UNIX

Introduction and
Basic commands
Kinjal Rathod

1.1 Listing files and directories

$ ls

The ls command (lowercase

L and lowercase S) lists the
contents of your current
working directory.

...
$ ls -a

Lists all files in the current

directory including those
whose names begin with a
dot (.) which are considered
as "hidden".

1.2 Making directories

$ mkdir dirname

This will create a new subdirectory in the current

directory.

1.3 Changing to a different directory

$ cd mydir

Changes the current working

directory to mydir directory.

You can also use full path of

the directory.
$ cd /local/usr/bin

1.4 The directories . and ..

$ cd .

In UNIX, (.) means the

current directory, so typing
this command means stay
where you are (the current
directory).

(..) means the parent of the

current directory, so typing
this command will take you
one directory up the
hierarchy.

1.5 Pathnames
Prints path of the current
directory (working directory).

$ pwd

1.6 Home directory

This is the symbol of your
home directory. Each user of
the Unix system has its own
username and own home
directory under /home.
For example these are home
dirs: /home/artem,
/home/john
~
Will list the contents of mydir
sub-directory of your home

Chapter 2
cp, mv, rm, rmdir, cat, less, head,
tail, grep, wc

2.1 Copying files

Copies myfile file from the
current directory to
/home/artem directory.

$ cp ./myfile /home/artem

Copies myfile file from the

current directory to
/home/artem directory,
renaming it to mf2.

...
$ ln -s /usr/local/ff/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
This command will make a symbolic link /usr/bin/firefox to the
file /usr/local/ff/firefox
Symbolic links have l symbol in the beginning of 'ls -l' output
string.
$ ln /usr/local/ff/firefox /usr/bin/firefox
This will make a hard link. The difference between a symbolic
link and a hard link is that a hard link to a file is
indistinguishable from the original directory entry; just consider
it as a file alias. Hard links may not normally refer to directories.

...
This experiment proves that a
hard link is just another name
for a file. Even after deleting
original file it still exists
because we haven't deleted
the hard link. Simply there is
really no such thing as "hard
link", we just create another
name for a file.
$ ln myfile hlink

2.2 Moving files

Moves myfile file from the
current directory to
/home/artem directory.

$ mv ./myfile /home/artem

Moves myfile file from the

current directory to
/home/artem directory,
renaming it to mf2.

2.3 Removing files and directories

$ rm myfile

Removes myfile file in the

current directory.

Removes /usr/local/mydir file.

$ rm /usr/local/myfile
Removes mydir sub-directory
in the current directory.
$ rm -R mydir

2.4 Displaying the contents of a file on

the screen
$ clear

Will clear screen.

$ cat myfile

Will display the content of a

file on the screen.

Will display the content of a

file page-by-page.
$ less myfile

2.5 Searching the contents of a file

$ less myfile

This will display the contents

of myfile page-be-page.

Then, still in less, type a

forward slash [/] followed by
the word to search. less finds
and highlights the keyword.

Type [n] to search for the

...
This will print each line of
myfile containing the word
Science (it is case-sensitive).

To search for a phrase or

pattern, you must enclose it
in single quotes.
$ grep Science myfile
Key -i will ignore upper/lower

...
Some of the other options of grep are:
-v display those lines that do NOT match
-n precede each matching line with the line number
-c print only the total count of matched lines

...
Will return the number of
words in myfile.

Will return the number of

lines in myfile.

$ wc -w myfile

Chapter 3
>, >>, <, |, sort, who

3.1 Redirection
Type cat without specifing a
file to read. Then type a few
words on the keyboard and
press the [Return] key.
Finally hold the [Ctrl] key
down and press [d] (written
as ^D for short) to end the
input.
$ cat
It reads the standard input
(the keyboard), and on

...
Type something, then press
[Ctrl-d] to end the input.

The output will be redirected

to myfile.
$ cat > myfile
If the file already contains
something, it will be
overwritten.

...
Type something, then press
[Ctrl-d] to end the input.

The output will be redirected

and appended to myfile.
$ cat >> myfile
If the file already contains
something, it will be
appended.

...
This will join (concatenate)
myfile1 and myfile2 into a
new file called file3.

$ cat myfile1 myfile2 > file3

What this is doing is reading

the contents of myfile1 and
myfile2 in turn, then
outputting the text to the file
file3.

3.3 Redirecting the input

$ sort

Enter this command. Then

type in the names of some
animals. Press [Return] after
each one.
dog
cat
bird
ape
[Ctrl-d]
The output will be:
ape
bird
cat

...
Input redirection is <

$ sort < file1 > file2

In this command we use both

input and output redirection.
The unsorted list will be taken
from file1 and already sorted
list will be redirected to file2.

3.4 Pipes
who command returns the
list of all users currently
logged in the system. This is
a method to get a sorted list
of names by using a
temporary file usernames.

$ who > usernames

$ sort < usernames

This way we can avoid

temporary file creation. Here
we connect the output of the
who command directly to the

...
And this is the way to find out
how many users are logged
in. We are using a pipe
between who and wc
commands.

$ who | wc -l

This displays the line of

myfile that contains 'science'
string. We are using pipe
between cat and grep
commands.

Chapter 4
*, ?, man, whatis, apropos

4.1 Wildcards
The character * is called a
wildcard, and will match
against none or more
character(s) in a file (or
directory) name.

This will list all files in the

current directory starting with
list...

...
The character ? will match
exactly one character.

So ?ouse will match files like

house and mouse, but not
grouse.

4.2 Unix filename conventions

Unix-legitimate filenames are any combination of these three
classes of characters:
1.Upper and lower case letters: A - Z and a - z (national
characters are also supported in Unicode and other
encodings)
2.Numbers 0 - 9
3.Periods, underscores, hyphens . _ Some other characters can be also supported, but they are not
recommended to use.

4.3 Getting help

This will display the manual
page for wc command.

Gives a one-line description

of the command, but omits
any information about options
etc.
$ man wc

...
If you are not sure about the
exact name of the command,
this will give you the list of
commands with keyword in
their manual page header.

$ apropos -s "1" copy

-s key defines section of Unix

manual:
1. General commands
2. System calls
3. Library functions
4. Special files

Chapter 5
ls -lag, chmod, command &, bg,
jobs, fg, kill, ps

5.1 File system access rights

permissions for the user that owns the

file (or directory) (artem in the above
example).
The middle group of 3 gives the
permissions for the group of people to
whom the file (or directory) belongs
(softserve in the above example);
The rightmost group of 3 gives the
permissions for all others.

Owner of the
file

File
permissions

-rw-rw-r-- 1 artem softserve

Size

Modification
date

83 Feb 3 1995 myfile

Number of
Group of
subdirectories (1
the owner
for a file)

$ ls -l
The symbol in the beginning of the string indicates whether this is a file, directory or a
link:
The'd'
leftindicates
group ofa3directory,
gives the'-'
fileindicates a file, 'l' indicates a symbolic link.

Filename

...
Access rights on files
r indicates read permission (or otherwise), that is, the presence or absence of
permission to read and copy the file
w indicates write permission (or otherwise), that is, the permission (or otherwise) to
change a file
x indicates execution permission (or otherwise), that is, the permission to execute a file,
where appropriate

Access rights on directories

r allows users to list files in the directory;

w means that users may delete files from the directory or move files into it;
x means the right to access files in the directory. This implies that you may read files in
the directory provided you have read permission on the individual files.

So, in order to read a file, you must have execute permission on the directory containing
that file, and hence on any directory containing that directory as a subdirectory, and so on,
up the tree.
Also file can be written if its permissions allow Write, but it can only be deleted if its
directory's permissions allow Write.

5.2 Changing access rights

Access classes:
u (user)
g (group)
o (other)
a (all: u, g and o)

Examples:
chmod a+r myfile
add permission for everyone to read a
file (or just: chmod +r myfile)

chmod go-rw myfile

remove read and write permission for
group and other users

Operators:
+ (add access)
- (remove access)
= (set exact access)

chmod a-w+x myfile

remove write permission and add
execute for all users

chmod go=r myfile

...
The other way to use the chmod command is the absolute form. In this
case, you specify a set of three numbers that together determine all
the access classes and types. Rather than being able to change only
particular attributes, you must specify the entire state of the file's
permissions.
The three numbers are specified in the order: user (or owner), group,
other. Each number is the sum of values that specify: read (4), write
(2), and execute (1) access, with 0 (zero) meaning no access. For
example, if you wanted to give yourself read, write, and execute
permissions on myfile; give users in your group read and execute
permissions; and give others only execute permission, the appropriate
number would be calculated as (4+2+1)(4+0+1)(0+0+1) for the three
digits 751. You would then enter
the751
command
as:
chmod
myfile

5.2.1 Changing owner of the file

$ sudo chown artem myfile

Change the owner of myfile

to artem.
We are using sudo before
chown to temporarily give
the current user
administrative permissions
(you will need to enter the
root user password).

Change the owner of

myfolder folder to artem

5.2.2 Changing file timestamps

$ touch -d "2005-02-03 14:
04:25" myfile

This command will set both

modification and access
date/time for the file or
directory.

Set only modification

date/time for the file or
directory.
$ touch -md "2005-02-03 14:
04:25" myfile

5.3 Processes and jobs

$ ps aux
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
...
This command lists all currently running processes in the system.Output columns (this is
Linux, output on other Unixes may slightly differ):
USER = user owning the process
PID = process ID of the process
%CPU = it is the CPU time used divided by the time the process has been running
%MEM = ratio of the processs resident memory size to the physical memory
VSZ = virtual memory usage of entire process (including swapped memory)
RSS = resident set size, the non-swapped physical memory that a task has used
TTY = controlling tty (terminal)
STAT = multi-character process state (running, sleeping, zombie, etc.)
START = starting time or date of the process
TIME = cumulative CPU time
COMMAND = command with all its arguments

...
This will allow listing long list
of processes page-by-page.

$ ps aux | more

This is the way to search for

a given process name or
process id in the list of
processes. Only the lines
containing the process name
or id will be displayed.

...
This will wait 5 seconds and
then return the command line
prompt.

$ sleep 5

This will run the sleep

command in background and
return the command line
prompt immediately, allowing
you do run other programs
while waiting for that one to
finish.

...
You can suspend the process
running in the foreground by
typing ^Z, i.e.hold down the
[Ctrl] key and type [z]. Then
to put it in the background,
type 'bg' and [Enter].

$ sleep 15

5.4 Listing suspended and background

processes
$ jobs

When a process is running,

backgrounded or stopped, it will be
entered onto a list along with a job
number.The output of this command
will be such as this:
[1] Stopped sleep 1000
[2] Running vim
[3] Running matlab

This will foreground the process

number 2.

5.5 Killing/signalling a process

$ sleep 5
[Ctrl+c]

[Ctrl+c] combination will kill

the foreground process.

$ kill pid

This will kill the process using

its process id (you can get it
from the output of ps
command).

This will forcibly kill the

...
This will stop (temporarily
suspend) the process.

This will stop (temporarily

suspend) the process.

$ sleep 15
[Ctrl+z]

This will resume the stopped

process.

Chapter 6
df, du, gzip, zcat, file, diff, find,
history

6.1 Other useful Unix commands

$ df -h

This will show the amount of

used/available space on all
mounted filesystems.

This will show the amount of

used/available space only on
the current filesystem.
$ df -h .
This will show the disk usage

...
This will compress myfile
using Gzip compressing tool.
The original file will be
deleted.

This will uncompress myfile.

$ gzip myfile
This will read gzipped files
without needing to

...
Classifies the named files in
the current directory
according to the type of data
they contain, for example
ASCII text, pictures,
compressed data, directory,
etc.
$ file *
Compares the contents of
two files and displays the
differences. Lines beginning

...
Searches for all files with the
extension .txt, starting at the
current directory (.) and
working through all subdirectories, then printing the
name of the file to the screen
(simple output).

$ find . -name "*.txt" -print

To find files over 1Mb in size,
and display the result as a
long listing (similar to ls

...
This will give an ordered list
of all the commands that you
have entered. Piping the
output to less command
allows both forward and
backward scrolling of the list
(more command only allows
forward scrolling).
$ history | less
This way you can change the
size of the history buffer (set

Chapter 7
export, printenv, unset, .bashrc,
source, ssh, mount, reboot,
shutdown, crontab

6.2 Environment variables

$ export MYVAR=myvalue

Adds a new environment

variable MYVAR with value
value myvalue (export
command works for
Debian/Ubuntu Linux).

Prints all environment

variables.

...
This way we can add new
directories in the end of
PATH environment variable
(all directories are divided by
: symbol).

$ export $PATH:/mydir

...
This way we can add
environment variables on
permanent basis. Just insert
export MYVAR=myvalue in
the end of file opened in VI.
This variable will be loaded
automatically at shell start.
$ vi ~/.bashrc
Force reload of environment
variables from ~/.bashrc file.

6.3 Remote shell

This way we can connect to
another Unix machine that
has OpenSSH server running
and port 22 opened. Upon
connect you will be asked to
enter a password for user.
host parameter can be a
hostname or IP address.
$ ssh user@host
You can leave the remote
shell by entering exit

6.4 Mounting filesystems

$ mkdir mydir
$ sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdc1 mydir
This way we can create a mount point and mount FAT32
filesystem to this mount point (only root user can do this).
$ umount mydir
And now we have unmounted the filesystem, the directory will
be empty.
Noticed /dev/sdc1 ? This is a device file for the filesystem. If it
exists, than the filesystem is physically present, but not
mounted until we execute the mount command.
Other fs types exist (-t option): ext3, ext4, reiserfs, ntfs, etc.

...
$ mkdir alpha
$ sudo mount -t smbfs //alpha.softservecom.com/install alpha
-o username=yourusername,password=yourpassword
This way we can mount remote SMB network filesystem,
providing credentials for authentication.
If you want the filesystem to be mounted automatically, then
you need to edit /etc/fstab file that has its own format (see the
man page for details).

6.5 Shutdown and Reboot

$ sudo reboot

Reboot the system

immediately.

Shutdown the system

immediately.
$ sudo shutdown -h now
Shutdown the system at 18:
45.

6.6 Scheduling
$ crontab -e
This command opens crontab file where you can schedule commands
execution. (use sudo if you need the command to be executed with
root permissions)
The format of a line is:
minute (0-59), hour (0-23, 0 = midnight), day (1-31), month (1-12),
weekday (0-6, 0 = Sunday), command
Example:
01 04 1 1 1 /usr/bin/somedirectory/somecommand
The above example will run /usr/bin/somedirectory/somecommand
at 4:01am on January 1st plus every Monday in January.

...
An asterisk (*) can be used so that every instance (every hour, every
weekday, every month, etc.) of a time period is used. Example:
01 04 * * * /usr/bin/somedirectory/somecommand
This command will run /usr/bin/somedirectory/somecommand
at 4:01am on every day of every month.
Comma-separated values can be used to run more than one instance
of a particular command within a time period. Dash-separated values
can be used to run a command continuously. Example:
01,31 04,05 1-15 1,6 * /usr/bin/somedirectory/somecommand
The above example will run /usr/bin/somedirectory/somecommand at
01 and 31 past the hours of 4:00am and 5:00am on the 1st
through the 15th of every January and June.

...
string

meaning

@reboot

Runonce,atstartup.

@yearly

Runonceayear,"0011*".

@annually (sameas@yearly)
@monthly

Runonceamonth,"001**".

@weekly

Runonceaweek,"00**0".

@daily

Runonceaday,"00***".

@midnight (sameas@daily)
@hourly

Runonceanhour,"0****".

Usage: "@reboot /path/to/executable" will execute

/path/to/executable when the system starts.