UNIX Systems

Spring 5783

ⒸNachum Danzig 2021

 What is UNIX?
Operating System for PDP-7

Developed at Bell Labs 1969 [ Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie ]

Intended as a development platform for

Rewritten in 1972 in the purpose created language C by Dennis Ritchie (Brian

Kernighan )

Linux: In 1991 Linus Torvalds ported UNIX to the PC, called it Linux

In this course the terms Unix and Linux will be used interchangeably

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 Why Learn UNIX?

It is a well organized Operation System

It is stable, scalable, and safe (True for most modern OS)

the proof is, it is still widely in use. Examples: linux, macOS, iOS, Android

If you understand what services UNIX provides, you will understand the services
of other powerful OSs

Open Source

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 What will we learn?
How to use a command line interface.

Concept of scripting and how to write scripts

File manipulation Tools [ grep, sort, find]

Regular expressions

C programming in Linux environment

Low level compiling

How to use the tools the operating system provides to the C programmer
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 How do I communicate with the UNIX system?
You can install Linux instead of Windows on a PC and the user experience will be
similar to Windows.

When remotely accessing a UNIX or Linux server we usually use a Command

Line Interface (CLI) it is also possible to use a Graphical User Interface (GUI)

What we type on the command line is executed by a program called the “shell”.

The shell is also an interpreter, so it can run a file containing a set of commands.

When the shell finishes to execute a command, it will print a prompt, like this “>”

If the command fails, the shell will print an error message.

ⒸNachum Danzig 2021
 How does the Shell find its commands?
When you type a command, the shell assumes you are specifying a program to
run.

The shell then searches through the executable programs on the system for one
with the name you specified and runs it.

It is also possible the command is something the shell itself is programmed to do

without having to run a separate program. This is a built-in command.

If the shell can’t find your command, it will print, “Command not found”. You
probably misspelled it!

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Example of how shell looks

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Does the shell search all folders for the command?
In Unix we call folders directories

Searching everywhere would be slow!

We define a PATH which lists which directories to look in for the command
(remember, the command is just a program name)

What if two different directories in the path have programs with the same name?
Which one will be executed?

First come, first serve. It depends on the order of directories in your PATH.

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 Commands can have parameters
Just like functions in C++, commands have parameters. They are separated by
whitespace.

Standard command format:

Command -flag … operand …

This means a command can have one or more operands and multiple flags.

A command will have a standard behavior on its operands, but that behavior can
be changed by specifying one or more flags

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 Examples of some commands
> ls myDirectory ls is the command name,
> ls -l myDirectory myDirectory is the parameter
> ls
the second line use the -l flag
> rm myFile
> cp myFile copyOfMyFile the third line has no
> cd myDirectory parameters, just the command
> cd rm is a different command
>cd ~ cp is a command that requires
two parameters
cd can be run without a
parameter or with one

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 The Unix Directory Structure
What “Windows” calls folders, in UNIX are called directories

Every directory can contain many subdirectories and files

The top level directory is called root, designated by a slash ”/” (not by a “c:”)

Everything in the File Structure is treated as a file even if in fact it is not. For
example, these are treated like files:
Directories
Links to other Files
Device (Special) Files
Named Pipes
Sockets
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Graphical Representation of Directory Structure

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 Navigating the file tree
Relative path specification: Start from whatever directory you are currently in and

specify the path based where you are. Use .. to go up or backward. Examples:
cd homework/unix
cd ../../html/danzig

Absolute path specification: Start from root and write all the path. Examples:

cd /usr/u/home/danzig

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You can specify the location of the command
Instead of letting the shell search the path for your command, you can tell the shell
exactly where the command you want to run is located.

Example

/usr/bin/ls -l
or even
/usr/bin/ls -l /usr/u/home/danzig

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Basic Commands
cp, rm, mv - copy, remove (delete) , move (rename or move file location)
rm -r * , rm -f to force deletion (be careful with these two commands)
ln - create a link to a file, default hard (copy), -s symbolic (virtual)

rmdir, mkdir - delete empty directory, make a new empty directory

ls - list files and directories : ls -l, ls -lt, ls -lrt , ls -lrt a*, ls -a (shows hidden
files: .bashrc)

touch - create a new blank file or update modified time of existing file

man - show manual pages (section 1) commands, (section 2) system calls,

(section 3) C library functions . There are 8 sections to the manual
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Man Page Sections
Section: Contents in BSD, Linux, macOS (System V is slightly different)

1 General commands
2 System calls
3 Library functions, covering in particular the C standard library
4 Special files (usually devices, those found in /dev) and drivers
5 File formats and conventions
6 Games and screensavers
7 Miscellanea
8 System administration commands and daemons

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help
help is a built in Bash feature which explains built in Bash functions

For example

“help cd” will explain what the function cd does. cd is a built-in shell command

But “help ls” will print “no help topics match `ls'” because ‘ls’ is a separate
command, not built in to Bash.

You can also write for example “help for”. This will give an explanation of the shell
“for” loop feature.

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Useful Commands for Viewing Files
cat - display a file’s content on the screen

more, less - display file contents in page sized increments

head, tail - display first or last part of file, use -n5 or just -5 to specify 5 lines

wc - word count - print the number of lines, words, and letters in a file
Flags : -c bytes, -w words, -l lines
sort - sort the lines by the alphabet flags: -r, -n

uniq - reports or filters out repeated lines in a file.

diff - show differences between two files

file - print type of file (binary, ascii etc.)

strings - print ascii strings contained in even a binary file ⒸNachum Danzig 2021
Some UNIX Utilities
apropos - find commands similar to or related to the given command
which
whereis
date
scp - copy a file to or from a remote system, scp file [email protected]:file2
ps ps aux
last - show listing of last logged in users
uname - print the name, version and other details about the machine and OS
-a print all information, for example kernel name and release
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number.