Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s

Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37

(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

ET3274: Operating Systems

Name of the student: Ekta Ispande Roll No. 69

Div: B Batch: B3
Date of performance:

OS LAB ASSIGNMENT NUMBER: 1

TITLE: Execution of basic & advanced Linux commands

OBJECTIVE:
Study of some Basic & Advance Unix commands on Linux/ Unix Operating System.
THEORY:
To execute a command, type its name, options and arguments at the shell prompt.

• Command name Options (flags) Arguments

• General Purpose Commands

1. date: To display current date & time of the system.

2. cal :To display calendar of current month.

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

3. who: List who is currently logged on to the system.

4. Whoami: Report what user you are logged on as.

5. echo : Echo a string (or list of arguments) to the terminal

6. bc: To perform mathematical operations

7. clear: To clear the screen.

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

8. alias : Used to tailor commands

Ex- alias erase=rm

alias grep=”grep -i”
alias cp=“cp –i”

9. man <cmd name>: To get help for any command.

10. passwd: To change the passward.

11. exit: To logout from the terminal

• File & Directory Related Commands

1. cp <fromfile> <tofile>: Copy from the <fromfile> to the <tofile>.

2. mv <fromfile> <tofile> : Move/rename the <fromfile> to the <tofile>.

3. rm <file>:Remove the file named <file>

3. mkdir <newdir>:Make a new directory called <newdir>.

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

4. rmdir <dir>:Remove an (empty) directory.

5. cd <dir> :Change the current working directory to dir.

7. pwd : Print (display) the working directory.

8. cat > <file> :To create new file n save it by pressing ^c

9. cat >> <file>: To append contents into file

10. cat <file>:To see the contents of existing file

11. more <file>:Paging out the contents of file.

12. file <file>:To check the type of file

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

13. wc <file>:To count lines,words,charaters of file

14. cmp <file1> <file2>:To compate two files

15. comm <file1> <file2>:To display common values between two files

16. diff <file1> <file2>:To convert one file to another

17. gzip <file>:To compress the file

18. gunzip <file>:To unzip the contents of

19. ls :List the files in the current working directory

20. ls <dir>:List all files & directories in given directory.

 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

21. ln <fromfile><tofile>: Creates a symbolic link to a file.

• Simple Filters

1. pr <file> :Paginating the file

Ex pr –h “test” –d –n fname

2. head <file>:Display first 10 lines of file

Ex head –n -3 fname

3. tail <file> :To display last 10 lines of file

Ex tail -3 fname ; tail –c 100 fname
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

4. cut <file> :Splitting file vertically

Ex cut –c 2-10,12-14 fname
a. cut –d “|” –f 2,4 fname

5. paste <file1> <file2> :To combine two file vertically rather than horizontally
Ex paste –d “|” fname1 fname2
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

6. sort <file>:To sort file in order by field wise

Ex sort –t”|” –k 2 fname
a. sort –r fname
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

7. uniq <file> :Locate repeated & nonrepeated lines

Ex uniq fname; uniq –d fnam

8. tr ch1 ch2 < <file1>:To translate occurrence of ch1 by ch2

Ex tr ‘|’ ‘+’ < fname1
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

9. tee: read from standard input and write to standard output and files
Ex. ls *.txt | wc -l | tee count.txt

File permission: Use the chmod command to change file permissions

1. Changing permission relative manner
Category Operation Perm.
u-user + assign r-read
g-group - removal w-write
o-other = assign abs perm. x-execute
a-all
Syntax: chmod category operation perm. <file>
Ex chmod u+x fname
chmod a+x fname
chmod u-x fname
chmod a-x,go+r fname
2. Changing permission absolute manner
Read=4
Write =2
Execute=1
Ex chmod 666 fname
chmod 644 fname
chmod -R 644
Change owner & group
Syntax: chown options owner files
Ex chown “xyz” fname
Syntax: chgrp options group files
Ex chgrp “xyz” fname

Redirection: Provide a powerful command line controls

Most Linux commands read input, such as a file or another attribute for the command,
and write output. By default, input is being given with the keyboard, and output is
displayed on your screen. Your keyboard is your standard input (stdin) device, and the
screen or a particular terminal window is the standard output (stdout) device
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

There are 3 types of redirection available in linux

1. Standard input redirection: It is used to redirect standard input.
Ex. cat < fname
2. Standard output redirection : It is used to redirect standard output.
Ex cat >fname
3. Standard error redirection: It is used to redirect standard error.
Ex cat fname 2>Errorfile

• Pipe
Connects commands so the output of one becomes input for the second
Vertical bar(|) is the pipe operator.
Ex. ls -l | more
cat file1 file2 | sort > file3
Concatenates file1 and file2
Sends the result to the sort command
Store the alphabetized, concatenate result as a new file called file3
Grep: Global regular expression print
Searching and pattern matching tools
Searches files for one or more pattern arguments. It does plain string, basic regular
expression, and extended regular expression searching
Following are some of the options for grep
-i ignore case for matching
-v doesn’t display lines matching expression
-n display line numbers along of occurrences
-c counting number of occurrences
-l display list of file names
-e exp for matching
-f file take patterns from file
-E treat pattern as an extended reg. exp
-F matches multiple fixed strings (fgrep)
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

• Problems to be solved in the lab:

1. Change your password to a password you would like to use for the remainder of
the semester.

6. Display the system’s date.

7. Count the number of lines in the /etc/passwd file.

8. Find out who else is on the system.

9. Direct the output of the man pages for the date command to a file named mydate.
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

10. Create a subdirectory called mydir.

11. Move the file mydate into the new subdirectory.

12. Go to the subdirectory mydir and copy the file mydate to a new file called ourdate
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

13. List the contents of mydir.

14. Do a long listing on the file ourdate and note the permissions.

15. Display the name of the current directory starting from the root.

16. Move the files in the directory mydir back to your home directory.

17. Display the first 5 lines of mydate.

18. Display the last 8 lines of mydate.

19. Remove the directory mydir.

20. Redirect the output of the long listing of files to a file named list.

21. Select any 5 capitals of states in India and enter them in a file named capitals1.
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

Choose 5 more capitals and enter them in a file named capitals2. Choose 5 more
capitals and enter them in a file named capitals3. Concatenate all 3 files and
redirect the output to a file named capitals.

22. Concatenate the file capitals2 at the end of file capitals.

23. Give read and write permissions to all users for the file capitals.

20. Give read permissions only to the owner of the file capitals. Open the file, make
some changes and try to save it. What happens ?
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

21. Create an alias to concatenate the 3 files capitals1, capitals2, capitals3 and
redirect the output to a file named capitals. Activate the alias and make it run.

22. Find out the number of times the string “the” appears in the file mydate.

23. Find out the line numbers on which the string “date” exists in mydate.

24. Print all lines of mydate except those that have the letter “i” in them.

25. List the words of 4 letters from the file mydate.

26. List 5 states in north east India in a file mystates. List their corresponding
capitals
in a file mycapitals. Use the paste command to join the 2 files.
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

27. Use the cut command to print the 1st and 3rd columns of the /etc/passwd file for
all students in this class.

28. Count the number of people logged in and also trap the users in a file using the
command.

29. Convert the contents of mystates into uppercase.

30. Create any two files & display the common values between them.
OUTPUT:mObserve and note down result displayed /generated after execution of
above commands.
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

APPLICATIONS:

1. To enable the user to communicate with the kernel through the command
interpreter.
2. Useful in Shell Programming.

• FAQs:

1) What is command Interpreter?

Ans- A command interpreter (also called a shell) is a program that interprets and executes
commands entered by the user. It acts as an interface between the user and the operating system. The
command interpreter processes the commands, performs the necessary actions, and provides the
output. Examples of command interpreters include Bash in Linux, Command Prompt in Windows,
and Zsh.

2) How will you find current working directory?

Ans - You can find the current working directory using the pwd (Print Working Directory) command
in a terminal. The command outputs the absolute path of the current directory.
Example: pwd

3) What is hierarchical file structure?

Ans- A hierarchical file structure is a system of organizing files and directories in a tree-like
structure. In this system, files are stored in directories (also called folders), and directories can contain
other directories (subdirectories), creating a hierarchy. The root directory is at the top of the hierarchy,
and all other directories are nested within it. In Unix-like systems, the hierarchical file structure starts
with the / root directory.

4) What are various functions of OS?

Ans - The Operating System (OS) performs several critical functions:
• Process Management: It manages processes, ensures that they execute correctly, and
schedules them for CPU time.
• Memory Management: The OS allocates memory to processes and manages the RAM
efficiently.
• File Management: It manages files, directories, and storage devices, including file access,
creation, and deletion.
• Device Management: The OS controls and manages hardware devices like printers, disk
drives, and network interfaces.
• Security and Access Control: It ensures that only authorized users have access to system
resources.
• User Interface: Provides an interface for users to interact with the system, either through
command-line or graphical user interface (GUI).
• Networking: Manages network connections and communication between systems.

5) How will you sort the file which contains numeric data?
Ans- To sort a file that contains numeric data, you can use the sort command with the -n option,
which sorts the data numerically.
Example: sort -n filename
 Bansilal Ramnath Agarwal Charitable Trust’s
Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune-37
(An Autonomous Institute Affiliated to Savitribai Pune University)

Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering

This will sort the file filename containing numeric data in ascending order. For descending order, you
can use the -r option along with -n: sort -nr filename

CONCLUSION:-

In this lab, we explored and executed various basic and advanced Linux commands on a
Linux/Unix operating system. By understanding how to use commands for tasks such as file
manipulation, process management, and system navigation, we gained hands-on experience
with the command line interface. This lab helped us to better understand the functionality
and efficiency of Linux commands, which are essential for system administration and
troubleshooting in Unix-based environments.