CSE 314

</ Operating System Sessional

/>
Session 1
Introduction to the Linux CLI
(Command Line Interface)

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</ The Shell
● GUIs are limited
○ Can only interact what the programmer allows in the UI
○ Makes easy tasks easy
● Textual interface = Full advantage
○ Also known as “Shell” (command line interface)
○ Various implementations
○ Linux / MacOS: Bourne Again SHell (bash)
○ Makes difficult tasks possible!
</ The Shell
● username@machine_name:~$
○ Your username
○ The name of the machine you are on
○ The directory you are in (~)
○ $ indicates you are a normal user
○ # ⇒ superuser (“Run as administrator”)
</ Handy Shortcuts
● <CTRL> + <ALT> + T : Open terminal
● <CTRL> + D : Close terminal
● <CTRL> + L : Clear terminal screen
● <CTRL> + A/E : Jump to beginning/end of line
● <CTRL> + K/U : Delete everything ahead/before of cursor
● <CTRL> + Y : Paste text cut by <CTRL> + K/U
● <CTRL> + LEFT / RIGHT : Move by word
● TAB : Auto-complete matching file names
● <CTRL> + C : Cancel current command
● UP / DOWN : Cycles between recently used commands
</ Copy & Paste
● Double click (or select) something with a mouse to copy
and click the middle button to paste
● <CTRL> + SHIFT + C => Copy
● <CTRL> + SHIFT + V => Paste
</ Some Basic Commands
● date
● echo
○ Simply prints the arguments passed
○ Hello world → Two separate arguments
○ “Hello world” → A single argument
○ Can use quotes (“”) or escape sequences (\)
</ Environment Variables
● Where to find these programs (date, echo, ...)?
○ Environment Variable
○ $PATH ⇒ Lists the paths to look for commands
○ Can modify it to include more directories
■ Usually in dotfiles (aka shell configuration files)
■ .bashrc, .profile, .bash_aliases
● which CMD ⇒ Prints path to CMD if it exists
</ Exploring the Shell
● pwd
○ Prints the path of the current directory (Print Working Directory)
○ Path on the shell is a sequence of folders, separated by /
○ /home/terrarium
○ / ⇒ Top of the filesystem
■ aka the “Root” directory

● cd pathname
○ Moves to the directory under pathname
○ Path can be absolute or relative
</ Paths
● Absolute path
○ Starts with /
○ Specifies the full location

● Relative path
○ Based on the current working directory
○ . current directory
○ .. parent of the current directory
● Home directory represented by ~
● Previously working directory represented by -
● Just type “cd” without anything else ⇒ Takes you to home directory
</ Which one to use?
● Use whichever is shorter!
● In scripts or programs, use absolute paths (recommended)
</ Linux File System
</ Helpful Commands
● cd : Change directory
● ls : List contents in directory
● mkdir : Make directory
● mv : Move or change name of something
● touch : Create files
● rm : Remove something
● cp : Copy something
</ Listing files and directories
● ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
○ Lists information about directory or file
○ -a Lists the hidden files as well
○ -l List in details
○ -R List subdirectories recursively
○ -S Sort by file size
○ -F Append / for dirs, * for executables, @ for symbolic links
</ Listing files and directories
● ls -la

File permissions Owner Group Size in Last Content

bytes modification
time
No. of hard links
</ Listing files and directories
● Everything is a file in Linux
● Directories are a special type of file
○ contains a list of filenames and their corresponding inode numbers
○ inode is a data structure that stores information about files such
as permissions, ownership, and file location on the disk.

● The size 4096 bytes is the smallest unit of space that the
filesystem can allocate
○ aka “Default Block Size”
</ Creating directories
● mkdir [OPTION]... DIRECTORY...
○ -p Create parent directories as needed, do nothing if it exists
○ -m Provide file mode like: rwxrw-r-- (more on this later!)
○ -v Verbose output
</ Creating files
● touch [OPTION]... FILE...
</ Moving and renaming
● mv [OPTIONS]... SRC... DEST
○ -i Prompt before overwriting
○ No “-r” option
</ Moving and renaming
● mv OLD NEW
○ if 'new' is a directory: 'old' is moved inside 'new'
○ if 'new' does not exist: 'old' is renamed to 'new'
○ if 'new' is a file, and 'old' is file: 'old' replaces 'new', and
the previous content of 'new' is lost forever!!
○ if 'new' is a file, and 'old' is directory: it's an error (cannot
overwrite a file with a directory)
</ Copying files and directories
● cp [OPTION]... SRC... DEST
○ -r Recursive copy
○ -i Interactive prompt
</ Removing
● rm [OPTION]... [FILE]...
○ No way to undo!
○ -f Never prompt (needed for write-protected files)
○ -i Always prompt
○ -r Remove recursively (needed for directory removal)
○ -v Verbose print

● Kill your system (DON’T!): sudo rm -rf /

● Use preventive measures (aliases)
</ Exercise
● Create 4 files named project_<your_id>.java,
project_<your_id>.js, project_<your_id>.html, and
project_<your_id>.css.
● Then, create a directory called web_project. Inside
web_project, create subdirectories named backend,
frontend, and styles. Move the .java file to backend, the
.js and .html files to frontend, and the .css file to
styles.
</ Exercise
● Create 4 files named old_report.docx, draft.docx,
old_photo.png, and snapshot.png. Create two directories named
documents and images.
○ Rename draft.docx to final_report.docx.
○ Move all .docx files to the documents directory.
○ Move all .png files to the images directory.
○ List the contents of both documents and images directories.
○ Now move all files beginning with old to a new directory named
archived
</ I/O Redirection
● Default input from keyboard, default output to screen
● I/O redirection allows us to change this
○ < get input from a file other than keyboard (stdin)
○ > output to a file other than the screen (stdout)
○ >> append output to a file
○ 2> Redirects stderr
○ &> Redirects both stderr and stdout
■ ls /nonexistent &> all_output.txt
■ ls /nonexistent > all_output.txt 2>&1
■ redirect stderr to wherever stdout is going
</ I/O Redirection
● cat nonexistent.txt 2> error.log
○ Here, the cat program attempts to open the given file. This will
redirect the error message if the given file does not exist
● cat < nonexistent.txt 2> error.log
○ The same does not apply here. This is because the shell itself
attempts to open the file, hence the error is generated by the
shell, not the cat program.
○ Workaround: { cat < nonexistent.txt; } 2> error.log
○ The command is placed inside a subshell {}. The error generated by
the shell is captured by 2>
</ Piping
● Pass the output of one command directly as input to another command
● command1 | command2 | command3 …
● ls /bin /usr/bin | sort | uniq | less
○ List all files in /bin and /usr/bin, sort them, remove duplicates,
then display using less pager
● sort path/to/file | uniq -c | sort -nr
○ Display number of occurrences of each line, sorted by the most
frequent
● Extremely powerful and versatile!
● Difference between >> and |?
○ >> Append output to files
○ | Chain commands
</ Piping
● Counting the frequency of words from a file:
● tr -c '[:alnum:]' '\n' < file.txt | tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' | sort |
uniq -c | sort -nr | head -10
● Explanation:
○ tr takes two arguments: PATTERN1 and PATTERN2, and it replaces PATTERN1
with PATTERN2
○ tr -c '[:alnum:]' '\n' this replaces all non-alphanumeric
characters (tabs, spaces, etc) with newlines
○ tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' converts all words to lowercase
○ The rest of the command sorts and displays the words by
frequencies
</ How to remember the options?
● CMD --help
● man CMD
● tldr CMD (more on this later)
● Copilot for bash (more on this later)
</ less Pager
● Shows a file's contents
one screen at a time
● Real-time monitoring:
less +F FILENAME
</ Viewing Files
● less
● head
● tail
○ Follow with -f or -F
● cat
● wc
</ Executing scripts
● In order to execute any script, we type ./script_name
● ./ is shorthand for "the current directory." When you type
./script_name, you are explicitly telling the shell to
look in the current directory and execute script_name from
there.
● Without the ./, the shell would only look for script_name
in the directories listed in the PATH variable.
● The script must have a special line called “shebang” or
“hashbang”
</ Executing scripts
● The shebang is a character sequence at the beginning of a
script file that indicates which interpreter should be used
to execute the script. It is typically written as #! followed
by the path to the interpreter.
● #!/usr/bin/python3
○ This shebang line tells the system to use /usr/bin/python3 to
interpret the script.
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</ Permissions
● Access rights to files and directories are defined in terms of
read access, write access, and execution access.
● Type `ls -la` in the terminal:
</ Permissions

drwxrwxrwx
r read
w write
user group other x execute

d Directory
l Symbolic link
s Socket
</ Users in Linux
● Root User: Always present. Highest privilege level
● Default User: Created during installation, usually one user with
administrative privileges.
● System Users: Non-human users that are used by various system
services and processes. Limited or no login capabilities and exist
primarily for the purpose of running background services or
daemons.
● cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd
 r read
</ Permissions w
x
write
execute

● -rw-r--r-- means it is a file which has read and write

permissions for the owner, read permission for group and read
permission for others.
● This means, only the owner of the file can read and write.
The rest can only read.
● However, sometimes you may need to write or execute something
that you don’t have permission for. What do you do in this
case?
 r read
</ Permissions w
x
write
execute

● You can change permissions using chmod

● Each permission segment can be set using bits by the owner
○ For example: chmod 755 FILE
Octal notation
○ 755 => 111 101 101 => rwx r-x r-x
● Or by symbolic notation drwxrwxrwx

user group other

 r read
</ Permissions w
x
write
execute

● You can also change owner or group for a file:

○ chown username <FILE>
○ chgrp groupname <FILE>

drwxrwxrwx

user group other

Q: Two files may have the same permission bits, but

still one needs sudo to write, and another does not.
Why?
 r read
</ Permissions for Directories w
x
write
execute

● If you have write permission for a directory, you can create

new entries (files/folders/etc).
● If you have read permission for a directory, you may list ls
the directories contents.
● If you have execute permission for a directory, you may
change chdir into that directory.

drwxrwxrwx

user group other

</ Permissions
● Switch users: su [user]
● The default user belongs to a special group called “sudo”
● Members of the sudo group are granted the ability to execute
commands with superuser (root) privileges by using the sudo
command.
● View all groups:getent group
○ groupname:passwd:groupID:user1,user2,user3...
</ Permissions
● Execute command as a superuser: sudo CMD
● Add new user: sudo adduser USERNAME
● Delete user: sudo userdel -r USERNAME

● sudo usermod -aG groupname username

○ -a: Appends the user to a group. Without this, the user
would be removed from all other groups not listed.
○ -G: Specifies the groups to which the user should be
added.
● sudo can be dangerous if used without caution!
</ Permissions
● How to write to a restricted file using sudo?
○ sudo echo “hello” > file⇒ This doesn’t work
■ Redirection (>) is not part of the command that sudo is
applied to
○ echo “Hello” | sudo tee file
■ tee reads from STDIN, writes to STDOUT or files provided
■ Since this is a program, not a STREAM, we need |, not >>
</ Aliases
</ Aliases
● Aliases are handy way to create notations for long commands
○ ll expands to ls -alF
○ alias alias_name='command'
● Aliases are temporary when set within the terminal
○ alias glnice=”git log --oneline --all --decorate --graph”
○ alias rm=”rm -i”
■ every rm command will be interactive, regardless of whether you use -rf
or not. This adds an extra layer of safety by preventing accidental
deletions.

● On Ubuntu versions 11.04 or later, you can add aliases to

~/.bash_aliases file to make them permanent.
</ Searching within files
</ Searching within files
● grep [options] pattern [file...]
○ pattern: The string or regular expression you want to search for.
○ file...: One or more files where you want to search for the
pattern. If no file is specified, grep searches in the standard
input (e.g., piped from another command).
● grep "hello" file.txt
● grep -i "hello" file.txt Case insensitive search
● history | grep “cd”
● grep "^start" file.txt Search for lines starting with “start”
● grep "end$" file.txt Search for lines ending with "end"
</ Searching within files
● Regex wildcards are allowed. (*.?^$)
● grep -r "TODO" . Search recursively in the current directory
● More options:
○ -n Display line numbers
○ -w Search for word, substring matches are ignored
○ -c Count number of matches
○ -v Invert match (Find lines that do not have the pattern)
● grep -n -C 2 "error" logfile.txt
○ Display the match with line numbers and 2 lines of context
● And many more!
</ Searching files and folders
● find [path] [expression]
○ [path]: Specifies the directory where the search begins. If
omitted, find starts in the current directory (.)
○ [expression]: Defines the criteria for finding files and
directories. This can include options like -name, -type, -size,
-mtime, and more.
</ Searching files and folders
● find /path/to/search -name "filename.txt"
○ searches for a file named filename.txt within /path/to/search and
its subdirectories.
○ Recursive by nature!
○ Limit recursion using -maxdepth NUM
● find /path/to/search -name "*.txt"
○ Searches for all files ending with .txt
</ Searching files and folders
● By default, the find command searches for both files and
directories matching the pattern
● Can specify types:
○ -type f Only regular files
○ -type d Only directories
○ find /path/to/search -type d -name "dirname"
● find is even more powerful than you can imagine!
</ Searching files and folders
● find /path/to/search -type f -name "*.txt" -size +1M
○ Finds .txt files larger than 1 MB.
● The -exec option in the find command allows you to execute a
command on each file or directory that find locates. This is
a powerful feature that enables you to automate tasks
directly on the files or directories that match your search
criteria.
</ Searching files and folders
● find /path/to/search -type f -name "*.log" -exec rm {} \;
○ Deletes all .log files but leaves directories and other
non-regular files untouched.
○ It uses {} as a placeholder for the matched files or directories
and requires \; to terminate the command.
● find /path/to/search -type f -exec tar -rvf backup.tar {} \;
○ Creates an archive or backup that includes only regular files and
excludes directories
● find /path/to/search -type f | wc -l
● Another useful tool is the fuzzy finder (fzf)
</ xargs (optional)
● xargs is a powerful tool that is used to build and execute
commands from standard input. It takes input from a pipe or file
and passes it as arguments to another command.
● find . -name "*.txt" | xargs rm
○ find . -name "*.txt" searches for all .txt files in the current
directory and its subdirectories.
○ The results (file paths) are passed to xargs, which constructs and
executes the rm command with those file paths as arguments.
● This is same as find . -name "*.txt" -exec rm {} \;
● The former can build commands in parallel, thus more efficient
</ Symbolic Links
● Symlinks are special type of file that contains a path to the
target file or directory.
● sudo ln -s /path/to/your/program /usr/local/bin/program_name
● Here, /usr/local/bin is in $PATH. This makes your program
system-wide available.
● exec bash Reloads the shell
● For interested readers:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/108771/what-is-the-difference-betw
een-a-hard-link-and-a-symbolic-link
</ Helpful Commands
● !! : Re-run last command
● sudo : Run with elevated privileges
● clear : Clear the terminal
○ <CTRL> + L Actually moves to the end of output

● whoami : Print username

● which CMD : Print path to command
</ Some more...
● htop Task manager
● df Display free disk space
● du Display directory size and its contents
● ps Display running processes
● kill Terminate a process by its PID
</ Installing Programs
● apt : Advanced Package Tool
● sudo apt update
○ Refreshes the list of available packages and their versions.

● sudo apt upgrade

○ Upgrades all the installed packages to newest version

● sudo apt install PKG

● sudo apt remove PKG
</ Installing Programs
● sudo apt autoremove
○ Removes unused dependencies
● sudo apt autoclean
○ Removes old packages that have been superseded by
newer versions
● Use with combination!
○ sudo apt autoremove && sudo apt autoclean
</ Installing Programs
● To install from standalone installers:
○ sudo dpkg -i your_file.deb
● Unzip .tar files
○ tar -xvf your_file.tar.gz
</ Too Long Didn’t Read?
● man CMD Open command manual
○ TOO VERBOSE!
● CMD --help
○ No examples!
● Your best friend: tldr
○ Install using pip or npm
○ Do not use apt. You may end up with an old version.
PRACTICE
● https://school.brainhackmtl.org/modules/introduction_to_te
rminal/
● https://cmdchallenge.com/
</ Useful tools
● fzf
● tldr
● Copilot for CLI:
https://docs.github.com/en/copilot/using-github-copilot/using-gith
ub-copilot-in-the-command-line
● tmux
● ngrok You can set-up your own ssh using ngrok
● wget, curl
● vim, nano, emacs
</ Supplementary Lectures and Tools
● https://missing.csail.mit.edu/
○ Recommended to watch at least the first 6 lectures (upto and
including Version Control)
● https://explainshell.com/
● vim tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggSyF1SVFr4
○ Or just type vimtutor in the terminal
● tmux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzNmUNvnB04
</ Easter eggs 🥚
● telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
● sudo insults: https://itsfoss.com/sudo-insult-linux/
● sl
● lolcat (Can be used as a pipe)
● figlet
● cmatrix
● moon-buggy
● nyancat
Thank You