cp command to recursive copy files
and directories. This command gets plenty of use and is an almost-
must when copying directories.
5. -u or --update – The update argument is very effective. It tells the
cp command when copying files from one directory to another,
copy files that are newer than existing files in the destination
folder, or files that do not exist in the destination folder.
Moving, Renaming Files and Directories – mv command
The next command in the file operations section is the mv command. The
mv command moves or renames files depending on the syntax of the
command used.
Let us learn how to work with mv.
The first syntax for the mv command is similar to the cp command.
mv file1 file2
Using the syntax above, you move file1 into file2. If file2 exists, it gets
overwritten with the contents of file1. If it does not exist, the file2 gets
created, and file1 ceases to exist. That is the basic concept behind renaming
a file.
mv file1 file2…file(n) directory
When we use the syntax above, the mv command moves all the files
specified to the directory. For this to happen, the directory must exist.
Since mv and cp commands share a basic mode of operation, they share
similar options that include:
1. -i or --interactive – Will prompt the user before overwriting files.
2. -v or --verbose – Displays informative messages as the file
moving process continues.
3. -u or --update – Move files that do not exist or newer than existing
corresponding files.
Deleting Files and Directories – rm Command
The rm command deletes files and directories. The general syntax for the
command is:
rm file2 or directory1…file(n) or directory(n)
Depending on how and where you use the command, the rm command can
be very dangerous. Linux does not offer an undelete command, and once a
delete action occurs using the rm command, it is gone! Be careful when
working with rm .
The rm command also supports various arguments that include:
1. -f or --force – This option helps ignore nonexistent files and
arguments and never prompt
2. -i or --interactive – Prompts the user before deleting any existing
files. Cannot be used along with the --force argument.
3. -v or --verbose – Shows informative messages as the deletion
process gets carried out.
4. -r or --recursive – Recursively deletes files and directories. That
means if the specified directory contains subdirectories, remove
them as well.
We discuss wildcards shortly because they are helpful when working with
files and directories.
NOTE: You will often find a prank played on Linux beginners on the
internet telling you to execute the command cd / && sudo rm -rf *
As we continue, you will learn what the commands do but do not run the
command as this will break your entire system.
Wildcards
Now that we have covered file operation commands. Let us discuss a key
feature that makes these commands very powerful and better than using a
GUI file manager, although applicable to some file managers such as
Nautilus, Dolphin, or Caja .
The shell utilizes filenames intensively and provides a way to specify a
group of filenames in a single command. These are in the form of special
characters known as wildcards, also known as globbers.
Using wildcards, also known as globbing, allows you to select a group of
filenames based on patterns simultaneously. The following are common
wildcard supported on Linux systems.
1. * - The asterisk (*) wildcard finds and matches any characters
2. ? – Finds and matches any single character
3. [characters] – Finds and matches any characters that are members
of the set characters.
4. [! characters] – Finds and matches any characters that are not
members of the specified set.
5. [[:class]] – Finds and matches any characters that are members of
the set class. Commonly used character classes include:

a. [:alnum:] – Using alphanumeric characters as the

class.
b. [:alpha:] – alphabetical character class.
c. [:lower:] – lowercase letters character class.
d. [:upper:] – Uppercase letters character class.
e. [:digit:] – numeral character class.
Wildcards, therefore, provide a convenient way to create customized
selection criteria for filenames.
Here are some examples of wildcard use cases and their corresponding
matches.
 1. * - Everything including files and directories.
2. a* - Any file or directory beginning with the letter a.
3. a?? – Any files or directories beginning with the letter a and
followed by exactly two characters.
4. Log.[0-9][0-9][0-9] – Any files or directories beginning with the
word log followed by exactly three numerical values.
5. [[:upper:]]* – Any files or directories beginning with an uppercase
letter.
6. a*.txt – Any files or directories beginning with the character a
followed by any characters but ending with txt characters.
7. [abc]* - Any files or directories beginning with either the letter a,
b or c.
8. [![:lower:]] – Any files or directories not beginning with a
lowercase.
9. *[[:digit:]txt] – Any files or directories ending with a digit or the
characters txt.
Wildcards can work with all of the commands that accept filenames such as
cp, mv, rm, etc. Now you can see why the command sudo rm -rf * on the /
directory is a terrible idea. We will learn more about sudo in upcoming
chapters.
Soft and Hard Links
In Linux, you will sometimes come across a directory that may look
something like this:
 You will
notice that the directory first letter in the listing is an l instead of a regular
letter d for directories. It also seems to contain two directories in one. That
is a special kind of file in Linux known as a soft link, symlink or symbolic
link . Linux allows file referencing by multiple names.
From the command above, we see a symbolic link such a libx32 that points
to the directory /usr/libx32 . Hence, any program looking for the libx32
directory will get the /usr/libx32 directory.
Creating Links
To create symbolic links in Linux, we use the ln command. The general
syntax is:
ln file link
The above syntax creates a hard link.
ln -s item link
That creates a soft link for the passed item. The passed item can be either a
directory or a file.
Hard links vs. Soft Links
There is no significant difference between hard and soft links. The main
difference is how the two reference the files.
Hard links were the default ways of creating links in Linux, while symbolic
links are more modern, and by default, every file has a hard link that
provides a name for the file.
With a hard link created, an additional directory entry for the file also gets
created. Here are the main features of hard links:
1. They are not used to reference directories.
2. They cannot reference files outside their filesystems. This means a
hard link cannot reference a file in another partition than it
residential location.
A hard link is indistinguishable from the main file. Contrary to a directory
list holding a symbolic link, a directory list that has a hard link does not
show any special indication of the link. Once a hard link gets removed, the
link gets deleted, but the file’s main contents don’t get removed. This means
that space doesn’t get deallocated until after file deletion.
Symbolic links are the newer and more improved version of hard links.
Their development aim was to help overcome some of the limitations that
come with hard links.
Basically, symbolic links work by executing a special file containing a text
pointer to the referenced directory or file. They mainly work similarly to
Windows shortcuts.
A symbolic link and the main file referenced are very hard to distinguish.
Symbolic links do not delete files once it gets deleted. However, if the file
gets removed before the link gets removed, the symbolic link becomes
broken. You will encounter broken symbolic links indicated by red using
the ls command.
NOTE: We have covered a lot of information in this section alone. It may
take a while to master (not memorize) the commands and their arguments,
and the best way to learn is to practice. Play around with the commands
until you get them.
 Section 6
Commands for Working With
Commands
Up to this point, we have discussed a wide range of commands, with each
command having a wider range of options that are different or performed
differently.
In this chapter, we shall simplify these commands and even write unique
commands.
Commands: Simple definition
Before we discuss commands that help us work with other commands, let’s
understand commands a bit better. What is a command, really?
As mentioned at the beginning of the book, commands are texts or
characters you type in a terminal for the shell to execute. The typed
commands reference something within the Linux fs.
For example, a command like ls is a collection of code that finds files and
directories—the process is not as direct as it sounds. Hence, a command can
reference four types of things.
1. A shell function – shell functions refer to small shell scripts
merged in the Linux environment.
2. An executable program – A command can be a compiled binary
like files found in /bin and /usr/bin directories. Programmers can
compile these binaries in various languages such as C/C++, Python,
Perl, Ruby, etc.
3. Built-in shell command – These are a type of commands built-in
into the shell—also called shell built-ins.
4. An alias – a command can also refer to an alias or an alternative
name for a command. For example, you can create a command to
show free memory from free to fmem .
Identifying Commands
Identifying commands are commands used to identify what other
commands are and what actions they perform in the system. They include:
Show executable location – which command
In instances where there are multiple versions of an executable program
installed on a server, we can use the which command to locate an
executable file as follows:

Which command only works on executable programs, not on built-in shell

commands. If you run the which on a command like cd , you will get an
error:
Display command type – type command
The type command displays the type of command the shell is going to
execute. The types can include the ones we mentioned above.
The type command works like this:
From the commands above, we can see that the command cd is a shell
built-in, mkdir is an executable located in /usr/bin/mkdir . A command
like ls is really an alias for the ls command with --color=auto argument
enabled.
Displaying Commands Help and Documentation
Once we know what a command is and its location, we can find its
documentation stored in the system’s manual database.
The help command helps you find out about the options and arguments the
command accepts. In most cases, the help command only works on shell
built-in commands. For example:
Although the help command provides options and how they work, it is in no
way a tutorial. However, it comes in handy when you want to learn more
about a command.
Another popular mode of the help command is using it as an argument
using the --help syntax.
Most executable programs in Linux provides this argument to allow you to
find a command’s usage information. For example:
Not all commands support the --help argument. Some support -h and others
use manual pages. However, try it to find out if it works.
The most common way to find information about commands is by using
manual pages. Manual pages are formal pieces of documentation for
various commands. Manual pages are commonly known as man pages and
are accessible using a special command called man .
The general syntax for the command is:
man program
Where “program” represents the command that you need documentation
for. Although manual pages contain different formats and styles, they
mainly contain a title, a synopsis of the command’s syntax, and a
description of what the command does. It may also include a listing and a
description of the command’s options. Manual pages are sort of like a
reference and not a guide.
Manual pages use the less command to navigate the documentation. Try to
view the manual pages for the less command.

Manual Pages Organization

Manual pages are amazing tools when working with commands. They get
stored in the manual database organized in a specific format covering
executable commands, user commands, system administration commands,
file formats, etc.
Below is an outline of the layout of the manual pages.
1. 1 – The first section of the manual pages contains documentation
for user commands.
2. 2 – The second section is features kernel system calls
programming interfaces.
3. 3 – The third section contains C library’s programming interfaces
documentation.
4. 4 – The fourth section is for special files. This includes drivers and
device nodes.
5. 5 – Five is for file formats documentation.
6. 6 – The sixth section is for games and other enjoyments such as
wallpapers and screensavers.
7. 7 – Seven is for miscellaneous

a. 8 – The eighth section contains documentation for system

administration commands.
Sometimes you may have to search in a specific documentation section to
find the content you are looking for. For example:
ubuntu@VSALEM:/etc$ man 5 sudoers
The command above shows the documentation showing file formats for the
sudoers file.
Display Brief Description – whatis command
The whatis command is a handy command. It displays the name of the
command and one-line description from the man pages matching a specific
keyword.
For example:

Display Appropriate Commands – Apropos

Manual pages allow you to search for a match based on the passed term.
Using the command apropos , you can search a similar command from the
manual pages. For example:
You can also substitute the apropos command with man -k argument.
Another common command you can use to find command help and
documentation is the info command. It is an alternative to the man
command but provides hyperlinks to help navigate to specific sections.
The info program reads info files, structured like trees into individual
nodes, each encompassing a single topic. Info files have hyperlinks you can
use to move you from one node to the other. Hyperlinks are easy to identify
because of their leading asterisk. You can activate them by placing the
cursor on it, then hitting the ENTER key.
For example:
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ info ls
All the commands we have up to this point belong to the coreutils package
or the GNU Project. To find more details about residence and
documentation, use the command:
Many of the software packages you have installed on your system will have
documentation files stored in the directory /usr/share/doc . Most get stored
in plaintext format, but some are HTML and viewable with a web browser.
Some files will have a .gz extension, indicating files compressed using the
gzip compression program. The gzip package has a special less version
called zless that displays the information contained in gzip-compressed text
files.

Manual pages can be very good as references for a wide range of

commands. However, as we mentioned, they are not tutorials. If you want
to test how crazy manual pages are, try manual pages for bash. Do not get
frustrated, though; keep learning: you will understand what it all means.
Creating Custom Commands
This subsection covers how to create commands using the alias command.
The alias command allows you to come up with better names to substitute a
command or a single command to represent a sequence of commands.
Before we begin, the first task is to find out an appropriate name for our
command and ensure no other critical function is using it.

Unfortunately, info seems taken, and we cannot use it. Let us try mshell :
That one is available to use. We use the alias command, followed by a
command or a sequence of commands we want to use.
For example, to navigate to the /etc directory, read the passwd file, navigate
back home, and finally list the directories, we can combine all the
commands in one line using a shell trick shown below:
cd /etc; less passwd; cd ~; ls -la;
Using alias , we can create a single command as shown below: The general
syntax for the alias command is:
alias name=’string’
Pay attention to the structure of the command below:

Immediately after the alias command, we pass the name and a string of
commands we want to substitute. Once a command has been defined using
the alias command, we can use it anywhere.
We can see our alias using the type command.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ type mshell
mshell is aliased to `cd /etc; less passwd; cd ~; ls -la;'
To remove an aliased command, use the unalias command as shown below.
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ unalias mshell
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ type mshell
-bash: type: mshell: not found
Granted, we avoided using an alias of an existing command because
sometimes it is appropriate to do so. For example, the command ls is an
alias of ls --color-auto . The following are some of the aliases defined in
the environment, use the alias command without arguments to find out
more.
 Section 7
Permissions
One of the best features of Linux and other Unix-based systems is that they
are multitasking and multiuser. That means more than one user can use
systems simultaneously and run more than one process.
For example, a system attached to a network can have one user working on
it physically and others working remotely like SSH. Features such as the X
Window system allow remote users to run GUI applications remotely.
That is an amazing functionality built deep in the Linux kernel. However, to
implement this, users had to be protected from each other, preventing users
from interfering with files created by other users.
This chapter will look at how Linux implements protection measures like
identity, file permissions, file ownership, groups, etc.
Owners, Groups, and Others
Once in a while, when exploring the Linux file system, you will encounter
files that output the “Permission Denied” error when you try to read them.
An example of such a file is found in /etc/shadow

The main reason for this type of error results from user error. Meaning, if
you are running as a regular user, you may not have permission to read
some files.
Let us discuss how this works:
Linux uses what is we call the Unix Security model, which describes that a
user can own files and directories within a File system. If a user owns a
specific file or directory, he/she has full control over them. The user can
then belong to a group that consists of more than one user, all given access
to files and directories by their owners.
Besides providing access to the groups they belong to, a user or directory
owner can grant access rights to the world or everyone within the system.
You can find more information about your user identity by using the
command id .
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ id

Let us dissect the output and see what it means (not all of it!)
When a user gets created, he/she gets assigned a unique value referred to as
a uid or unique id value, then mapped to the user’s username. The system
assigns the user a primary group id, also called a gid value. The group id
may also belong to other groups.
Depending on the system you run the id command on, you will get
different results. For example, a system like Fedora starts numbering
accounts from 500. On the other hand, Ubuntu starts at 1000.
A single user in Ubuntu can belong in more groups—shown above—
because of how the Ubuntu system handles system services and device
privileges.
system
devices and services.
This information gets derived from Linux text files. Accounts in Linux get
stored in /etc/passwd file, while groups get stored in /etc/groups file. Upon
creation of a Linux user account or group, each of these files gets modified.
A file such as /etc/shadow, used to store user passwords, also gets changed.
For every user account, the /etc/passwd file defines the

Should you examine the contents of /etc/passwd and /etc/group , you’ll

notice regular user accounts, the superuser (uid 0, accounts, and various
other system users.
Read, Write, and Execute File Permissions
Access rights in Linux are defined using read, write, and execute
permissions. In the previous chapters, the ls command showed this.
Let us discuss how they work and their implementation.

As discussed in previous chapters, the first letter in the first block (in this
case, a dash) indicates the file type. A – (dash) represents regular files, d
represents directories, l symbolic links, c represents a character-special
file, and b represents block devices files.
The rest nine blocks represent file modes that are read, write, and execute.
When a directory or file has r, w, or x attribute, certain effects get applied:
1. r – Grants read permission allowing the user and group to open
and read a file’s contents. If applied on a directory, a user can list
the directory’s contents only when the execute attribute is active.
2. w – Permits file writing or truncating; however, the write attribute
disallows file renaming and deletion. Deleting or renaming files
depends on attributes allocated to the parent directory. When you
set the execute attribute, the write attribute allows the creation,
deletion, and renaming of directory files.
3. x – Makes it possible to represent a file as an executable program
and executed. To make files written using scripting languages
executable, you must also set them as readable. On a directory, the
execute attribute makes it possible to enter a directory, e.g., cd
directory .
The following are examples of permission attributes set on files and
directories.
 1. -rwx------ - Shows a regular file with read, write, and executable
permissions for the file owner only. No one else has either read,
write, execute permission to the file.
2. -rw------- - Also a regular file with read and write for the file
owner and no one else.
3. -rw-r--r-- - A regular file that has read and write for the file owner,
the owner’s group may also read the file and the world can read the
file too.
4. -rwxr-xr-x – Shows are regular file with read, write, and execute
permissions for the file owner, execute and read for the user’s
group and execute only for everyone else.
5. drwxrwx--- - Indicates a directory. The owner and user group
members may enter the directory, and create, rename and delete
files within the directory.
6. Lrwxrwxrwx – A symbolic link with placeholder permissions.
Placeholder permissions mean that the real permissions get
managed by the actual file referenced by the symbolic link.
Changing File Modes – chmod command
To change the permissions of a file or directory, we use the chmod
command.
Changing file permissions is only possible for file owners and superuser
accounts. Chmod supports two main ways to specify the permission
1. Octal notation
2. Symbolic notation
Symbolic Notation
Let us start with the symbolic representation of file permissions. Symbolic
notations have three main parts: who the change will affect, the operation
performed, and the permission set.
On who the changes will affect, letters such as u, g, o, and a are used. Here
are the meanings:
 u – file owner
g – group owner
– Others or world
a – all; meaning the combination of user, group and world
If no character is specified, all is assumed, and changes apply to users,
groups, and the world.
The operation to be carried out gets specified in three main characters, i.e.,
+ (plus), – (minus), and = (equals). The plus indicates that you should add
permission. A minus indicates permission should be removed, and equals
means that only the specified permissions should apply with others
removed.
The permissions to be applied get specified in three letters, r (read), w
(write), and x (execute).
Here are some symbolic notation examples:

a. u+r – Gives file owners read permission

b. u+x – Gives file owners execute permission
c. u-w – Removes write permissions for the file owner.
d. +x – Adds the execute permission for owner, group, and
world.
e. u+x,go=rx – Gives files owners execute permission. It also
sets read and execute group permissions—and others. Commas
can separate multiple specifications

Octal Notation
Octal notation, as the name suggests, uses octal values to indicate wanted
permissions patterns. You can learn more about Octal (base 8) here:
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/octal-number-system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octal#:~:text=The%20octal%20numeral%20s
ystem%2C%20or,for%20decimal%2074%20is%201001010 .
Because every octal number digit represents three binary digits, this plots
efficiently to the structure adopted when storing the file mode. The
following are the octal representations and their meaning.

0 – no read, write, or execute permission—represented as 000

in binary and --- as a symbolic file permission block.
1 – Execute permission only—represented as 001 in binary
and --x as a symbolic file permission.
2 – Read permission only—represented as 010 in binary and -
w- as a symbolic file permission.
3 – Write and Execute permission—represent in binary
notation as 011 and -wx as symbolic file permission.
4 – Read permission only—represented as 100 in binary and r-
- in symbolic.
5 – Read and execute—represented in binary 101 and r-x in
symbolic.
6 – Read and Write permission—represented as 110 in binary
and rw- in symbolic notation.
7 – Read, write, and execute permissions. 111 in binary
representation and rwx in symbolic.
We can use three octal digits to set and define the file mode for various
owners and the world. For example:
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ chmod 777 myfile.txt
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ ls -l myfile.txt
-rwxrwxrwx 1 ubuntu ubuntu 0 Nov 3 09:30 myfile.txt
Because of passing the octal value 777, we could set read, write, and
execute for all, i.e., users, groups, and everyone.

Set Default Permissions – umask command

The umask command allows you to control the default permission assigned
to a file upon creation. umask uses octal notation to represent a mask of the
bit removed from a file mode’s attributes. For example:

We begin by cleaning any existing copies of the file using the rm -rf
myfile.txt command.
Next, we executed the umask command without any arguments to view the
current value that corresponds to a value 0022 (you will often find 0002
too), which is an octal notation of our mask.
Finally, we create a new instance of the file and look at the default
permissions.
Sudo and su Users
The su and sudo commands are very useful while working with Linux.
Let us start with su and discuss what it does.
The su command starts a new shell session as another user. The general
syntax for the command is:
su [-[l]] [user]
If you call the su command with the -l argument, the shell provides a login
shell for the specified user. That means the user’s environment gets loaded,
and the working directory changes to the user’s home dir. If the user to
login to is not specified, it defaults to the superuser or root account. It is
also possible to substitute the -l argument with –
For example, to log in as root, we use the command:
ubuntu@VSALEM:~$ su -
Password:
root@VSALEM:~#
The command above prompts for the root user account’s password, and if
correct, we login as the superuser account, indicated by the pound sign and
the username in the shell prompt. To exit from a shell session, we use the
exit command.
You can also run a single command as a superuser without having to log in
as root. For example:
Another way to execute commands as another user is by using the sudo
command. It is similar to su but provides a lot more functionalities.
The superuser can configure sudo account, allowing another user to execute
commands as other users (mostly the root user).
Sudo makes it possible to restrict some users to certain commands. For
example, a user working with networking and processes can operate under
restriction to these commands, allowing him to do that specifically without
interacting with other administrative commands.
Unlike su where a user requires a root account to log in into the shell, sudo
requires a user to provide an account’s password. However, the user should
be in the group known as sudoers to run commands as sudo .
Changing File Owners – chown command
To change the owner of a file or directory, we use the chown command.
Chown, however, requires superuser privileges either using su or sudo .
The general syntax for the command is:
chown [Option]... [Owner][:[Group]] File
Examples:

You may encounter systems that use the command chgrp to change the
group of a file.
Changing Users password – passwd command
The last concept in this chapter and book is how to change your password
and other users’ passwords using superuser privileges.
To change or set a password for a specific user account, we use the
command passwd .
The general syntax for the command is:
passwd [user ]
To change the password for the current user, simply enter the command
passwd without arguments, which will prompt you to enter a new
password.
Depending on the system, passwd may require you to use a strong
password and reject passwords that are too weak or similar to previously set
passwords. To change a password for another user, use the passwd
command with sudo or su .
Check manual pages for the command to learn more about the arguments
available.
Conclusion
When it comes to mastering the Linux command line, the only secret is
practicing, practicing, practicing some more, and learning hungrily.
This is only a beginner’s guide, meaning we left many advanced concepts
untouched—we have barely scratched the surface of what the Linux
command line can do.
Check out the /usr/bin directory to see for yourself.
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