LINUX COMMANDS
Er. Lalit Matoliya
Team Co-Ordinator, CDAC-ACTS
cal: The Calendar
Syntax:
cal [ [month] year ]
Example:
$ cal
cal can be used without arguments, in which case it displays the
calendar of the current month.
To see calendar for month of march 2006, you need two
arguments
$ cal 03 2006
Date : Displaying the system date
You can display the current date with the date command, which
shows the date and time to the nearest second.
$ date
Wed Aug 31 16:22:40 IST 2005
The command can also be used with suitable format specifiers as
arguments. Each format is preceded by the + symbol, followed by
the % operator, and a single character describing the format.
$ date +%m
08
$ date +%h
Aug
$ date +%h %m
Aug 08
bc : The calculator
bc is used for arithmetic operation. It is applicable for integer and also for
floating point.
$ bc
12 + 5
17
[ctrl + d]- To quit bc.
To enable floating point computation, you have to set scale to the number of
digits of precision before you key in the expression:
scale=2
17/7
2.42
bc is quite useful in converting numbers from one base to another.
ibase=2
11001010
202
The reverse is also possible
obase=2
14
1110
passwd: Changing your password
$ passwd
passwd: Changing password for kumar
Enter login password: *******
New password: ********
Re-enter new password: ********
passwd (SYSTEM) : passwd successfully changed for kumar
password expects you to respond three times. First, it prompts for
the old password. Next, it checks whether you have entered a
valid password, and if you have, it then prompts for the new
password.
Finally, passwd asks you to reenter the new password. If
everything goes smoothly, the new password is registered by the
system.
who : Who are the users?
$ who
root console
Aug
07:51 (:0)
kumar
pts/10 Aug
07:56 (mercury.heavens.com)
sharma
pts/6
02:10 (pc125.heavens.com)
Aug
UNIX maintains an account of all users who are logged on to the
system. The who commands displays an informative listing of these
users:
The first column name shows the usernames, second column shows
the device name, third, fourth and fifth column shows date and time of
logging in. The last column name shows the machine name from where
the user logged in.
pwd : Checking your current
directory
You can move around from one directory to another, but at any
point of time, you are located in only one directory. This directory
is known as your current directory.
At any time, you should be able to know what your current
directory is. The pwd (print working directory) command tells you
that:
Example:
$ pwd
/home/kumar
$pwd
/home/kumar/lalit
cd : changing the current directory
You can move around in the file system by using the cd (change
directory) command.
Example:
$ pwd
/home/kumar
$cd progs
$pwd
/home/kumar/progs
mkdir : Making Directories
Directories are created with the mkdir(make directory) command.
$ mkdir lalit
$ mkdir kunal khushi kapil
(You can create three directories)
Sometimes, the system refuses to create a directory:
$ mkdir test
mkdir : Failed to make directory test; Permission denied
This can happen due to these reasons:
The directory test may already exist.
There may be an ordinary file by that name in the current directory
The permissions set for the current directory dont permit the
creation of files and directories by the user.
rmdir : Removing Directories
The rmdir (Remove Directory) command removes directories. You
simply have to do this to remove the directory lalit:
Example:
$ rmdir lalit
[Directory must be empty]
ls : Listing Directories contents
It is used to list all the file names and directory names in the current
directory.
$ ls
lalit kunal
kapil
kanchan
khushi kamal
ls options:
Output in Multiple Columns (-x)
$ ls -x
Identifying Directories and Executables (-F)
$ ls -Fx
Showing Hidden Files Also (-a)
$ ls -axF
Listing Directory Contents
$ ls x helpdir progs
Recursive Listing $ ls -xR
cat : Displaying and Creating Files
cat is one of the most well-known commands of the UNIX system.
It is mainly used to display the contents of a file on the terminal.
$ cat dept
01|accounts|6213
02|progs|5423
03|marketing|6521
04|personnel|2365
05|production|9876
06|sales|1006
cat, like several other UNIX commands, also accepts more than
one filename as arguments:
$ cat chap01 chap02
cat : To create a File
cat is also useful for creating a file. Enter the command cat,
followed by the > (the right chevron) character and the filename.
$ cat > lalit
The contents of the second file are shown immediately after
the first file without any header information.
press [ctrl+d]
$_
[Prompts Returns]
THANK
S
